The Vatican’s financial situation was not well understood for years by the committee that was supposed to oversee it. That was what the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, said at a function in Rome last week. Cardinal Pell recalled how he sat for several years on a 15-member committee of Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Vatican finances’
Pope Francis means business
Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
The wildly popular Pope Francis is more than a pontiff of the people. He’s an elite manager who’s reforming the Vatican’s troubled finances. The new pope wanted to talk about money. That was the message that went out to a group of seven prominent financiers—major Catholics all—from around the world in the summer of 2013. Read more
Vatican hires accounting firm to get books in order
Friday, November 22nd, 2013
The Vatican this week announced it had hired an international accounting firm to audit its finances. The Vatican said that EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young, will “verify and consult” on the economic activity of the Vatican City State administration, which controls the money-making Vatican Museums, post office and tax-free department store. A Reuters Read more
Rebuilding the Vatican Bank’s reputation
Tuesday, June 11th, 2013
The president of the “bank” of the Holy See, in this interview with Vatican Radio, opens his campaign to restore credibility to the controversial institution. With more integrity, more transparency, more communication Q: President Ernst von Freyberg, do you like your job, coming from Frankfurt down to Rome, working inside the Vatican? A: It is Read more
Taking its medicine does the Vatican some good
Tuesday, August 28th, 2012
“Be careful what you wish for,” as the saying goes, “because you will surely get it.” In light of a couple of recent Vatican stories, the corollary also seems to apply: Be careful what you try to avoid, because it might actually be good for you. A stringent European money laundering exam in July and Read more
A Vatican watershed on transparency, and a new tool for reformers
Tuesday, July 24th, 2012
For sure, I’m no Nostradamus. To cite just one example of my failures as a prognosticator, in 1999 I published a biography of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger containing four reasons why his election as pope was improbable. We’re now, of course, into the eighth year of his reign. A month ago, however, I finally got one Read more