VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg
John Follain
November 3, 2015
The scale of the challenge facing Pope Francis as he struggles to overhaul Vatican finances will be set out this week by the publication of confidential documents and clandestine recordings of his meetings.
Two books out in Italy and other countries on Thursday will highlight secrecy, mismanagement and huge wealth at the heart of the Catholic Church. On the eve of publication, the Vatican arrested a senior Church official and a public relations consultant in an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents. One book quotes an unauthorized recording of Pope Francis protesting to officials about Vatican finances.
“Without exaggerating, we can say that a good part of the costs are out of control,” Pope Francis said in the recording, according to the book Merchants in the Temple, by Gianluigi Nuzzi. The Vatican declined to comment on the books.
The Argentine Francis said he wanted “a poor Church for the poor” on his election in March 2013 and has stamped his humble style on the papacy, but as he pushed for more openness and transparency in Vatican financial and economic agencies he’s faced resistance from the Rome bureaucracy.
“The revelations are more embarrassing for the Church than for Pope Francis,” Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of the book Avarice, said in a phone interview. “There’s a great difference between the pope’s words, and his will to change things, and the Church which is still very rich and often works for itself rather than for others.”
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