VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)
by Ed Condon
posted Thursday, 21 Apr 2016
The blocking of the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit puts the Pope’s legacy as a reformer in peril
Yesterday, it was reported that the Vatican had suspended the independent audit of its finances by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The company had been engaged only on December 5 of last year, and for the process to be halted this quickly, even temporarily, seems like a remarkable setback for Pope Francis’s crusade to haul the administration of the Curia, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
As he broke the news, the always well informed journalist Ed Pentin linked the story to an article in yesterday’s Italia Oggi newspaper, which claimed that manoeuvres were underway to replace Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, a Frenchman and the current president of the IOR, or Vatican Bank, whose term was not expected to come to an end in the immediate future. According to the article, the move to replace De Franssu was also a proxy move against Cardinal Pell, the prefect for the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, who has been the major, if not sole, agent of real reform in the Vatican finances, and who has been the constant target of a campaign of leaks and gossip since taking office in 2014.
It has been suggested that curial officials are desperate to see Cardinal Pell removed and both the presidency of the IOR and the job of auditing the curial finances return to Italian hands, before the new rigours of full transparency get past the point of no return.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of yesterday’s news was the manner in which the suspension of the PwC audit was announced: by means of a letter circulated to all curial departments from the Secretariat of State and signed by Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, who oversees the day-to-day running of the Roman Curia from that department.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.