Vatican Finance . the Leadfoot and the Slowpokes

By Sandro Magister
The Chiesa
July 24, 2015

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351100?eng=y


- “It is like comparing the pontifical Swiss guard with the armed forces of a great power,” secretary of state Pietro Parolin said a few weeks ago with regard to the IOR, the Institute for Works of Religion, the mythical Vatican quasi-bank.

The 4.2 billion euro on its books - he patiently explained - is barely a thousandth of the assets of all the Italian banks, and also well below the cutoff of 9 billion beneath which the Banca d'Italia classifies a bank as “small”…

But as tiny as it may be, the IOR is a big deal for Pope Francis. He wants it to be an example of virtue for all the agencies of the Church. Clean, thrifty, almost penitential.

Last May the current board of the IOR, headed by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, wanted to engage a Luxembourg-based SICAV, or open-ended investment fund, to make use of the money at its disposal. Among the cardinals on the supervisory board, which also includes Parolin, someone raised objections and the decision ended up going to the desk of the pope. Who rejected it. Because Francis doesn’t like the idea of an “investment bank” with the Church in the middle.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio still has fresh in his memory the disasters of certain dioceses in his Argentina, which required him to send none other than the IOR to the rescue. And he instinctively distrusts the financial adventures of many religious orders, even the most nobly motivated.

The latest is in Brazil, where the missionary oblates of Mary Immaculate have invested 7 million dollars in a fund that will set aside part of its profits for the construction of schools and clinics in depressed areas. The results remain to be seen. Because even the Franciscan friars minor, theoretically the emblem of a “Church that is poor for the sake of the poor,” made analogous investments in recent years, and even much larger ones, moveable and fixed, in order to assist street children and AIDS patients. And they ended up on the brink of bankruptcy, with the resignation of the treasurer and the replacement of the superior general, Jose Rodriguez Carballo, who was nonetheless esteemed and rewarded by Pope Francis, who brought him into the curia as secretary of the congregation for religious.

In Italy the 0.8 percent of income taxes that can be earmarked for the Church by taxpayers, amounting to about one billion euro per year, is managed at the central level under the twofold supervision of the Church and the state.

One third of the billion goes to the remuneration of priests, whose compensation has held steady for years between a minimum of 900 and a maximum of 1300 euro gross per month, according to age and position. More than one fourth goes to works of charity, like the recent contribution to the earthquake victims in Nepal: 3 million euro next to the miserable 22 million donated by the rest of the world. Yet another sum goes to the regional ecclesiastical tribunals, to make marriage annulment procedures nearly free of charge. And so on.

But all of this takes place at the central level. In the individual dioceses, the health of administrative procedures is an unknown. In the diocese of Terni, for example, to cover half of the deficit of 25 million left by the previous bishop, current president of the pontifical council for the family Vincenzo Paglia, the IOR had to open a vein.

In the Vatican, the administrative and financial realm is the only one in which the much-heralded reform of the curia has taken steps forward, with the energetic cardinal George Pell in the preeminent position, called from Australia by Pope Francis to occupy the role of prefect of the newly created secretariat for the economy.

But even before Pell landed in Rome, the artillery of the old curia had already opened fire. And they haven’t let up since. Even digging up old unsubstantiated accusations of having “covered up” sexual abuse committed in his diocese.

His plan to concentrate in a single Vatican Asset Management office not only the supervision but also the ownership of all financial and real estate assets of the various curial institutions encountered an all-around rebuff and quickly fell apart.

It was also a no-go for the more circumscribed idea of separating the service and investment activities in the IOR. Francis himself, faltering, put on the brakes.