With latest shakeup, has the music stopped on Vatican financial reform?
ROME – Popes, like leaders of any sort, generally come into office with a few clear ideas about what they’d like to accomplish. How to get it done, however, often is something they have to figure out...
View ArticleCardinal Parolin says church divisions stem from misunderstanding ‘reform’
ROME — Three days after the preacher of the papal household called on Catholics to repent for the ways they are dividing the church, the Vatican secretary of state said the divisions are real and they...
View ArticleShabby exit of anti-abuse reformer captures Vatican’s HR pandemic
ROME – I’ve got a small story to tell here, one of no great import or particular news value. Yet big pictures are woven from small details, and, in this case, it’s not a pretty picture to behold. The...
View ArticleIf this is Vatican reform, some are wondering what’s really changed
ROME – Let us recall that Pope Francis was elected in mid-March 2013, which means that his reform of the Vatican is by now more than eight years in the making – almost 51 months, to be exact. Let us...
View ArticleVatican’s former finance guru resigns from post at Swiss bank
ROME – Just weeks after being indicted by the Vatican on charges of abuse of office over a shady London real estate deal, Swiss lawyer René Brülhart has resigned from his post on the board of a Swiss...
View ArticleYes, honest to God, Vatican finance stories matter
ROME – It’s only Tuesday, but I’ve already got a candidate for the Vatican soundbite of the week. It came in a piece in the Financial Times, quoting an unidentified expert on the London real estate...
View ArticlePope’s Italian crackdown suggests he’s more irked by sloth than ideology
ROME – Early on Pope Francis may have played down most of the traditional epithets of his office, such as “Primate of Italy,” by instructing the Vatican to print them on a separate page of its annual...
View ArticlePope writes his vision for the Church into new constitution for Roman Curia
ROME – Hailed in early news reports for its opening of top Vatican leadership roles to any baptized lay person, including women, the pope’s new document outlining the design and function of the Roman...
View ArticleComing to praise Italian predominance in the Vatican, not to bury it
ROME – Recently a learned Jesuit historian took to the editorial page of the Irish Times to insist on the de-Italianization of the Vatican, beginning with making English rather than Italian the...
View ArticleFuneral for Cardinal George Pell set for Saturday in Rome
ROME – A funeral Mass for the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, who died suddenly on Tuesday after suffering complications following a routine surgery, will be celebrated Saturday in St. Peter’s...
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