Vatican Reform: Big wings have been clipped, but will they grow back?

There is a certain pleasure one gets when one sees the powerful cut down to size. This might explain the smiles among many in the Church when it was announced Pope Francis had removed the financial independence of the seemingly all-powerful Secretary of State, transferring it to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), the Vatican’s central bank.

The move followed a scandal involving a shady deal to buy part of a former Harrods warehouse in the Chelsea neighbourhood of London and turn them into luxury apartments. The project seemed to tiptoe around the various Vatican financial laws passed over the past few years, and might end up costing the Holy See hundreds of millions of euro.