ROME
The Australian
JULY 15, 2016
Leo Shanahan
Reporter
Sydney
When business managers complain about having to reform “ancient” institutions, not many are speaking literally. But as chief adviser to Cardinal George Pell — the Vatican’s top financial official — for the past 2½ years, Danny Casey has faced challenges more than 2000 years in the making.
Casey, who leads the project management office in the Secretariat for the Economy, says Cardinal Pell’s decisions have to be based on business rather than religious grounds.
“One of the lines is that we need to be businesslike, recognising that we aren’t a business … that’s really the theme of what we have been asked to do at the Vatican,” Casey tells The Deal on a recent visit home.
“We’re not a business, we’re sovereign and quite different. But that’s no excuse for not being businesslike, that’s no excuse for not having benchmarks, for being sloppy, for having lazy assets on the balance sheet that could be put to greater work.”
Pell’s time in Rome has been dominated by the royal commission into child sex abuse and his decision to give evidence via video link rather than return to Australia. But despite his image as the archetypal conservative, within Vatican ranks Pell is considered a radical in his efforts to overhaul the church’s finances.
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