Pope Francis had been working his way through some of the Vatican’s financial documents. Francis has no accountancy training and a limited interest in studying balance sheets, but even he could see, in those first weeks after his election, that the books were not in good order.

“I am reminded of an elderly parish priest in Buenos Aires, a wise man who was very careful with money,” the first Latin American and Jesuit Pope told some of his collaborators afterwards. “He said, ‘If we don’t know how to look after money, which you can see, how can we look after the souls of the faithful, which you can’t see?’”