Read Merchants in the Temple Online
Authors: Gianluigi Nuzzi
Merchants in the Temple (25 page)
Pell: I think it will be made public maybe today or tomorrow. Seeing as the announcement has been made, like all of us I would say that it is already public ⦠But the Holy Father told me the official announcement will be published today or tomorrow in the
Osservatore
and then we'll move forward.
Parolin: Thank you. I think it will be tomorrow because it takes at least a day for all the procedures, but the Pope told me that he sent the Chirograph to the office today. It'll take a minimum amount of time to process it, to send it up to the Secretariat of State and prepare the press release, etc.â¦
Wisecrack by a cardinal: Better today ⦠otherwise Tornielli will tell all tonight [Andrea Tornielli is an Italian Vaticanologist who writes for the newspaper
La Stampa
].
Pell: Yes, it would definitely be better today. A press release has already been prepared, now we're in a new world, there's all the collaboration, but this press release has to be issued by the new dicastery â¦
Parolin: Fine, no problem. But I have to go out to make sure that everything is proceeding, because I imagine that it will be there waiting for me on my desk, perhaps, while you're presenting the budget. Let me go have a look ⦠seeing as there's ⦠this rush. I'm wondering if our meeting should continue â¦
Cardinals' voices: No ⦠No.
Parolin:⦠Or whether at this point we can consider our work concluded for now ⦠That is what I wanted to ask. If you have some thoughts â¦
Pell: Thank you, Eminence, I don't think there's much point in continuing now, but I think we have to define the policies for at least the next two or three months. I would suggest that some regulations remain valid for now and we hope there will be a meeting of this new council, consisting of cardinals, bishops and laypersons before the summer, in June or July. This council has to be established and the Holy Father is ready to do it as quickly as possible. It think it would be advisable for things to remain as they are until then. I am open to suggestions.
The cardinals were disoriented and becoming more and more confused. If the Pope suppressed the Council, what would happen to the bedeviled budgets which, now that they had been revised, needed to be approved urgently? There was a risk that everything would be paralyzed. On the one hand, the new dicastery had upset the arrangements of all the other entities. On the other, the Council called upon to approve the 2014 budget was expiring and thus had no power or prerogatives. The economic and financial life of the Holy See had to go on: construction work needed to be approved, suppliers established, consultancies reconsidered. The cardinals didn't know how to behave or even who was supposed to make the decisions.
The Clash Behind Closed Doors of Pell, Parolin, and the Cardinals of the Curia
The Council of 15 meeting was brought under control not by Parolin but by Pell, the ambitious bulldog from Sydney, who had arrived quietly in the Holy See in the spring of 2013 with the intention of playing an important role on Francis's team. He had a large personality and authority. He didn't trust anyone, tending instead to focus on every decision and responsibility himself. Today he was the leader of the assembly and for the moment, at least on paper, he was the new chief of Vatican finances, by the will of the successor of Peter.
Few would have bet on the brilliant career of this priest, who in his home country had survived accusations of covering up for pedophile priests, at least until April 2013, when Francis, indifferent to criticism of the man, appointed him as one of the eight cardinals to advise him on the direction of the Universal Church and the reform of the Roman Curia. Day after day, Pell prepared the change with the goal of taking command of the Curia. Hardly what you would call a
diminutio
! Everyone knows, also at the Vatican, that the person in charge is the one who holds the purse strings. Pell's stature had risen. He had achieved his goal.
At the meeting of the Council of 15, the Prefect of the newborn Secretariat for the Economy, fresh off his appointment, now had to face down cardinals whose concerns and distrust were growing by the minute because of the changes just announced. There was a tense power play between the Australian Cardinal, the old guardârepresented by the Head of the Prefecture, Versaldi, and the President of the Governorate, Bertelloâand the new Secretary of State, Parolin. The cardinals were hoping to approve the budgets and finally close the book on this chapter. But Pell did more than resist. In what might have looked like a slight skirmish, and using that soft tone of voice practiced by some members of the Curia, “the ranger”âas Bergoglio often described him, in appreciation of his tenacityâreprimanded Parolin with a rap across the knuckles:
Versaldi: We have to be careful about taking steps, even if formally necessary, that might produce not so much a
vacatio
as a form of lawlessness ⦠Each of us has to know if he still has the authority, the autonomy ⦠For example, does the Prefecture still have autonomy to audit accounts? In the meantime ⦠shall we continue?
Parolin: We have to see what the Chirograph says in this regard, we don't know, so it is impossible to answer this question, but it seems logical to me that, until the new body starts its operations, things should continue as they do now. I deduce this based on the principles of logic â¦
Pell: The Chirograph will say that the world has changed. We obviously have to move forward through dialogue, gradually. There have been many discussions that have to continue, no one wants to do all this as some kind of revolution. But it would be a mistake to think we could go on exactly as before: the world has changed. The life of the Holy See must go on, and we are obviously seeking your collaboration, without which it is impossible to achieve the good of the Church. And this is what we all want, the good of the Church.
Parolin: There was Cardinal Cipriani, who wanted â¦
Background voice: But I wanted to ask you something ⦠Free me from Calcagno, I would gladly go back to being a professor, as long as you don't [kill] me, too â¦
Cipriani: The only doubt is whether our only reason for doing so is to avoid blocking this budget ⦠if there is some way that Cardinal Pell thinks we could approve it for two or three months or something of that kind, why isn't anything approved now? We have to go forward today. Otherwise what are they going to do tomorrow? I don't know â¦
Pell: It seems to me, Eminence, that one thing must be clear: an approval
ad interim
for three months would be not only useful but necessary, because life must go on â¦
Versaldi: I would propose we have a look at this separate sheet of paper that was given to us, which is the revision of the unapproved budget, and compare it to the letter that the Secretariat of State sent with the Pope's criteria for reducing personnel costs. If we could, on Cipriani's suggestion, render an opinion of possible approval so as to say that the unapproved budget, which provided for a 25 million euros deficit, has been revised down to 10 million, and therefore reduced by 15, it could be provisionally supported, with the criteria of the Secretariat of State.
Pell:⦠For the moment I think there's little, almost nothing we should change so that we can make sure of where we are. We don't want big revolutions in the next three months â¦
Calcagno: Thank you. First I'd like to assure His Eminence that our collaboration will be as full as it was with the visits of Promontory and COSEA in past months. Having said this, I think that if the budget for the ordinary activities of the Holy See is approved today, it should be valid not only because APSA continues to exist or not exist, but for the very fact that the Holy See has to be able to go forward. There the new structure that you will head will certainly have to make its maneuvers, its proposals â¦
Ironic remark by a cardinal:⦠Maneuvers â¦
Calcagno:⦠variations. But as a fundamental basis in my opinion the budget should be indicated as valid in the framework of the current year, because the year has already begun!
Pell:⦠We are not in a position today to approve something for a year. Something
ad interim
, okay â¦
Vallini:⦠The new dicastery will have time to equip itself with the tools that we here today are at least familiar with ⦠unless Cardinal Pell can tell me that all this work has already been done and that in the Holy Father's Chirograph
motu proprio
a statute is coming out that regulates the competencies of the new body that we have only just learned about this morning.
Meisner: Distinguished brothers, first of all my best wishes to Cardinal Pell, who has been seated with us for many years. We have worked hard together and I am happy that we have found a new solution. The road from Sydney to Rome should not be a way of the cross but rather a Triumphal March. My simple question is: we have been given a newly revised budget. And I want to ask: our work todayâand tomorrowâis not to discuss the new dicastery but rather to discuss these budgets, and then to draw the consequences â¦
Pell then quoted the
motu proprio
, whose title included a phrase from the Gospel according to Luke,
Fidelis dispensator et prudens
âthe faithful and prudent administrator:
The responsibility of the economic and financial sectors of the Holy See is intimately linked to its own particular mission, not only in its service to the Holy Father in the exercise of his universal ministry but also with respect to how they correspond to the common good in light of integral human development.
The Secretariat of the new dicastery would handle financial planning, and from now on would be preparing the budget. It would be in charge of economic management and vigilance over the agencies of the Holy See and Vatican City. These were competencies that had previously been assigned to the Secretariat of State, which from now on would deal only with diplomatic relations. The Secretariat of State and the Secretariat for the Economy were placed on the same level: both would answer directly to the Holy Father, but Parolin and Pell would have to work together. But the two men would never get along, and there would be no follow up to the Pope's motion to expand the Council of Eight Cardinals, on which Pell served, to include Parolin.
The establishment of the Secretariat for the Economy sent shock waves that would be felt not only in the Secretariat of State but also in the economic dicasteries. Through the creation of an auditor general with control over all the accounts, the Prefecture had been effectively voided. From July 2014 on, APSA would be split in two, losing jurisdiction over the ordinary section, where Pell would take over. It would thus exercise the functions only of a central bank, losing its power over the immense real estate holdings in houses, offices, and palaces. But this proposal did not get off the ground, either.
As for the IOR and its scandals, Francis preferred not to get involved for the moment. It remained outside the perimeter of the Secretariat for the Economy, which did not have full control over internal accounts. Father Lombardi would explain, feigning serenity, at a press conference, that the IOR would thus “not be touched by this reorganization, which has a much broader horizon, but it will continue to be an object of study and reflection.”
Approval of the Budgets
The meeting was nearing its end, but someone had to break the stalemate over the unapproved budgets. The most realistic proposal came from Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Archbishop of Milan:
Scola: Here we cannot give approval for one year or two months or three months. When the new reality is able to redo the budget it will redo it and submit it: this is my opinion. Let me add that unfortunately I will not be present from tomorrow afternoon on because Milan is not a small diocese, and I have been away for eight days â¦
Parolin: I don't think anyone will be here, Eminence, rest assured.
Scola: Well then, I commend the efforts that have led to a saving of 9,612,000 euros and I don't want to hold up the discussion. I approve the modified budget that was prepared for the Holy See.
Tong: I, too, congratulate my classmate George Pell. I only wish to propose that the new structure pay attention to two things: the first is to try to gradually establish a series of standards for the staff and ⦠a pay scale ⦠You can't expect everyone to work for free â¦
Pell:⦠In order for the people in the congregations to learn how to do a budget, there might be arrangements to send some of them to Paris, Oxford and Madrid for short-term or long-term courses on administration and economics. We will do many things in terms of efficiency and savings but we will not enter into religious or spiritual matters. As the Pope said, we are simple bankers.
Parolin: The Cardinal has inspired others to speak. Cardinal Scherer â¦
Scherer: Now I understand more clearly that we as a council have nothing to say because our work is over. As for the budget and whether or not to approve it, we've waited this long, we can wait another two months if necessary ⦠But I wanted to make an observation. I think it would be very useful to set down some rules, some general principles that apply when you are drawing up a budget, otherwise everyone will do their budget as they please â¦
Pell: We will sit down with a congregation and we will say: this year you have such and such amount of money and you can only have this many workers, but then inside this congregation the responsibility for the decisions will be yours ⦠And if you spend more, much more, the next year we will cut your budget and you'll have to find the money in your reserves. In many, many places the reserves are adequate, thank God ⦠Thank God, because there are many challenges for the Holy See. But here and there, there is a lot more money than we ever knew about and that has never appeared in the balance sheets. And we thank God for these buried treasures.
Parolin: Good, we can consider our meeting adjourned ⦠We'll carry on with the revised budgets until the new structure has produced a new budget.