Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and the entire leadership team of the Catholic church’s worldwide charity arm Caritas Internationalis were fired from their jobs on Tuesday by Pope Francis following accusations of bullying and humiliation of employees.
Tagle, who was nominally president of Caritas, but was not involved in the day-to-day operations, will stand down and be replaced by a temporary commissioner, Italian management consultant Pier Francesco Pinelli from Boston-based firm Bain & Company, while a reorganisation takes place.
Tagle, a Filipino who is often considered a possible future pope, will stay on temporarily in a different role assisting the commissioner in relations with national Caritas offices and helping to prepare for the election of a new leadership next year. He will carry out these duties alongside his main job at the Vatican as head of the Church’s missionary arm.
The move, announced in a papal decree released by the Vatican press office, came as a surprise and involved all the executives of Caritas Internationalis (CI). Founded in 1951, CI is a Vatican-based confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social services organisations working in more 200 countries, with more than a million staff and volunteers. It’s self-described mission is “to work to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed”.
Reports by former and current members of staff were of verbal abuse, favouritism, and general human resources mismanagement.
The press release from the Vatican on November 22 said: “After a review of its operations by an independent panel, the management of Caritas Internationalis (CI) has been put under temporary administration in order to improve its management norms and procedures – even while financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved – and so better to serve its member charitable organizations around the world.”
“No evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety, but other important themes and areas for urgent attention emerged from the panel’s work… Real deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale.”
It stressed that the measure would “have no impact on the functioning of member organizations and the services of charity and solidarity they provide around the world; on the contrary, it will serve to strengthen such service”.
He has since been appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 2019 and became a pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation which is presided over by the pope, in June.
Cardinal Tagle said in response to the decree that the papal intervention was “a call to walk humbly with God and to a process of discernment”.
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