VATICAN CITY
Reuters
October 8, 2020
By Philip Pullella
Pope Francis sought to assure external inspectors of the Vatican’s financial operations on Thursday that he was pushing ahead with reforms, as the Holy See reeled from a scandal in which he fired a powerful cardinal.
In an address to Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s financial monitoring arm, Francis listed recent actions he had taken to make Vatican finances more transparent.
He appeared to refer to the Vatican’s latest financial scandals when he quoted the gospel story of Jesus driving the merchants from the temple and telling them “You cannot serve both God and money”.
Last month, the pope fired Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, accusing him of embezzlement and nepotism. Becciu has denied all wrongdoing.
Moneyval is making one of its periodic inspections to check the Vatican is complying with international norms to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism.
“The measures that you are evaluating are meant to promote a ‘clean finance’, in which the ‘merchants’ are prevented from speculating in that sacred ‘temple’,” Francis said.
Italian media have this week run interviews with a woman who says she received 500,000 euros from Becciu to run a “parallel diplomacy” to help missionaries in conflict areas.
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