Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, has said the Catholic Church’s bureaucratic machine needed “painful and prolonged clean-up’’.
In a pre-Christmas address to the top echelon of the Vatican administration on Monday, Francis said that the clean-up became imperative at the wake of a fresh wave of scandals.
Since November, the so-called VatiLeaks 2 affair has exposed financial mismanagement, greed and resistance to reform in the Vatican’s administration.
“Administrative diseases requiring prevention, vigilance, care, and sadly, in some cases, painful and prolonged interventions have become evident in the course of the past year.
“These have caused no small pain to the entire body of the church and the scandals have harmed many souls,’’ the pope added.
He pledged to sustain reform efforts with determination, clarity and firm resolve.
Meanwhile, anti-money laundering experts at the Council of Europe have said that Vatican was failing to punish financial crimes.