VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register
by Edward Pentin 06/10/2016
After first suspending accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ external audit of Vatican finances in April, the Holy See has now definitively cancelled PwC’s full involvement in the financial inspection.
In a statement released today, the Vatican said the audit would now be executed by the Vatican’s own Auditor General. It added that PwC would henceforth “play an assisting role” and be “available to those dicasteries that wish to avail themselves of its support and consulting services.”
The Register revealed in April that the Secretariat of State had suspended the external audit just four months after it had begun its work. The news came as a surprise to Cardinal George Pell, the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, who had not been given advance notice of the suspension which was ordered by the Secretariat of State in a letter sent to all Vatican entities.
Together with the body that oversees the Secretariat — the Council for the Economy headed by Cardinal Reinhard Marx — he had commissioned accountancy giant PwC to carry out the audit in a bid to bring accountability and transparency to the Vatican’s finances and make sure they matched international standards.
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