Cardinal Pell: The "clear" women will help the "sentimental males" clean up the Vatican's finances

Speaking during a January 14 webinar on financial transparency in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Pell praised the nominated as "highly competent women with a great professional background."

Cardinal George Pell welcomed Pope Francis' inclusion of lay women on the Vatican business council, saying he hopes "lucid" women will help "sentimental males" do the right thing about Church finances. .

In August 2020, Pope Francis appointed 13 new members, including six cardinals, six lay people and one lay person, to the Council for the Economy, which oversees the finances of the Vatican and the work of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Speaking during a January 14 webinar on financial transparency in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Pell praised the nominated as "highly competent women with a great professional background."

"So I hope they will be very clear on the basic issues and insist that we sentimental males put our act together and do the right thing," he said.

"Financially I am not sure the Vatican can continue to lose money as we are losing money," continued the Australian cardinal. Pell, who was prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy from 2014 to 2019, stressed that "beyond that, there are very real pressures ... from the pension fund."

"Grace will not exempt us from these things", the cardinal said.

Cardinal Pell, who was acquitted this year after becoming the highest-ranking Catholic cleric to be convicted of sexual abuse, was the guest speaker of a webinar titled "Creating a Transparent Culture in the Catholic Church", hosted by the Global Institute of Church Management (GICM).

He addressed the question of how to have financial transparency both in the Vatican and in Catholic dioceses and religious congregations.

He described financial transparency as "shedding light on these things," adding, "if there's a mess, it's good to know."

The lack of transparency on missteps makes lay Catholics bewildered and worried, he warned. They say they need to know things "and this must be respected and their basic questions must be answered".

The cardinal said he was strongly in favor of regular external audits for dioceses and religious congregations: “I think some form of audit is possible in almost all situations. And whether we call it responsibility or we call it transparency, there are different levels of interest and education among lay people about wanting to know about money “.

Cardinal Pell also speculated that many of the Vatican's current financial problems, most notably the controversial purchase of property in London, could have been prevented, or "recognized sooner," if an external audit of Pricewaterhouse Cooper had not been canceled. in April 2016..

Regarding recent financial changes in the Vatican, such as the transfer of investment management from the Secretariat of State to the APSA, the cardinal noted that when he was in the Vatican, he said it was less important who controlled certain sections of the money, then that it was managed well and that the Vatican was seeing a good return on investment.

The transfer to APSA must be done well and competently, he said, and the Secretariat of the Economy must have the power to stop things if they are to be stopped.

"The pope's plan to set up a council of experts for investment management, coming out of Covid, out of the financial pressures we are experiencing, will be absolutely vital," he added.

According to Cardinal Pell, the pope's charity fund, called Peter's Pence, "faces a gigantic challenge." The fund is intended for the pope's charitable activities and to support some of the management costs of the Roman Curia.

The fund should never have been used for investments, he said, noting that it has "fought for years for the principle that if donors give money for a specific purpose, it should be used for that specific purpose."

As the financial reform continues to be promulgated in the Vatican, the cardinal stressed the importance of having the right staff.

He said having competent people in charge of financial affairs is an essential first step towards changing the culture into one of greater accountability and transparency.

"There is a close connection between incompetence and being robbed," Cardinal Pell commented. "If you have competent people who know what they are doing, it is much more difficult to be robbed."

In a diocese, an important aspect is to have a financial council made up of experienced people who "understand money", who meet often, which the bishop consults and whose advice he follows.

"A risk of course is if your finance council doesn't understand that you are a church and not a company." The first priority is not financial gain, but care for the poor, the unfortunate, the sick and social assistance, he said.

The cardinal praised the contribution of the laity, saying: "at all levels, from the diocese, to the archdiocese, in Rome I was struck by the large number of competent people who are willing to devote their time to the Church for nothing".

"We need lay leaders there, Church leaders there, who know the basics of money management, who can ask the right questions and find the right answers."

He also encouraged dioceses not to wait for the Vatican to always be at the forefront of implementing financial reform, even if it should.

“We have made progress in the Vatican and I agree that the Vatican should take the initiative - Pope Francis knows this and is trying to do so. But just like any organization, you can't always make it happen as fast as you want, ”he said.

Cardinal Pell warned that money can be "a contaminating thing" and fascinates many religious. "I had been a priest for decades when someone pointed out the dangers of money linked to hypocrisy," he said. "It's not the most important thing we're doing."

"For the Church, money is not of primary importance or of any importance".

Cardinal Pell was initially convicted in Australia in 2018 on multiple sexual abuse charges. On April 7, 2020, the Australian High Court overturned her six-year prison sentence. The High Court ruled that he should not have been found guilty of the charges and that the prosecution had not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Cardinal Pell spent 13 months in solitary confinement, during which time he was not allowed to celebrate mass.

The cardinal has yet to face a canonical investigation at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, though after his conviction was overturned, several canonical experts said it was unlikely he would face a Church trial.