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from outside companies who would work with the Vatican was set up.
    At the request for documentation, many offices replied immediately, sending their papers and offering every possible collaboration. But not everyone complied. The most disappointing response came from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints: “The Congregation”—so read the seraphic response of the department led by Cardinal Amato—“has nothing to do with the management of postulators and is not in possession of the requested documentation.”
    No documents. No justification and bookkeeping for an activity involving tens of millions of euros, at least not in the possession of the Congregation. Yet these are huge sums of money for which Vatican regulations demand proper bookkeeping. To simply open a cause for beatification costs 50,000 euros, supplemented by the 15,000 euros in actual operating costs. This amount covers the rights of the Holy See and the hefty compensation of the expert theologians, physicians, and bishops who examine the cause. After adding the costs of the researchers’ time, the drafting of the candidate’s positio —a kind of résumé of all his or her works—and finally, the work of the postulator, the amount skyrockets. The average price tag comes to about 500,000 euros. We then have to consider the costs of all the thank-you gifts required for the prelates who are invited to festivities and celebrations held at crucial moments in the process, to say a few words about the acts and miracles of the future saint or blessed. Record spending on these causes has reached as high as 750,000 euros, such as the process that led to the beatification in 2007 of Antonio Rosmini.
    Under John Paul II the “saints’ factory” anointed 1,338 blesseds in 147 rites of beatification and 482 saints in 51 celebrations—astronomical figures that far surpass any previous levels in Church history. Numbers that had led Pope John Paul II, as far back as 1983, to order that the funds for these causes be managed by the postulators, who were assigned the “duty to keep regularly-updated ledgers on the capital, value, interests, and money in the coffers for every single cause.” 12 The postulators conduct a delegated activity that requires oversight. Apparently no one had ever bothered to check on them.

    The Commission Freezes the Bank Accounts
    Amato’s response from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was baffling. He was implicitly acknowledging that the financial activities involved in these causes were unregulated. The Commission’s reaction was swift and severe. On August 3, at the very first meeting, Zahra, after obtaining the Pope’s assent, made an unprecedented decision—he asked Versaldi to freeze all the bank accounts linked to the postulators and their cases at APSA and the IOR.
    It is clear that the activity of the postulators is not autonomous but rather “delegated” by a superior authority, to which they must report and be accountable. Since once “a cause has been transmitted to the Holy See the task of oversight is up to the holy Congregation,” and since the task of oversight is equivalent to that of a bishop in the diocesan phase of the cause, it is deemed necessary to evaluate in concert with this Prefecture the taking of possible precautionary measures, in order to enable the competent Congregation to do whatever is necessary to perform the task assigned to it. The following is hereby requested: to order, with immediate effect, the temporary freezing of the accounts of the postulators and of the individual causes at the IOR or APSA, whoever the account holder may be.
    Zahra also revealed the clue that set off the alarm, which concerns the poor. In fact, Vatican regulations provide that
    for every cause that is brought before the Holy Congregation, the postulators shall deposit a contribution to the Fund for the Causes of the Poor [a fund