Vatican reforms are stalled. The question is: why?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 12, 2018

“Unfortunately, more than four years into his pontificate, Francis has failed to advance the cause of reform.” That sentence, written several months ago, is from my chapter, “Stalled Reforms,” in Lost Shepherd. Now that we’re at the five-year mark, my analysis looks better than ever. Vatican financial reforms? One insider says they’re “dead, over, finished, they’ve been blocked.” (And today brings word of some new shenanigans in complicated financial affairs of the Knights of Malta, now effectively under Vatican control.) Sex-abuse reforms? The questions have not only persisted; they’ve grown sharper. Accountability? Transparency? Those goals are further away now than they were five years ago. In Lost Shepherd I didn’t just report the problems—which are all too well known already—but also explained why they’re not likely to go away.