What happened?
The Vatican’s auditor- general, Libero Milone, has resigned, in the latest apparent setback for Vatican financial reform. Milone was appointed in 2015 to look for evidence of mismanagement and possible corruption in Vatican financial dealings. He was supposed to stay for at least five years.
A brief statement said that Milone had offered his resignation and Pope Francis had accepted it. Last year, the Vatican suspended an audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
What the media are saying
Tom Kington of the Times said Milone’s time had not been easy: not everyone welcomed this distinguished financial expert, who had been given the right “to open any filing cabinet or computer as the Pope tried to end decades of mismanagement and sleaze”. Some people had evidently felt threatened: “Mr Milone’s own computer and office were broken into in late 2015.”
Reuters correspondent Philip Pullella quoted an anonymous Vatican source as saying: “It’s a pretty ugly situation and I hope it does not get worse.” The source said, according to Pullella, that “there had been a ‘clash of operational styles’ between Milone and the departments his office audited” – particularly Apsa, which manages the Vatican’s property holdings and human resources.
What the vaticanisti are saying
at catholicculture.org, Phil Lawler said it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to guess at the sequence of events.
Milone and Cardinal Pell appear to have had a tense relationship with Apsa – and it seems that this time, Apsa has “won the battle”. In other words, Apsa seems to be the main obstacle to reform. “Perhaps because Apsa has been handling Vatican financial affairs for years, and veteran staffers are comfortable with Apsa’s approach,” Lawler suggested.
“Too comfortable, in fact. Remember when Cardinal Pell uncovered ‘hundreds of millions of euros’ in off-budget transactions?” This implies that Apsa might be unable to reform itself.
At Crux, John Allen wondered if “shock therapy” was now the only workable means of finance reform.
✣Dubia cardinals request meeting with Pope
What happened?
The four cardinals who presented five dubia (requests for doctrinal clarification) to Pope Francis have sent him a second letter requesting an audience, again without a response. The Pope received the letter, signed by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra on behalf of Cardinals Burke, Meiser and Brandmüller, on May 6. It has now been published.
Why was it under-reported?
Although the circumstances are unusual – the cardinals are the Pope’s advisers, so it is strange for a request for a meeting to go unanswered – in another sense the story is nothing new. The five dubia were published last year, effectively asking the Pope to rule out some interpretations of Amoris Laetitia which are at odds with traditional Church teaching.
The Pope’s continuing silence may also not receive much coverage because it jars with the image of a spontaneous, conversational figure who welcomes dialogue with anyone.
What will happen next?
This has always been the difficult question: what will the four cardinals do if the Pope continues to ignore them? Cardinal Raymond Burke has said that the four might have to issue a private formal correction. This would presumably say that Amoris Laetitia had, by its lack of clarity, caused division over Church doctrines, such as the ban on the divorced and remarried receiving Communion. Different dioceses have issued very different rules.
But if the Pope was unmoved by the formal correction, it is hard to see what would happen after that.
✣The week ahead
American Catholics meet tomorrow in Indianapolis for the Convocation of Catholic Leaders, a gathering organised by the nation’s bishops. It is the largest such event the US Church has ever seen.
The 3,000 delegates will come from dioceses, congregations and lay institutions, to discuss how Catholics can live as “missionary disciples”.
A mass of welcome for the new nuncio, Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, is to be celebrated at Westminster Cathedral on Tuesday. Archbishop Adams, 72, an American, is the first native English speaker to hold the post in 50 years.
Priests in the Nigerian diocese of Ahiara are approaching the deadline to write to Pope Francis expressing their obedience. The Pope has asked the priests to write to him individually accepting his choice of bishop. They must send this letter by Sunday week. The priests have said they accept papal authority, but are worried that their concerns have not been heard.
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