Australia and the World Past and Present

When Pope Francis was elected Pope in 2013, one of his desires was to reform the financial wing of the Vatican – the Vatican Bank.

Francis already had some form in this area.

As a senior Catholic in his home country of Argentina, he had moved the Church’s finances into regular financial institutions.

However, reform of the Vatican Bank would be a more difficult proposition. He would need help. He decided to set up an advisory committee loaded with cardinals with a disposition for changing the opaque institution. One of those cardinals was the Australian, George Pell.

Francis must have believed that Pell had the desire and capability to effect change at the Bank. Pell worked on reform as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican.

Years later, an memo written under the pseudonym ‘Demos’ was made public by Italian journalist Sandro Magister, who claimed that it was authored by Pell.

The letter said that Francis’ papacy was a “disaster” and “catastrophe”.

It was very critical of direction of the Church under Francis. It says, “there have been grave failures to support human rights in Venezuela, Hong Kong, mainland China, and now the Russian invasion.”

How should a Pope respond to conflicts around the world? Pope Francis was no supporter of war nor did he approve of human rights abuses. A pope can make general statements about the horror of war or they can mention specific conflicts around the globe. I suppose that once a pope starts highlighting specific conflicts, some will criticise him if he doesn’t mention others.

The memo continues, “The Vatican’s political prestige is now at a low ebb”. A devil’s advocate might question whether the Vatican should be looking for ‘political prestige’ in the first place. Conversely, some might say that it is naive to think that people don’t look to the Pope for leadership.

The author also suggested that there had been some “eccentric nominations” of cardinals. Much has been said about Francis’ visit to Mongolia. The country has less than 1500 Catholics but the country now has its own cardinal. While some within the clergy no doubt scratched their head at appointments like this, it was part of Francis’ globalisation of the clergy.

Evidently Pope Francis believed that Pell would be was a good choice to tackle the Vatican’s finances. Outwardly, they seemed to have a good relationship in the early days of the papacy. It seems that Pell’s more conservative disposition led him to view Francis’ leadership as going further and further off course.