Merchants in the Temple (23 page)

If this were a European Union country the managers would probably have already brought their account books to bankruptcy court. Not to mention that these same criticisms had been voiced at the June meeting. Now it was Versaldi's turn to lower the boom on the budgets of both the Catholic radio station and of the
L'Osservatore Romano
:

We can no longer argue that no expense should be spared in spreading the word of God. We can lower costs without affecting our institutional purposes. We'll decide what to do in a few days. For now it's clear that the Santa Maria di Galeria station has to be closed because its upkeep is particularly expensive
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 … The increase in personnel does not correspond to an improvement in production. Even the Photography Service of
L'Osservatore Romano
, which has the exclusive on sales of pictures of the Pope, closes the year in the red.

This well-known situation was frowned upon in the Curia, but for years nothing had been done to change it. As Kyle had pointed out at the June meeting, in the various working groups, “Not even one cardinal had supported the current position of Vatican Radio, not even the representatives of the developing countries. The Secretary of State had tried to intervene, but to little effect. The short-wave emissions had to be blocked and with determination.” The heads of the radio station had always opposed any change. Versaldi often remarked sarcastically that the managers of the broadcaster tried to treat “the heads of the Prefecture as businessmen rather than as men of the Church.”

With regard to personnel costs Monsignor Vallejo Balda was scathing:

Some aspects of management clearly show serious failures, and the heads of the various Administrations, including Father Lombardi, are perfectly aware of this. The equipment at the Ponte Galeria Radio belongs in a museum. The costs of supporting the media sector make up 20 percent of the Holy See's expenditures. The equipment analysis also included the structures in Piazza Pia and Piazza Leo XIII. The heads of the media sector don't even know the square footage of their offices. Since APSA handles the expenses, there may not be a lot of attention to optimizing costs. These properties could be rented and become a source of income. But the most radical change has to be in personnel. About 84 journalists work at
L'Osservatore Romano
, but not all of them are needed. They could at least modify their contracts, but instead, everything continues passively from one year to the next. Although this year's budget is balanced, it's hiding some unconvincing elements, such as the constant increase in personnel costs.

In the fall of 2013, with the help of the McKinsey consultants, the COSEA investigation uncovered the reasons for the hands-off treatment of the account books. Four risks were identified and presented to the attention of the cardinals in the Curia:

The off-budget resources go to covering various geographic areas. At Vatican Radio the same number of editorial resources are dedicated to France and Belgium (three people for about 53 million Catholics) and to Albania (the same number of people for about 0.3 million Catholics).
L'Osservatore Romano
: the copies printed in Poland do not fully recover the costs of printing and shipment (a loss of about 1.5 euros per copy). Operations management is insufficient (as are outsourcing policies and production planning): 70 percent of the copies of the Italian edition are returned by the newsstands. The rotary printer of the Vatican Print Shop is only used for two hours a day. There is a duplication of the main activities by the various media departments (news production, digital activities, etc.).

Francis insisted on a communications reform and the creation of the Vatican Media Center, prepared by COSEA advisor Francesca Chaouqui. In early January 2014, the Commission scheduled an intense series of meetings with the heads of the various editorial departments. This enabled the Holy Father to get the cardinals' endorsement of a new department that would streamline human resources, costs, and investments in the field of communications. It would be an essential tool of the Church's evangelical mission in the world. In June 2015, the Secretariat of Communications was established, to be headed by Father Dario Edoardo Viganò, director of the Vatican television center.
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He would be assisted by Monsignor Adrian Ruiz, head of the Vatican internet service, who gave Francis the gift of an iPad—in regulation white, of course—the day after his election to the papacy.

The Counteroffensive of the Vatican Bureaucracy

Starting on December 16, 2013, COSEA and the McKinsey consultants, including Filippo Sciorilli Borelli, entered the office of the Secretariat of State to begin a series of inspections and audits. The climate they found was icy. To get their hands on the data they needed, they had to overcome distrust, reluctance, and resistance. Zahra, feeling isolated, turned to Xuereb for advice. The cardinals close to Francis were not taking a stand, and tensions were mounting between COSEA and the Secretariat of State. A dangerous fracture was opening up between Bergoglio's supporters at the very moment they needed to be most united. In a quick sequence of events, between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, COSEA opened up a much broader series of investigations into twenty-five departments of the Holy See.

On December 4, 2013, COSEA had written to Parolin asking that the documentation requested for the audit be made available. On December 16 the audit began, but on January 3 another letter was sent to Parolin in which Monsignor Vallejo Balda hinted that the acts and documents requested be forwarded no later than January 10. The next day, in a two-page letter, Parolin told him to take a hike. And he explained why: for one group of departments, “this Secretariat does not have the documents requested; beside which, it would seem more correct to forward the request directly to each of the departments mentioned.” For some of the bodies named in the COSEA letter, he recalled that “the documentation is also kept at the Prefecture.” All the Commission had to do was search through the file cabinets in its own offices. Parolin could not conceal his irritation:

Allow me to add that I felt it was my duty to bring to the attention of the Holy Father our correspondence on this occasion, so that everything may be done in loyal adherence to the
desiderata
of the Holy Father.

At the same time, the budgets that had not been approved by the Prefecture needed to be cleared. On January 3, 2014, the matter was brought directly to the attention of the Pope, who granted an audience to an increasingly distressed Cardinal Versaldi. After the meeting, Versaldi wrote an urgent letter to both Cardinal Bertello, President of the Governorate, and Calcagno, the head of APSA, with a copy to Parolin. They needed to find a way out of the mess, and the terms in which Versaldi chose to express himself were not reassuring:

At the audience granted to me by the Pope in response to my request, the Holy Father delegated me to sit down with APSA and the Governorate before the mid-February meeting of the fifteen cardinals. The purpose of these encounters is to explain to these dicasteries the criticisms advanced by the international auditors and give the technicians involved the means to assess and absorb them. This will make it possible to unblock a situation that will otherwise create a crisis for the whole economic and administrative system of the Holy See and the Governorate. I will come to request that your dicastery quickly indicate its willingness to attend a meeting in the Prefecture designed to satisfy the Pontiff's instructions. For my part I can assure you that my intention is to have a serene and collaborative talk for the sake of mutual understanding and a solution to the problems that objectively exist and that this Prefecture has signaled for years but that have taken too long to overcome.

Calcagno tried to lift the tension and sent a prompt reply:

We are always available to verify together whatever can be improved. My best wishes for your work.

See you soon, D. Calcagno

The two sides were locked in a dangerous struggle. On the one side the Secretariat of State felt invaded by the auditors, with their pressing demands for information; on the other, the budgets of the Holy See had been blocked for weeks. At the Apostolic Palace the atmosphere was stifling. And the news of some unexpected expenses did nothing to lift the tension. The Brazilian press reported that the Holy Father had donated 3.6 million euros to the Organizing Committee of the World Youth Day held in Rio de Janeiro on July 22–29, 2013, to help cover the enormous 28.3 million euro debt it had left. The event had been managed by the local archdiocese, whose bishop, Orani João Tempesta, was in line to be made a cardinal by Bergoglio.

In the meantime, at the Apostolic See, there was meeting after meeting. Zahra realized that if the waters were not calmed it would only benefit the defenders of the status quo. On January 6 he requested and received an audience with the Secretary of State. The meeting had two objectives: to receive the requested information and to lower the tensions.

Parolin is a priest from one of the poorer parts of Latin America, and he had been the Apostolic Nunzio to Venezuela. He is a simple man, spontaneous and sincere. But he was in the stalwart offices of the Curia. Zahra is a businessman who understands numbers. Both of them shared Francis's policies, but their personalities could not have been more different and the series of misunderstandings and incidents made dialogue between them quite difficult. Zahra went in with a strategy. Barely forty-eight hours after the meeting he held out an olive branch to the Secretariat of State: he wrote to Parolin a long summary of their meeting so that it would remain on the record:

Dear Monsignor Parolin:

It was a pleasure to meet with you on Monday and I wish to thank you for finding the time to see me. It was an honor to be of assistance to you in helping our Holy Father in this stimulating process of reform to benefit our Universal Church. I wish to provide you with some feedback on some of the various points we discussed during our meeting:

 … 4.) Accounts of the Secretariat of State. We received your response to our request regarding the accounts only this morning. The contents of your letter definitely cut in half our efforts to consolidate the accounts. The Prefecture has confirmed that it does not have copies of these financial statements or other partial information on the dicasteries mentioned in point 1 of your letter, without which we are unable to do our work. In the case of the Bambino Gesù hospital, the last statement that the Prefecture received is dated 2006. I am attaching a letter that Mr. Profiti sent to the Prefecture regarding these accounts.
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It seems like an endless carousel. We cannot close our assessment of these accounts, unfortunately … I repeat that we are working on these very inspiring reforms and it is normal to encounter severe opposition and resistance. I know that you and I are both determined to proceed in line with the will of the Holy Father in the most fluid way possible. It is clear that not everyone understands the seriousness and urgency of this task … and I entreat you to find a solution that will be beneficial to the delicate work we are both conducting. I will be back in Rome on January 20, and I can make myself available for a meeting should it be necessary. Rest assured that I support you fully in your difficult mission.

My best wishes, Joe
9

The Color Purple

During this same period, Parolin received the auditors' request for an explanation of the budgets they had rejected. It was a seven-page critique of the financial documents: “There is a general sense of inertia, with no clear signs of change or responsibility for careful management of the patrimony of the Holy See and without concrete actions to contain costs.” Regarding the patrimony, for example, the request was made for a “required, but missing, planning of property maintenance jobs, greater efficiency in the rental area, and clarification of the contract awarding process.” The budgets had to be redone, particularly the line items on financials and human resources. Until then they would remain blocked:

The redoing of the employee expenses line item, keeping in mind the freeze on hiring, turn-over, the replacement of retirees, overtime, promotions, and limitations on raises in 2013 (or 2012) to cost-of-living hikes.

The Secretariat of State, APSA, and the Governorate finally chose to collaborate. They responded to all of these questions and sent in the revised budgets just in time for the January 14 meeting of the group of cardinals in the Prefecture.

While data and information was coming in on the budgets, there was still little movement on the documentation requested from the Secretariat of State for the audit. On Saturday, January 11, Zahra was forced to approach Parolin. He asked once again for the financial statements of the bodies that report to the structure he headed. The Secretary of State was under pressure, but Francis remained undeterred. And the next day Parolin received important confirmation of the Pope's unconditional trust in him. During Mass, at the
Angelus
, Parolin was named as one of the nineteen prelates who would be made cardinals by Bergoglio at the Consistory of February 22. This marked a significant changing of the guard at various Congregations. As a new cardinal, Parolin wrote one of his first emails to Zahra:

Dear Mr. Zahra, Dear Joe,

Thank you for the congratulations you sent me on my appointment as Cardinal. It is one more responsibility and challenge … purple is the color of martyrdom … pray for me! I am very pleased to send my regards and my blessings to your family. I have received your two earlier emails and I thank you warmly for them and for the meeting that preceded them. I wish to assure you of my complete willingness to work together in pursuit of the dispositions of Pope Francis. It seems to me that the most urgent questions are listed under points 4 and 5 [the request for financing of COSEA]. As for 5) tomorrow I will speak directly with the Holy Father and I trust that the thing can be quickly unblocked. As for 4), I am perplexed, because I do not know exactly how to recover the documentation you need (especially because of the tight deadline). Tomorrow I will bring the matter up again with the Substitute. If you have no objection, Mons. Balda can contact me directly to see how to proceed … We will try to find the time to meet on the occasion of your next stay in Rome and have an update on the situation. Thank you for everything. Let us place everything in the hands of God and ask him to help us to act always according to his will and for the greater good of the Church.