We Are ‘As Other Men’

A wise Jesuit confrere predicted not long ago that after the clergy abuse crisis in the Church, we would shortly have to deal with money scandals.

The current investigation of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, suggests he’s right. The Cardinal denies the charge of giving a sweetheart deal to the then infrastructure minister on a property owned by the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples (Propaganda Fide). In exchange it is alleged he received public funds to upgrade other properties including the Congregation’s Roman HQ.

The Pope’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ defended the Cardinal’s good name in a carefully worded statement upholding his ‘right to be respected and esteemed’. He added that the Vatican hoped that the ‘situation will be fully and rapidly clarified, so as to eliminate all shadow of doubt regarding both him personally and Church institutions’. But the statement contained no expression of outrage that the state should dare to indict a senior churchman and no challenge to its right to do so.

Vatican analyst John Allen comments that Rome is signalling that it won’t be invoking diplomatic immunity on the basis of Cardinal Sepe’s holding of a Vatican passport. The Cardinal himself has made it clear that he will cooperate with the due process of Italian law in the case.

Allen contrasts this approach to that employed when Archbishop Marcinkus was implicated in the terrible scandal around the Banco Ambrosiano, whose chairman Roberto Calvi was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982. Allen reminds us that, ‘The Vatican eventually paid out $240 million to creditors of the bank, denying legal responsibility but acknowledging “moral involvement” in its implosion’. Marcinkus avoided arrest by lying low in the Vatican, despite a warrant issued in Milan in 1987. The Italian Supreme Court eventually ruled that he was exempt from Italian state prosecution under the terms of the 1929 Lateran Pact. He later retired to Sun City, Arizona where he died in 2006.

It’s a fair guess that the memory of Marcinkus, plus the recent bruising experience of the abuse scandals, have brought about this greater acceptance of clerical accountability. Allen cites a senior Vatican official who suggested that under Pope Benedict there will be less invoking of traditional Church privileges in such cases. The clergy are as other citizens before the civil law.

All this may appear remote from the life of the local Church, but I would argue that it should and will impact significantly on Catholic clergy everywhere. If ‘princes of the Church’ can be called to financial account, and even face charges for their alleged failures in this regard, how much more, ordinary bishops or mere parish priests?

It’s vitally important for the Church to condemn the big corruption in government and business, but also to practice what we preach by not falling into the same fault in parishes, Church institutions and NGOs. It can happen all too easily. Laity, as well as clergy, can become complacent about and even complicit in the misuse and misappropriation of money. It may not be big money but it’s not ours and much of it is donated by the poor and for the poor.