◼ ECONOMICS
33THEBOTTOMLINE PopeFrancisis ona missiontooverhaul
Vaticanfinances,butscandalsthathaveeruptedunderhiswatch
raisedoubtsabouthowmuchprogresshasbeenmade.development department. Zampini worked at
Argentina’s central bank and the law firm Baker &
McKenzie before becoming a priest and now rep-
resents the Vatican at forums such as Davos. “The
Vatican’s financial assets are small, but they have
great symbolic power,” he says.
Thatpowerhasfrequentlybeendimmedbyscan-
dal.Thelatestinvolvesa questionable 2014 invest-
mentbytheVatican’sSecretariatofState—equivalent
to the prime minister’s office—in a former Harrods
warehouse in London’s affluent Chelsea neighbor-
hood that was slated to become luxury apartments.
Francis has dismissed five Vatican employees over
the deal, which went south, and an investigation has
been launched to determine whether the bureau-
crats were scammed or if they themselves profited.
“A thief can enter my home because he was ‘skilled’
in deactivating the alarm system, or because some-
one gave him the key or opened the door for him
from the inside,” said Archbishop Nunzio Galantino,
who heads the Administration of the Patrimony of
the Holy See, in an interview with the Catholic news-
paper Avvenire. He estimated the Vatican’s losses in
the deal at £66 million ($88 million) to £150 million.
To diminish the scope for bad behavior, the
pontiff has been pressing the church’s money-
men to open their accounts to public scrutiny. A
few have complied. Pledging that “the faithful have
the right to know how we use resources,” Father
Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, the Vatican’s econ-
omy minister, published the Curia’s consolidated
budget for 2019 on Oct. 1—the first since 2016. The
report showed a shortfall of €11 million ($13 million),
compared with one of €75 million the prior year.
Yet the task of assessing the health of the church’s
finances isn’t helped by their being split into four
separate budgets—the Curia, the Vatican city-state,
Catholic foundations, and hospitals and charities—
or by the fact that surpluses in one area are used to
plug deficits in others.
“Some people—inside and outside the church—
used to be skeptical about the pope’s reforms, but
now they realize that he is serious about them,” says
Sister Alessandra Smerilli, a professor at Rome’s
Pontifical Auxilium faculty who briefs the pope on
global economic issues. “Francis wants a system that
ensures no one is alone to take decisions, because
that can lead to mistakes.”
To that end, the pope ordered the Secretariat
of State be stripped of its funds in the wake of the
London scandal. Under his instructions, spelled
out in a letter to Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro
Parolin dated Aug. 25, the assets—which are worth
€350 million, according to a senior official—will be
managed by Galantino’s department.
Then, in September, Francis forced the
resignation of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu,
a close aide and former No. 2 at the Secretariat
of State, over allegations he had channeled some
€100,000 in Holy See funds to his brother’s charity.
Becciu denied any wrongdoing, telling reporters he
had the power to use its funds to support charities.
That remark exasperated Francis, whose
attempts at reform have been obstructed by senior
or middle-ranking members of the administration
who have become accustomed to operating in their
own fiefs and have felt untouchable, say the pon-
tiff ’s advisers. On the evening of Nov. 4, Francis
hosted a meeting with department heads including
Parolin, Galantino, and Guerrero at which he con-
vened a task force “to start work immediately” to
execute the orders he had set out in his August let-
ter within “the next three months,” according to a
Vatican statement.
If the pope is willing to publicize his battles
to get recalcitrant administrators to toe the line,
it’s because he believes the world’s 1.3 billion
Catholics, whose donations are the church’s life-
blood, want to be reassured that their hard-earned
money is not being pilfered or wasted. “That’s a
risk because publicity about scandals may create
disaffection, but he doesn’t want to hide anything,”
says Smerilli.
If, as the saying goes, sunshine is really the best
disinfectant, the latest controversies may be evi-
dence that Francis’ reforms are starting to bear
fruit. Or perhaps it’s the opposite. Moneyval, the
European Union’s anti-money-laundering body,
has been scrutinizing money matters in the city-
state and is expected to issue a report sometime
in the spring that should provide an independent
reality check.
Meanwhile, in his meetings with his inner cir-
cle, Francis continues to rally the troops. “Have
patience,” he tells his entourage. “Step by step.
To change things, you need to bring people in.”
�John Follain, with Alessandro Speciale▲ The pope met
with delegates from
Moneyval in October