PopeWatch: See No Evil

With a curious appointment this week, Pope Francis has shown how much he trusts an American prelate who is now one of the most powerful men at the Vatican. What was that appointment—which to date has escaped public notice? And why has the Pontiff placed so much confidence, and so much power, in Cardinal Kevin Farrell?

Yesterday the Pope announced that the Vatican’s underfunded pension account, long a source of concern, had become an urgent problem that “can no longer be postponed.” So he named Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, as the sole administrator of the pension fund, with authority to take the steps necessary to correct a “serious prospective imbalance.”

In his announcement the Pope indicated that experts had already studied the problems, so presumably the professional money-managers have made their recommendations. Inevitably those steps will be painful: cutting benefits somewhere and/or raising levies somewhere else. Now Cardinal Farrell has the mandate to carry out the plan, along with the authority, as sole administrator, to tailor it to fit the particular circumstances.

Knowledge is power

Cardinal Farrell already has had considerable clout in the Vatican’s financial affairs. As CWN reported yesterday:

In 2019 the Pontiff appointed him as the camerlengo, the official who supervises the material goods of the Holy See during a papal interregnum. In 2020 he was named president of the Pontifical Commission on Confidential Matters, and in 2022 he became the president of the Pontifical Commission on Investments.

Vatican secrets, Vatican investments, Vatican finances: whenever the discussion turns to these matters—with their obvious potential for corruption—one now finds Cardinal Farrell at the head of the table.

Why has Pope Francis chosen to concentrate so much authority in the hands of this one prelate? Does the Pontiff view him as a potential successor to Peter’s Throne? Not likely; Cardinal Farrell is already 77 years old. (Of course then-Cardinal Bergoglio had just turned 76 when the conclave opened in 2013.) However there is no doubt that when the next conclave comes, Cardinal Farrell will play an important role in the drama. Between now and then the Pope’s trusted “fixer” will have many opportunities to do favors for his colleagues. Still more important, as JD Flynn text wrote in 2020—two key appointments ago: “Information is currency in Rome, and Cardinal Farrell’s new position makes him uniquely informed, and therefore among the most powerful figures in Vatican leadership.”

Let’s look at the question from a different perspective. What sort of man would you choose to confidential financial affairs, if you knew that a misstep could cause not just a serious loss but a major scandal? Ideally you would want someone loyal, discreet, street-smart, a good judge of character, a sound grasp of finance, a proven ability to spot phonies, and—did I mention discretion? With those qualifications in mind, let’s take another look at the clerical career of Cardinal Farrell.

He was ‘shocked’

Again I will quote from our CWN news report:

Born in Ireland, the future cardinal was ordained as a priest of the Legionaires of Christ in 1978. In 1984 he left the Legionaires to become a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, where he rose to become vicar general, serving under then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. He was named Bishop of Dallas in 2007, then appointed to his current post in the Roman Curia by Pope Francis in 2016, and raised to the College of Cardinals soon thereafter.

Two factors stand out in that thumbnail resume: The future cardinal was a prominent member of a religious order marked by a serious scandal. Then he became the right-hand man of a prelate who provoked an even graver scandal. It is curious, isn’t it, that he now holds multiple posts at the Vatican that could provide grist for scandal-mongers?

Father Farrell’s departure from the Legionaries of Christ was explained as a consequence of “philosophical differences.” Although he was a prominent member of the group, there is no evidence that he had been aware that its founder, the late Marcial Maciel, was raking off funds to support a double life, subsidizing his mistresses and illegitimate children. Apparently he—like many others—failed to see any hints of impropriety.

Then he moved to Washington and became a close aide to then-Cardinal McCarrick. In 2018, when the truth about McCarrick’s serial abuses finally became public, now-Cardinal Farrell—who had lived in the same household as McCarrick—announced that he was “shocked” by the revelations, even though stories about McCarrick’s beach-house escapades had circulated widely for the ecclesiastical rumor-mill for more than twenty years. Again there is no evidence that Cardinal Farrell did have solid evidence of McCarrick’s abuse. But this time it would have been more remarkable that he failed to pick up on the clues. As Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote in National Review at the time: “What a life! To have been twice put in the best place to know that, at that level, ‘everyone knows,’ and yet to have known nothing.”

Go here to read the rest.  Plausible deniability as to awareness of ongoing evil seems to the pathway to advancement in the current Vatican.  Oh, and being on Team Francis of course.