Columnist: John Allen
The Deep Structural Reform Awaiting Pope Leo Beneath the Becciu Soap Opera
For the outside world, it’s perhaps Pope Leo’s pleas for cease-fires in Gaza and Ukraine that have attracted the most attention since his election just over three weeks ago. For ...
Becciu Alleges New Evidence Proves Misconduct in Vatican ‘Trial of the Century’
The Vatican’s “trial of the century”, which ended in December 2023 with guilty verdicts against Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu and eight other defendants for financial crimes, is back in the ...
The Next Moves In Chess Game Between Trump and Francis
President-elect Donald Trump and Pope Francis are leaders with such vastly different agendas and perspectives that it’s tempting to imagine the two men right now being involved in a high-stakes ...
Crisis in Jewish-Catholic Relations Continues at Vatican
Recently I declared that a mounting crisis in Jewish-Catholic relations was the most under-covered Vatican story of 2024. Early indications are that a similar claim won’t be likely in 2025, ...
Immigration: The Pope versus the General
Amid a spiraling Italian debate over immigration, two personalities increasingly are coming to symbolize the opposing positions. In one corner is Pope Francis, while in the other stands ex-General Roberto ...
Why Did It Take A Muslim To Persuade The Pope To Denounce The Disgusting Parody Of The Last Supper?
Whatever one makes of his aims or tactics, there’s no doubt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a formidable political operator. Over 20 years in power, he’s pioneered a populist ...
Papabili(ty): The Cardinals Who Have Seen Their Prospects in the Next Conclave Harmed and Improved by Recent Events
Stock markets are notoriously fickle, forever expanding or contracting on the basis of whatever new wind happens to blow. Let a coup occur in Bahrain, and the Dow may drop ...
Mixed Reactions to Vatican ‘Trial of the Century’: Will Anyone Actually be Jailed?
After a staggering total of 30 months, 85 hearings stretching over some 600 courtroom hours, 69 witnesses and almost 150,000 pages of documentation, the Vatican’s “Trial of the Century” reached ...
Trial of the Century: “When the Pope Does It, That Means Its Not Illegal.”
In the galaxy of Italian Catholicism, Alberto Melloni and Sandro Magister may not quite be matter and anti-matter, but they’re definitely not on the same planet. Melloni is a progressive ...
Pope’s Special Nominee to Synod Facing Trial in Illegal Immigration Scheme
It has emerged that one of Pope Francis’s special nominees to the Synod on Synodality, Luca Casarini, is under investigation in Sicily. The case centres on an Italian non-governmental organization ...
Nothing To See Here: Pope Meets Privately With Beccui While He Is Being Prosecuted By Vatican Court
In the summer of 1971, no question before the U.S. Supreme Court was as contentious as the Pentagon Papers case, in which the Nixon administration sought to prevent the New ...
Vatican’s Star Witness Testimony in ‘Trial of the Century’ May Just Have Backfired on Pope Francis
Just when you think that the Vatican’s “trial of the century” against a cardinal and nine other defendants for various alleged financial crimes can’t get any more surreal, two developments ...
A Tough Week for Pope Francis
Every leader has stretches he or she probably would like to forget. Mid-August, for instance, was one of those times for US President Joe Biden, as the chaos of the ...
Legal Tsunami May be Headed for Vatican Prosecutors in ‘Trial of the Century’
Somewhere out in the ocean right now, a small buoy is measuring wave direction and speed, along with barometric pressure and water temperature, feeding that data back to observatories. Even ...
As New Report Released, Vatican Bank Chief Claims ‘Bad Old Days’ Are Done
With release of an annual report showing a healthy profit in 2020 despite the Coronavirus pandemic, Friday capped what’s already been a good run in June for the Institute for ...
Charging Shady Italian Moneyman Not the End of Latest Vatican Scandal
Simply serving up lay Italian villains with no standing in the ecclesiastical power structure such as Torzi may be good theater, but it’s hard to argue it’s the end of ...
Vatican’s Financial Mess Illustrates Ambivalence of Being a ‘Poor Church’
Before “Who am I to judge?” and before the “throwaway culture,” as well as before his celebrated catalog of the 15 “spiritual diseases” of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis just ...
Vatican Staring Down The Barrel of $158 Million Deficit
According to an internal Vatican analysis recently presented to Pope Francis for a meeting with his department heads, declines in revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic will cause the Vatican’s ...
Will Compulsion Succeed Where Conversion has Failed on Vatican Financial Reform?
Maybe what Pope Francis really needs right now is somebody to put a gun to the head of the system. When Pope Francis recently addressed the ongoing financial reform of ...
Vatican Finance Guru’s Exit Suggests ‘Back to the Future’ Dynamic on Reform
It doesn’t take a genius-level systems analyst to conclude that Brülhart was simply fed up and decided to walk away. Logically speaking, it may be contradictory to call something both ...
In Synod’s ‘Married Priests’ Debate, Someone Finally Names the Elephant in the Room
In a Synod of Bishops where priest shortages in the Amazon have been driving discussion of ordaining married men, the surprise really isn’t that someone finally noticed there’s another solution, ...
