VATICAN CITY
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor November 5, 2015
In the wake of two new books in Italy detailing charges of Vatican overspending and corruption, the pope’s top financial official has dismissed claims of lavish outlays in his own department, insisting that a half-million euro spent in the first six months were related to legitimate start-up costs.
A statement issued on behalf of Australian Cardinal George Pell, appointed by Pope Francis to run the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy in February 2014, claimed on Thursday that Pell’s department actually is one of the few in the Vatican that proposed spending less money in 2015 than in 2014.
“The recently released books appear to have included false and misleading claims about the management of expenditure by Cardinal Pell and the expenditure incurred by the Secretariat in 2014,” said a statement released by Pell’s office.
“For the avoidance of doubt about the commitment of Cardinal Pell to cost management and control,” the statement said, “the secretariat completed the year well below its 2014 budget and was one of the very few entities to propose a reduction in total expenditure in 2015.”
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