Panel to Study Vatican’s Finances and Transparency

By Rachel Donadio
New York Times
July 19, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/world/europe/panel-to-study-vaticans-finances-and-transparency.html?_r=1&

As he forges ahead with reforming the Vatican’s troubled bureaucracy, Pope Francis has established a committee of international experts to help improve its finances and transparency, the Vatican said Friday. The committee of seven lay experts and one cleric will answer directly to the pope and a panel of cardinals he appointed to help coordinate reforms. The new committee will help carry out “the simplification and rationalization” of the Vatican’s departments, the Vatican said.

Francis was elected in March after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, whose eight-year papacy was rocked by scandal. The Vatican said that the new committee would also work “to avoid the misuse of economic resources, to improve transparency in the processes of purchasing goods and services, to refine the administration of goods and real estate; to work with ever greater prudence in the financial sphere; to ensure correct application of accounting principles and to guarantee health care and social security benefits to all those eligible.” It will hold its first meeting after Francis returns from a trip to Brazil this month.