VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Business
Carol Matlack John Follain
More than two and a half years after Pope Francis took office determined to clean up corruption, the Vatican is still finding financial skeletons in its many closets.
Two new books chronicle widespread mismanagement in the Holy See, including auditors’ discovery of $1.5 billion stashed in hidden accounts and the use of alms for the poor to plug holes in the church budget. The Holy See had a €25.6 million ($27.2 million) deficit in 2014. One of the books, Merchants in the Temple, by Gianluigi Nuzzi, also includes a description of a 2013 tape recording of Francis telling senior clerics that spending was “out of control.”
Adding to the impression of disarray, the Vatican in November filed criminal charges against a Spanish monsignor and two other members of a financial reform team appointed by the pope. They’re accused of leaking information to the books’ authors, who also face trial in a Vatican court. All the accused have denied any wrongdoing. “The trial is a sign the Vatican is on the defensive, and a sign of weakness,” says Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of the second book, Avarice. The Holy See hasn’t disputed the authenticity of the material, but the pope has called the breach of secrecy “a grave illegal act.”
€25.6 million
The Holy See’s 2014 budget deficit
The scandal doesn’t appear to have slowed Francis’s reform push. In the latest move, he’s ordered a panel of leaders from the Vatican and the Vatican bank, aided by professional auditors, to determine the value of the church’s massive financial and real estate holdings—including St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. The group held its first meeting on Nov. 27. “You can’t plan if you don’t understand what your assets and obligations are,” says Danny Casey, right-hand man to Francis’s economic czar, Cardinal George Pell. “It’s not our money. The stakeholders are the 1.2 billion faithful and the many we serve,” says Casey, in an interview at the ornate Apostolic Palace, which includes part of the Vatican museums and the papal apartments. (Francis doesn’t live there, having opted instead to stay in a modest Vatican guesthouse.)
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