Cardinal George Pell backs Pope on finance overhaul

After sacking a cardinal, the Pope has removed a Vatican department’s control over donations worth millions.

Pope Francis said that the Vatican had to get out of the Chelsea investment as soon as possible or reorganise it “to eliminate all reputational risks”. Picture: Vatican Media/AFP

The Pope has removed a Vatican department’s control over donations worth millions of dollars after it was involved in a corruption scandal.

He has given the secretariat of state, the central governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church, three months to hand over its investments in funds and property. A department established by Cardinal George Pell will have oversight of the investments. “I am delighted by these developments,’’ Cardinal Pell told The Weekend Australian from Rome on Friday.

The secretariat of state is headed by Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whose former deputy was disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu, whom Francis sacked in September.

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Responsibility for managing the assets will be handed to APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See), the body responsible for the Vatican’s financial affairs. They will be consolidated in a balance sheet and overseen by the secretariat for the economy — the body established by Cardinal Pell when he arrived in Rome in 2014.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu was sacked in September, but denies any wrongdoing. Picture: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The assets to be overseen by APSA include a building in London’s Chelsea, which allegedly cost the Vatican millions of euros in losses, while the deal earned a fortune for consultants.

Cardinal Becciu is being investigated for payments he allegedly made to businesses run by three of his relatives and Cecilia Marogna, an Italian security expert who allegedly spent Vatican cash on handbags.

In Rome, the Catholic News Agency editor Ed Condon reported on Friday that handing control of financial affairs to APSA was part of the original reform conceived by Cardinal Pell and the Pope. “Those plans to split the secretariat of state’s diplomatic functions from its financial functions were vigorously fought off by the secretariat of state for years so this is an extraordinary step,’’ he reported.

Cardinal Pell, whose efforts to appoint professional auditors to the Vatican were thwarted by Cardinal Becciu, was battling to implement financial reform in the Vatican when he returned to Australia in 2017 to face trial in Melbourne on charges of sexually abusing choir boys. He was jailed, then acquitted by the High Court earlier this year.

Pope Francis, right, speaks with Cardinal George Pell in October after the Australian’s return to the Vatican following his acquittal on sexually abusing boys. Picture: Vatican Media/AFP

Last month, the Italian ­ newspaper Il Messaggero quoted Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, the former right-hand man to Cardinal Becciu, claiming a bank transfer of €700,000 was made from the Vatican to a bank in Australia. Monsignor Perlasca claimed the transfer was made at the same time the child-abuse case against Cardinal Pell was developing in Australia.

A fortnight ago, The Australian reported that Vatican prosecutors investigating financial transfers were given details of more than $2m wired to Australia between February 2017 and June 2018. There were four transactions in that period, according to documents being considered by Vatican ­investigators.

The Times