Vatican backstabbing: shades of Renaissance Italy . . .

Pope Francis’s man for this season of cleaning up the financial stables is the target. He’s Cardinal George Pell of Australia, who has stirred up the hornets by a variety of actions:

For one thing, Pell clearly hasn’t been intimidated by lower-intensity pushback. On Monday, his Secretariat for the Economy released a set of procedures for closing the books on 2014, which among other things require every department head in the Vatican, for the first time, to sign a legally binding declaration that their reports are complete and correct.

The procedures also stipulate that external assets of a Vatican department have to be certified by the banks or other financial institutions that hold those assets, a classic expression of “trust but verify.”

For Pell, a day of reckoning approaches:

Pope Francis also returned on Friday from a week-long annual Lenten retreat, and sometime soon he’s expected to issue a new legal framework for Pell’s department and other financial oversight bodies he’s created.

The effect will be either to rein Pell in, as his critics hope, or to turn him loose.

While the catfight may continue for a while longer, a make-or-break moment is approaching. Sometime by mid-year, the Secretariat for the Economy will release its first-ever consolidated financial statement covering the Vatican’s fiscal year in 2014.

Which is when the stuff hits the fan. Stay tuned.