Render Unto Rome by Jason Berry

any notions of jurisprudence from Anglo-Saxon systems,” Gullo explained. Despite the strict time limits for appellants, the Vatican congregations and courts could take as long as they wished.
    Borré conceived the Council of Parishes as an organization capable of expanding as financial convulsions hit other dioceses; this was neither perverse nor wishful thinking, rather a realization that the Boston crisis turned on Lennon, then O’Malley, shielding information on Law’s mismanagement of money and predators—a system corroded by protection rituals. Catholics deserved honesty on church finances. Parishioners in Scranton and Allentown, New Orleans and Cleveland, among two dozen dioceses, contacted Borré in hopes of halting parish closures. Nationally, the large majority of parishes closed without great protest, as many churches had too few members. But where protests arose, they shone a spotlight on how bishops managed money with little or no accountability. Borré prepared folders with plastic labels, comparative information on different dioceses, accounts of media coverage, and a how-to explanation on filing a canonical appeal to the Congregation for the Clergy if the bishop did not respond in thirty days, and how the process worked up to the Signatura.
    Borré was careful not to offend Carlo Gullo by going on a tear about the injustices of American prelates. For Gullo, the Vatican legal system was a business, the structure in which he practiced his profession.
    At home, Mary Beth was amused when her husband, putting down his Latin dictionary, began speaking in Italian. At least he wasn’t yelling at TV news or stewing in boredom like some men who retire with little self-knowledge. Despite her estrangement from the church, Mary Beth had once gone to a Bible study class with Rosie, telling herself, I am doing this because I love my mother . Peter’s journey into church officialdom engaged her intellectually; she liked his focus on the property dynamics. She felt for the people sleeping in pews.
    “Why am I doing all this?” Borré said aloud to his wife one day.
    “You’ve got parts of your skill set you’ve never used,” she replied.
    He rolled the idea over, wondering why it was so.

CHAPTER 10
    PROSECUTION AND SUPPRESSION

    For a second time, Richard Lennon assumed control of a diocese damaged by dishonest bishops, concealed sex offenders, and mismanaged money. Lennon’s mentor Cardinal Law had left financial craters, and although Archbishop Seán O’Malley was now himself a cardinal, Boston’s debt hole had grown steadily deeper. In Cleveland, Lennon found a different milieu. Despite the abuse scandal and overhanging financial questions, many people thought fondly of Pilla for his pastoral warmth and Church in the City agenda. Retired in his hometown, Bishop Pilla was still saying Masses as the FBI investigated Joe Smith, Anton Zgoznik, and the web of diocesan finances.
    Despite the agonizing inner-city poverty and issues of deferred maintenance in Lennon’s new diocese, Cleveland Catholic Charities had a budget of $92 million, nearly three times Boston’s. The programs afforded a bishop access to media photo ops and events to meet donors and politicians to establish his presence. Dick Lennon was an introvert. Although he made public appearances, he typically got to his desk before dawn, toiling some nights till eleven. His formal manner was often brusque; the thick Boston accent held few hints of joy. At a meeting for clergy dialogue he spoke for nearly three hours, leaving a brief window for priests’comments. Most priests had found Pilla warm and approachable. Lennon was cold, though he gave Cleveland his workaholic best.
    Lennon arrived as a virtuous counterweight to the sleazy, unfolding narrative about church finances. On August 16, 2006, a federal grand jury indicted Anton Zgoznik and Joseph Smith (who then resigned as CFO of the Columbus diocese) on an array of counts for money laundering, mail