Vatican Creates Ethics Committee to Evaluate Its Financial Investments

News facts

Irish Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell has been placed at the head of an “investment committee” responsible for “guaranteeing the ethical character of the movable investments of the Holy See in accordance with social doctrine”, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, June 7.

The birth of the authority had been announced in the new constitution of the Curia, published on March 19, we now know its composition. The Vatican announced Tuesday, June 7 the list of members of the new “investment committee” of the Holy See.

This committee will be responsible, we can read in the new constitution, for “to guarantee the ethical character of the movable investments of the Holy See in accordance with the social doctrine of the Church and, at the same time, their profitability, their adequacy and their risk”. This commission is in addition to the internal bodies responsible for monitoring the use of funds in the Vatican.

“High Level Professionals”

This new commission will be chaired by Irish Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity and current Camerlengo, often described as one of Pope Francis’ trusted cardinals within the Curia.

As provided for in the constitution, “high level professionals” accompany the cardinal, including Jean-Pierre Casey, the founder of the British investment fund RegHedge, but also Giovanni Christian Michael Gay, who came from the German private fund Union Investment Privatfonds. There is also David Harris, a member of the Norwegian Skagen fund, as well as John J. Zona, the investment manager of Boston College, a Jesuit university, in the United States.

The creation of this committee complements the mechanisms put in place since the beginning of Francis’ pontificate, following the first steps in this area taken by Benedict XVI. Thus, the Secretariat for the Economy supervises the management of the funds, under the direction of the Spanish Jesuit Juan Antonio Guerrero.

This secretariat, comparable to a ministry of finance, is placed under the control of a Council for the economy, composed of 15 members, including 8 cardinals and 7 lay people. The Apsa is itself more directly in charge of the Vatican’s property management, as well as financial affairs, while the Financial Supervision and Information Authority (Asif) plays the role of financial watchdog.

All Vatican funds are henceforth subject to these control bodies, with the exception of those which, because of their “legal, economic or financial nature” et “for the greater good of the Church or the people” must be covered by secrecy. But these operations are not out of control, since a “reserved matters committee” is specifically responsible for supervising them. A commission also chaired, since November 2020, by Cardinal Farrell.

Loup Besmond de Senneville (in Rome)