Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, made his remarks Oct. 18 at the world Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization.
The cardinal said that when investigating cases of apparent financial mismanagement within church bodies, "the presumption of good intentions and honesty ... must be applied, rather than the easy accusation of personal interests or power which denigrate the church."
Those who have mishandled the church's "temporal goods" should receive the "evangelical medicine of fraternal correction," the cardinal said.
"Before denouncing to the authorities, personal confrontation must be applied to give the possibility of reformation and repairing," Cardinal Versaldi said. "Transparency does not automatically mean the publicizing of evil which leads to scandal."
Speaking to a gathering dedicated to reviving Christian faith in secularized societies, the cardinal also said that the "church should better communicate" how it uses its material resources for evangelization and the common good.