Some business schools use the Catholic Church’s system of governance as a case study on how organisations should be managed. This practice has nothing to do with faith or religion. It is just an interesting example of how different systems of management serve organisations to reach their objectives.

Non-profit organisations like the Catholic Church should, in theory, be guided by their mission in society. However, ultimately, these management systems are as effective as the people who are responsible for making them work.

Pope Francis made a very daring statement about corruption in 2015. This statement is as valid for the Catholic Church as it is for any organisation that relies on the trust of the public to achieve its objectives. The pope said: “A corrupt thing is a dirty thing, and a Christian who lets corruption grab him is not a Christian, he stinks.”

It is in this context that business students must approach the case study that involved the recent resignation of one of the most powerful cardinals of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu was forced to resign after a tense meeting with the pope left no doubt that he had lost the confidence of the pontiff.

The pope had for long suspected that Becciu was getting involved in financial mismanagement of the assets of the Vatican. Between 2011 and 2018 Becciu was deputy for General Affairs in the Vatican’s governance hierarchy. Pope Francis never liked the modus operandi of this high-ranking prelate who was the darling of speculators, brokers and financial promoters who benefitted from the misuse of Peter’s Pence – a fund financed by the hundreds of millions of euros of small charitable contributions made by the Catholic faithful.

But Pope Francis’s big mistake was that rather than kick Becciu out, in 2018 he ‘promoted’ him to the rank of cardinal and appointed him as Prefect for the Congregation of the Cause of Saints, thinking that by so doing he would be leading him out of temptation. It was in this role that Becciu allegedly committed financial mismanagement and money-laundering crimes.

Becciu used the charity fund to authorise a $200-million property investment in a large office building converted into luxury apartments in Sloane Square in Chelsea. The Vatican’s anti-fraud squad last year raided the offices of its own central administration office and seized documents linked to the London investment. Some staff who worked in Becciu’s secretariat were suspended. Becciu survived this purge as often happens when organisations have irrational reverential respect for suspected criminals in high places.

But criminal activities often have a habit of running out of control. Earlier this year, the Vatican arrested Gianluigi Terzi, a London-based businessman who acted as a middleman in the complex UK property deal. He was accused of “extortion, embezzlement, aggravated fraud and self-laundering”.

Becciu is also accused of financing the business operations of his brothers, including Mario Becciu, who owns and runs a boutique brewery that produces Birra Pollicina.

Becciu’s reactions on getting to know that the pope has lost confidence in him was typical of those who use their position of trust for their own and their family’s benefit. The cardinal told a press conference: “Yesterday until 6.02pm I felt like a friend of the pope, the pope’s faithful executor. Then the pope says that he no longer has confidence in me because he was told by the magistrates that I had committed acts of embezzlement. I have not made my family rich and I am ready to sue.”

Denial of any wrongdoing followed by threats to sue those who remove the lid from the pot of corrupt behaviour are the first two stages followed by those who are caught with their hands in the till. Conspiracy theories soon follow these stages.

In the press conference just after his resignation Becciu hinted that he fears that the pope has been “manipulated” and that he hopes that eventually the truth will prevail and the revelation of all the facts will clear him from all wrongdoing.

Pope Francis may have reacted too slowly in the initial stages of this scandal. But his moral authority is undoubted. He called for an iron fist against the corrupt and the corrupters.

Leaders of all organisations will do well to heed the pope’s advice on good governance when he said: “I want clarity on every aspect of alleged crimes, the recovery of the money for the poor, the prison for those who committed mistakes.”

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com

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