VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his first public comments on the latest scandal rocking the Vatican, Pope Francis told followers in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that the theft of documents describing financial malfeasance inside the Holy See was a “crime” but pledged to continue reforms of its administration.
The pope said that publishing the documents in two books released last week “was a deplorable act that doesn’t help.” The books, “Merchants in the Temple” by Gianluigi Nuzzi and “Avarice” by Emiliano Fittipaldi, detail mismanagement and alleged greed in the Vatican, and are seen as part of a bitter internal struggle between reformers and the old guard.
“This sad fact will certainly not divert me from the reform work that we are pursuing with my collaborators and with the support of all of you,” the pope said to cheers from the crowd.
Among the disclosures in “Merchants in the Temple,” Nuzzi writes that the cost of sainthood can run up to half a million dollars and tells the tale of a monsignor who allegedly broke down the wall of his neighbor, an ailing priest, to expand his apartment.
Fittipaldi, meanwhile, claimed that a children’s hospital foundation had paid 200,000 euros ($215,000) toward the renovation of the apartment of the Vatican’s No. 2 at the time, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and that nearly 400,000 euros donated by parishioners worldwide to help the poor was funneled to pay for Vatican administration.
The pope underlined that the leaked documents were the result of the reform course that he began and that measures had already been taken to address problems, “with some visible results.”
Pope Francis has made it a top priority to reform the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia, a hive of intrigue and gossip. He appointed a commission of eight experts in 2013 to gather information and make recommendations after an earlier expose helped drive his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to a historic resignation. Two former members of that commission have been arrested as part of an investigation into the stolen documents.
Last week the Vatican described the books as “fruit of a grave betrayal of the trust given by the pope, and, as far as the authors go, of an operation to take advantage of a gravely illicit act of handing over confidential documentation.” It added that the publication did not help “in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather generate confusion and partial and tendentious conclusions.”
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According to Madoff and UncaBen…Pyramids are not only good for storing ‘grain’.
The Vatican is apparently a bloated wasteful bureaucracy like any regular corporation or government. They’ve long forgotten their mission and have succumbed to earthly pleasures and desires.
Good luck getting rid of greed and the sense of entitlement. That absolute power thing is always right.
Pope Francis is a rare bird that truly cares and doesn’t succumb to the temptations that are all around him, as far as we know anyhow.
This Pope can literally change the world, which is a big task in any situation but making changes through his particular organization is an even bigger uphill climb.
Again, good luck and may your God be with you.
My guess is that there is zero chance that any Pope, even a well-intentioned one, can effect permanent change in a bureaucratic system that can’t even expel or punish the pedophiles in its midst. The entire organization is a self-sustaining hierarchy that exists to extract tax-free contributions from its membership. There is no financial accountability, nor will there ever be any.
This Pope will eventually pass on, and the system will remain, as long as the gullible exist to enrich it.
Let’s see, the people who contribute the money have no right to see where it goes. Unfortunately, this Pope like all the others thinks the Church is not accountable for the money it takes in. If he fails to acknowledge this there is no hope for reform.