VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)
By Cardinal George Pell posted Thursday, 4 Dec 2014
In this exclusive article Cardinal George Pell, the cardinal charged with sorting out the Vatican’s finances explains his mission
Recently a young Spanish lad asked me to explain the nature of my work in the Vatican as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, as well as the past and present economic situation of the Holy See.
Why? Because as a member of Opus Dei and a first-year university student, he wanted to be able to answer the questions of his fellow students and defend the Church.
A member of a British parliamentary delegation put it in a somewhat different way: why did the authorities allow the situation to lurch along, disregarding modern accounting standards, for so many decades?
In reply, I began by remarking that his question was one of the first that would come to our minds as English-speakers (lumped together by the rest of the world as “Anglos”), but one that might be much lower on the list for people in another culture, such as the Italians.
Those in the Curia were following long-established patterns. Just as kings had allowed their regional rulers, princes or governors an almost free hand, provided they balanced their books, so too did the popes with the curial cardinals (as they still do with diocesan bishops).
Because of the size of the Catholic community, with about 3,000 dioceses spread through every continent, the principle of subsidiarity – that is, local management of diocesan and religious order finances – is the only option.
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