Legislating financial transparency for all Vatican offices and agencies, and opening up the Vatican to inspection and evaluation by an international financial watchdog group surely constitute one of the most significant administrative reforms effected by Benedict XVI, and in the history of the Church. More than reform, in fact. It was a true quiet revolution that broke, mirabile dictu, almost two centuries of 'Vatican secrecy'.
If it had been done by any other Pope but him, the world's media and chattering heads would have instantly likened him to Gregory the Great. But they have even barely reported these developments. Just because it is the work of a Pope they never expected to be anything but merely transitional and therefore inconsequential - despite all the accomplishments that have been duly documented and reported by them (they could not well ignore concrete things that happened, after all, but they limited themselves to the barest accounts)...
Vatican response to financial evaluation
will exceed Moneyval requirements
Vatican City, Apr 10, 2013 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican plans to demonstrate its commitment to financial transparency by presenting progress it has made in areas the Council of Europe’s money laundering prevention committee is not requiring.
“With this initiative, the Holy See wishes to provide a more complete overview of the measures taken
over the last year to further strengthen its institutional structure in the area of preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” says an April 10 statement from the Vatican.
The Council of Europe’s financial oversight committee, known as MONEYVAL, requires that the states or institutions it reviews submit an update on how they are working to comply with shortcomings highlighted in the “core recommendations” section of its report.
The report also lists items that are less important, which are called “key recommendations,” but entity being evaluated is not obliged to inform the committee on how it is progressing in those areas.
The April 10 communiqué from the Vatican explained that the European financial committee “accepted the Holy See’s own proposal that this next report cover not only the Core Recommendations, but also all the areas covered by the Key Recommendations.”
The Vatican’s financial team will make a report on its progress to the full MONEYVAL assembly in December.
The original evaluation began in Feb. 2011 and the committee’s report was issued in July 2012.
It found the Holy See and Vatican City State to be largely in compliance, with 9 key and core areas receiving a positive assessment and seven needing improvement.
One item that has already been fixed was a conflict of interest created by Cardinal Attilio Nicora having a role in both the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency [the Financial Information Authority] and its monetary policy body. He resigned from his position with the policy unit in July 2011 but remained [remains???] the president of the watchdog agency.
I have searched in vain for the [April 10 communique' mentioned above but it is not yet on any of the Vatican's various media outlets! I bet there is no mention of Benedict XVI at all. The CNA item quoting the communique does no.t
Not that the above story will impress at all those in the media - including Catholic media and commentators - who have convinced the world that the IOR is a perennial scandal that is irretrievable for the Church, the same gaggle of gossipy silly geese who ignored Moneyval's favorable interim evaluation in 2012 of the Vatican's financial transparency measures legislated by Benedict XVI in December 2010. And ignored it because it turned out to be favorable, and not the colossal failing card they had earlier predicted. But I am very much afraid that by the time Moneyval gives its final seal of approval to the Vatican, none of the credit will go to Benedict XVI, whose name will probably not even be mentioned at all by the Vatican's own media...
In effect, the media have effectively crushed Benedict XVI's Pontificate to non-existence between the 27-year Pontificate of a Pope universally acclaimed as 'the Great' upon his death, and the 27-day Pontificate so far of a Pope who is already 'Magno subito' for his adulators.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/04/2013 14:57]