Merchants in the Temple Read Free Page A

definitely help you in your reflections.
    First. It was universally ascertained in the general congregations [during the Conclave] that [in the Vatican] the number of employees has grown too much. This fact creates a huge waste of money that can be avoided. Cardinal Calcagno told me that in the past five years there has been a 30 percent increase in employee expenses. 6 Something isn’t right! We have to get this problem under control.
    The Pontiff had already known that most of the new hiring was based on cronyism. The persons in question were employed for vague projects or hired through nepotism or personal connections. It was no accident that, in this small state, rather than have one human resources office, like a private company with thousands of employees, there were fourteen, one for each power center on the organizational chart of the Holy See. Francis denounces this in a lucid crescendo that highlights each of the most alarming situations:
    Second point: the lack of transparency continues to be an issue. There are expenses for which no clear procedures were followed. According to the men who spoke with me [i.e., the auditors who wrote the report and some cardinals]—this comes out in the financial statements. In this connection, I think we have to move forward with the work of clarifying the origins of the expenses and the forms of payment. We have to create a protocol for estimates and also for the last step, payments. [We need to] follow this protocol rigorously. One of the department heads told me: they come to me with the invoice so we have to pay … No, we don’t. If a job was done without an estimate, without authorization, we don’t pay. So who will pay? [Pope Francis simulates a dialogue with a bursar.] We don’t pay. [We need to] start with a protocol and be firm: [even if] we’re making this poor clerk look bad, we don’t pay! God help us but we don’t pay!
    C-l-a-r-i-t-y. That’s what’s done in the most humble companies and we have to do it, too. The protocol for starting a project is the payment protocol. Before any purchase or construction job we have to request at least three different estimates to decide which one is more convenient. Let me give you an example, the library. The estimate said 100 and then 200 was paid. What happened? A little more? Alright, but was it budgeted or not? [Some say] we have to pay for it. No we don’t! Let them pay … We don’t pay! This is important for me. Discipline, please!
    Francis goes on to describe the utter superficiality of Vatican bookkeeping. He’s angry. Seven times he repeats, “We don’t pay.” For too long, in an incredibly facile and superficial manner, millions have been disbursed to pay for unbudgeted jobs that were executed without the required oversight and with ridiculously padded invoices. Many have taken advantage, pocketing even the donations of the faithful, the offerings that were supposed to go to the needy. The Pope then addresses the cardinals who lead dicasteries that over the years have mismanaged Church money, the department heads who haven’t exercised the necessary oversight. His criticism of them is overt: harsh, direct, scathing, even humiliating. He emphasizes issues that any manager working in even the smallest business should know and understand.
    Francis stares Secretary of State Tarciso Bertone in the face. Those who are sitting near the Pope see no signs of the friendship and indulgence that Ratzinger felt for the Italian cardinal that led him to elevate Bertone to the pinnacle of power at the Vatican. No, Francis’s gaze conveys the icy admonishment of the Jesuit who came to Rome from the “ends of the Earth.” These accusations are an indirect rebuke of Bertone. 7 At the Vatican, in fact, resource management and governance are the responsibility of the Secretariat of State, which had accumulated unprecedented power under Bertone. In the