Pope Francis has announced a reorganisation of the oversight and administration of the Vatican’s financial affairs, a move that appears to have reduced the power of his financial tsar, Cardinal George Pell.
In a new law announced on Saturday, Pope Francis reversed a 2014 law that had transferred the main operational section of the patrimony office to the cardinal’s Secretariat for the Economy.
Pope Francis said he was restoring these administrative functions to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (Apsa) because he realised there needed to be an “unequivocal and full separation” between those in charge of overseeing expenditures (the economy secretariat) and those who did the spending (Apsa).
In Saturday’s statement, the Vatican said: “The Holy Father approved a motu proprio to implement reform of the organisms engaged in control and vigilance as well as the administration of Holy See assets.
“The document published today responds to the need to define further the relationship between the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See and the Secretariat for the Economy. The fundamental principle at the base of the reforms in this area, and in particular at the base of this motu proprio, is that of ensuring the clear and unequivocal distinction between control and vigilance on the one hand, and administration of assets on the other,” the statement said.
“Therefore, the motu proprio specifies the competencies pertaining to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See and better delineates the Secretariat for the Economy’s fundamental role of vigilance.”
Italian killed by the Nazis is recognised as a martyr
Pope Francis has approved the advancement of several canonisation Causes, and recognised the martyrdom of an Italian layman who died en route to a Nazi death camp after refusing to recite allegiance to Hitler.
The Pope approved the recommendations from the Congregation of Saints, who also recognised the miracle needed for the beatification of French Fr Antoine-Rose Ormières, founder of the Congregation of the Guardian Angel Sisters.
Bishop Alphonse Gallegos of Sacramento, California will now be known as Venerable after he was found to have lived a life of heroic virtue. Bishop Gallegos was known as the “bishop of the barrios” for his work with the marginalised, and as the “lowrider bishop” for his support for members of modified-car clubs. About 300 lowrider cars participated in a procession before his funeral Mass in 1991.
Meanwhile Italian husband and father Josef Mayr-Nusser, was declared a martyr. He told his superiors in the German military he could not swear an oath to Hitler. He was sent to be executed at Dachau and died of dysentery en route.
Backer of Savonarola Cause dies
Italian Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli has died aged 92.
Pope Francis said the cardinal “served the Gospel with joy and wisdom and tenaciously loved the Church”. The Pope phoned him in the days leading up to his death, the Vatican newspaper reported. The cardinal, a former Archbishop of Florence, had long supported the Cause of Fr Girolamo Savonarola, a preacher who was burned at the stake in 1498.
