Pope struggled to lift sacred secrecy of Vatican finances as he seeks to change conclave rule.

 

 

Speculations will always abound perhaps for a long time concerning the Pope's abrupt and shocking resignation.I expect a movie to be released as well the.He was said to be exhausted and disheartened in the past 6months.

Inside a 13th-century monastery in a sleepy village north of Rome, the Rev. Salvatore Palumbo was allegedly serving more than one higher authority. Italian prosecutors say a Ferrari-driving lawyer who defrauded insurance companies used the priest as a frontman, with Palumbo stashing the illicit cash inside the secretive Institute for Works of Religion.
A.k.a. the Vatican Bank.
The arrests over the past six months of Palumbo and the 34-year-old lawyer, Simone Fazzari, highlight one major source of the scandals and power struggles that observers say contributed to Pope Benedict XVI’s historic resignation this week — the murky world of Vatican finances.
The financial arm of the Vatican has never been a run-of-the-mill bank. But a sense of crisis has been building around it and other Vatican financial dealings.
Last month, Italy barred its own banks from doing business in the Holy See, citing a lack of transparency by the city-state’s financial apparatus that has routinely declined to release data on accounts held there by church bodies, clergy, foreign embassies and lay entities related to the Vatican. The move cut off credit card processing at Vatican commercial sites including the Sistine Chapel, effectively forcing them to go cash-only. This week, plastic was finally welcomed again in Vatican City, but only after church authorities cut a deal with a Swiss firm that is not subject to European Union banking laws.

That followed a series of Italian money-laundering investigations, including one that led to the 2010 seizure of nearly $30 million worth of Vatican Bank holdings kept outside the Holy See.
Evidence suggests the outgoing pope sought to shed light on the dark Vatican books, but that effort yielded even more controversy. The former president of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was forced to resign in May, alleging he was fired for getting “too close to the truth.” Last year, other documents leaked by the pope’s butler and other sources revealed the depth of the internal tug of war over financial transparency, with Vatican reformers pitted against traditionalists who appeared to believe the church should answer only to a higher power.
On Friday, the pope backed a decision by a commission of cardinals to name Ernst von Freyberg to head the Vatican Bank. The German-born lawyer and member of the ancient Knights of Malta was selected, the Vatican said, because of “his vast experience.” However, Italian commentators were quick to question why the choice was not left to the incoming pope.
“It seems like an attempt to force the situation, not to leave the new pope an option,” said Massimo Franco, author of “The Crisis of the Vatican Empire” and a columnist at Corriere della Sera. “I find it quite strange that this is the last major act of the pope.”
Vatican officials and the pope have cited age and declining health for the first voluntary resignation of a pontiff in several centuries. But in the end, Vatican observers believe a steady barrage of scandals — not the least of those over financial transparency — took a toll on a formidable theologian, who came to the throne of St. Peter on a mission to reinvigorate the church.“It is very clear that Benedict suffered a lot from the revelations of scandal, from the infighting and intrigue at the Vatican Bank and within the Roman curia,” or the Catholic Church’s governing body, said John Thavis, author of “The Vatican Diaries” and a longtime correspondent for the Catholic News Service. “Did that affect the pope’s decision? A lot of people inside the Vatican believe it did.”

 Pope Benedict may change rules governing the conclave that will secretly elect his successor, a move that could move up the global meeting of cardinals who are already in touch about who could best lead Catholics through a period of crisis.
The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.
The rule changes could mean that the conclave in the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will choose the next leader of the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church, might be able to start before March 15, which is currently the earliest it can begin.
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said on Wednesday that Benedict, who will lose all power when he abdicates on February 28, was considering issuing a "Motu Proprio," a personal document which has the force of Church law and addresses a specific need.
A 1996 apostolic constitution by Pope John Paul stipulates that a conclave must start between 15 and 20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, meaning it cannot begin before March 15 under the current rules given Benedict's date to step down.

Some cardinals believe a conclave should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Roman Catholic Church will be without a leader at a time of crisis.

Benedict's papacy was rocked by scandals over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.
His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.
Benedict and his predecessor made sure any man awarded a cardinal's red hat was firmly in line with key Catholic doctrine supporting priestly celibacy and Vatican authority and opposing abortion, women priests, gay marriage and other liberal reforms.
Cardinals worldwide have begun informal consultations by phone and email to build a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church through rough seas. Some 117 cardinals under age of 80 will be eligible for the conclave.