ROME (AP) – Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican’s Secretariat of State of his financial assets and real estate after screwing up hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments that are now the subject of a corruption investigation.
Francis signed a new law this weekend ordering the secretariat of state to complete the transfer of all his assets to another Vatican on Feb. 4. The law also requires all donations to the Pope – including the Peter’s Pence collections of the faithful as other donations administered by the Secretariat of State – to be held and managed by the Vatican Treasury as separate funds accounted for in the consolidated budget. of the Holy See.
The changes are in response to a spiraling Vatican criminal investigation into years of allegations of mismanagement of donations and investments by the Vatican Secretariat of State, which has resulted in losses of tens of millions of euros at a time of financial crisis for the Holy See.
Francis had already ordered the transfers in August and followed a committee in November to implement the changes. The new law makes the changes permanent and sets a fixed date for their implementation.
Francis said he made the changes to improve governance, control and vigilance over the assets of the Holy See and to ensure more “transparent and efficient management.”
Francis went against his own secretariat of state during an 18-month investigation by the Vatican prosecutors into the office’s investment of 350 million euros in a luxury residential building in London’s Chelsea and other speculative funds.
Prosecutors have accused several department officials of abusing their authority for their involvement in the deal, as well as several Italian middlemen allegedly robbing the Vatican of tens of millions of euros in fees.
The scandal has exposed the incompetence of the Vatican’s monsignors in money management as they signed off voting shares in the deal and agreed to pay exorbitant fees to Italians known in business circles for their shady transactions.
Francis’s decision has been an embarrassing blow to the Secretariat of State as the most powerful office of the Holy See, reducing it to essentially every other department that has to propose a budget and have it approved and checked by others.
The result is essentially what was sought years ago by Cardinal George Pell, Francis’ prime minister of economics who clashed with the secretariat of state over its financial reforms and attempts to gain control of the department’s off-the-books funds. take away.
Pell had to give up those reform efforts in 2017 to face trial for sexual abuse in his native Australia, but he was acquitted and recently told The Associated Press that he felt justified that the wrongdoing he was trying to expose was brought to light.
The Holy See is facing a major money crisis as its main source of revenue, ticket sales for the Vatican Museums, evaporated this year due to the coronavirus closures. The Holy See last year reduced its budget deficit from € 75 million to € 11 million.