Who will rid me of these troublesome auditors? THE Vatican is an oddity: a state within a city that is the capital of another state. Seldom have the anomalous relationships between the Vatican, Rome and Italy been more in evidence than this week. On November 5th, two books came out in Italy that included the latest in a long series of eyebrow-raising revelations about the Vatican’s finances. Both draw on leaks from confidential reports prepared for Pope Francis and his predecessor, Benedict XVI, as part of a drive to clean up the Vatican’s act (not least in order to comply with international regulations on money-laundering and the funding of terrorism).
Three days before publication, the papal spokesman revealed that detectives of the Vatican Gendarmerie had traced the origin of the leaks and locked up two former members of a committee established by Francis to advise him on restructuring his financial bureaucracy. Francesca Chaouqui, a public-relations executive who denies any wrongdoing, was let go after being detained overnight in a convent. But a senior Vatican prelate, Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, was still being held…
The Economist: Europe
