Archbishop Paglia’s Fancy Apartment

I’ve been in Rome this week, and am hearing that in what are likely the waning days of the Francis papacy, a lot of Church people, both on the Catholic left and Catholic right, are fed up with the chaos of this pope’s administration. Just now, The Pillar has a really important story about how Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, one of Pope Francis’s top appointments, allegedly spent a pile of money meant for missionaries and for the poor to renovate his Rome apartment. Excerpt:

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia diverted hundreds of thousands of euros allocated to support missionary and charitable works while he served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Paglia used much of the money to finance building projects in Rome, including the renovation of his personal apartment, The Pillar has learned.

According to multiple independent sources with knowledge of the events, Archbishop Paglia confirmed in a 2015 memo to Holy See financial officials that hundreds of thousands of euros had been paid to an Italian construction contractor instead of going to missionary and charitable projects to support poor families and orphans.

While Paglia claimed to have repaid some of the money diverted from charitable funds, sources say that he did so with other donations to the pontifical council, and not with money specifically provided for restitution.

The archbishop, currently president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, led the Pontifical Council for the Family from 2012 until 2016, when Pope Francis merged the council into the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.

You might know Paglia’s name from the 2017 scandal over a homoerotic fresco he commissioned for his former cathedral. I wrote about it here. Paglia reportedly chose the gay artist personally, and oversaw all aspects of his work. The artist included Paglia in the painting (he’s wearing the red skullcap):

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