Pope pledges to continue reforms

VATICAN CITY -- In his first public comments on the latest scandal rocking the Vatican, Pope Francis told followers in St. Peter's Square on Sunday the theft of documents describing financial malfeasance inside the Holy See was a "crime" but pledged to continue reforms of its administration.

The pope said publishing the documents in two books released last week "was a deplorable act that doesn't help."

The books, "Merchants in the Temple" by Gianluigi Nuzzi and "Avarice" by Emiliano Fittipaldi, detail mismanagement and alleged greed in the Vatican and are seen as part of an internal struggle between reformers and the old guard.

"This sad fact will certainly not divert me from the reform work that we are pursuing with my collaborators and with the support of all of you," the pope said to cheers from the crowd.

Among the disclosures in "Merchants in the Temple," Nuzzi writes the cost of sainthood can run up to half a million dollars and tells the tale of a monsignor who allegedly broke down the wall of his neighbor, an ailing priest, to expand his apartment.

Fittipaldi, meanwhile, claimed a children's hospital foundation had paid $215,000 toward the renovation of the apartment of the Vatican's No. 2 at the time, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and nearly 400,000 euros donated by parishioners worldwide to help the poor was funneled to pay for Vatican administration.

The pope underlined the leaked documents were the result of the reform course he began, and measures already had been taken to address problems, "with some visible results."

Pope Francis has made it a top priority to reform the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia, a hive of intrigue and gossip. He appointed a commission of eight experts in 2013 to gather information and make recommendations after an earlier expose helped drive his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to a historic resignation.

Two former members of that commission have been arrested as part of an investigation into the stolen documents.

Last week, the Vatican described the books as "fruit of a grave betrayal of the trust given by the pope, and, as far as the authors go, of an operation to take advantage of a gravely illicit act of handing over confidential documentation."

It added the publication did not help "in any way to establish clarity and truth, but rather generate confusion and partial and tendentious conclusions."