VATICAN CITY
NPR
[with audio]
MARCH 14, 2015
SYLVIA POGGIOLI
When the College of Cardinals elected the new head of the Roman Catholic Church two years ago, Pope Francis was given the mandate to put the Vatican’s dysfunctional administration in order.
As the papacy’s enters its third year, some of the biggest reforms have been achieved in the Vatican’s finances, long tainted by scandal.
Three days after his election, Pope Francis made clear his vision of what the Catholic Church should be when he exclaimed, “Oh, how I would love a poor church … for the poor.”
But the pope did not mean he wanted a church with empty coffers. The Vatican’s finances had long been plagued by suspicion of corruption. In order to clean house, Pope Francis created a new department, the Secretariat for the Economy, and chose as its prefect an outsider to the opaque and secretive world of the Vatican bureaucracy.
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