VATICAN CITY
The Age
Cardinal George Pell’s power to clean up the Catholic Church’s finances has received a boost with Pope Francis’ sacking of the five-man board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog – all Italians.
In the latest move to break with an old guard associated with a murky past under his predecessor, the Vatican said the pope named four experts from Switzerland, Singapore, the United States and Italy to replace them on the board of the Financial Information Authority (AIF). The new board includes a woman for the first time.
All five outgoing members were Italians who had been expected to serve five-year terms ending in 2016 and were laymen associated with the Vatican’s discredited financial old guard.
Reformers inside the Vatican had been pushing for the pope, who already has taken a series of steps to clean up Vatican finances, to appoint professionals with an international background to work with Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer who heads the AIF and who has been pushing for change.
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