Cardinal Pell: ‘the days of ripping off the Vatican are over’
December 05, 2014
The Catholic Herald has published the full text of an article by Cardinal George Pell on the reform of Vatican finances.
The publication of the article by the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy comes a day after excerpts were first posted online.
“When we return to the last years of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, we find that troubles had returned to the Vatican bank. The bank’s director, Dr Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was sacked by the lay board and a power struggle in the Vatican resulted in the regular leaking of information,” Cardinal Pell wrote. “The scandal exploded when Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, released thousands of pages of photocopied private Vatican documents to the press.”
“My first reaction was to ask how a butler could have enjoyed any access, much less regular access for years, to sensitive documents,” he continued. “Part of the answer is that he shared a large undivided office with the two papal secretaries. All of this was severely damaging to the reputation of the Holy See and a heavy cross for Pope Benedict.”
Cardinal Pell said that recent “reforms are designed to make all Vatican financial agencies boringly successful, so that they do not merit much press attention. Such ambitions cannot ensure that we will not find some static on the lines in the next year or so.”
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Further information:
- The days of ripping off the Vatican are over (Catholic Herald)
- Secretariat for the Economy discovers 'hundreds of millions' of off-budget transactions at Vatican (CWN, 12/3)
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