Vatican City, Jan 7, 2021 / 15:33 pm
The draft of the delayed document that will reform of the Roman Curia gives the Vatican's Secretariat of State a more prominent place in the workings of the Church's central governing bureaucracy. But during the year 2020, Pope Francis moved in the opposite direction.
In fact, within the span of a few months, the Secretariat of State has been gradually divested of all of its financial power.
In September, the Pope appointed the new commission of cardinals of the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) – the also called "Vatican bank." For the first time, the Secretary of State was not among the cardinal members. Nor is the Secretariat of State represented in the Commission on Reserved Matters that the Pope established in October via the first Vatican procurement law. In November, the Pope decided that the Secretariat of State should transfer all its funds to APSA, the equivalent of a Vatican central bank.
In December, Pope Francis spelled out how the handover should occur, clarifying that the Secretariat of State will be under the constant oversight of the Vatican's leading financial operations watchdog, the Secretariat for the Economy, which has been renamed the "Papal Secretariat for Economic Affairs."