ABSTRACT

The economic-financial regime recently adopted in the Vatican City State makes a constant reference to the transparency criterion, which is harmonized with the needs of secrecy.

In the Church, attributing absolute value to transparency would mean damaging individual intimacy and threatening the human dignity, giving rise to countless forms of injustice. 

This option responds to the peculiar ontological, foundational and finalistic view of transparent operating, consistently with the legal realism inspiring canon law, marking its distinguishing feature with secular systems.

Transparency criterion, thus, takes on the characteristics of a prudential working method, a modus operandi, a referential qualitative paradigm (ex can. 1287 §  2 CIC) capable of inspiring the entire financial management, but also capable of transforming the technically understood managerial responsibility (accountability), into a deeper mystery of communion.