Vatican’s Financial Transparency Reaches A Huge Watershed Moment ( Progress )

John Allen has another excellent article up at  A Vatican watershed on transparency, and a new tool for reformers

It start off with a both a comic and sad  review of the world headlines

•Associated Press: “Vatican passes key financial transparency test”



•AGI: “Moneyval flunks the Vatican”


•L’Espresso: “Moneyval passes the Vatican”


•RTE: “Serious failings identified in Vatican Bank”


•Sunday Times: “Report cites progress in Vatican anti-money laundering efforts”


Sometimes the juxtaposition actually came in the same piece. The Italian daily Il Messaggero ran a headline (“Moneyval: Still little transparency at Vatican Bank”) which was at odds with its own opening paragraph (“The Vatican Bank is not quite transparent, but almost, the report says.....

The Vatican financial situation has been in the news a great deal , but as Allen reports this is quite a major culture moment for the Vatican.

He also points out :

...First, journalists probably need to update their draft obituaries of Pope Benedict XVI. Up to this point, the consensus has been that Benedict is a teaching pope, not a governor, and that his inattention to management has allowed a string of train-wrecks to happen. There’s still truth to that assessment, but we now have independent secular evaluators saying that considerable progress on financial rigor has been made on Benedict’s watch....

He also points out a rising Vatican star as related to this.