Thursday 6 November 2008


When Blessed John XXIII was asked how many people work in the Vatican, his answer was: "About half." It seems that the present Holy Father wants to make that right. Biretta tip to the Catholic Herald for the following piece of useless information.
No more loafing at the Vatican as timecards return after 40 years
By Nick Pisa in Rome
7 November 2008
The Vatican is clamping down on work-shy priests and employees by introducing clocking-on cards.The tiny city state has given timecards to all employees from office clerks to heads of departments including priests. But bishops and cardinals will be exempt for now.The introduction of the timecards follows a clampdown across Italy by Renato Brunetta, Minister for Public Administration, against what are known as fannulloni, or loafers. For years civil servants in Italy have all too often put their feet up and read La Gazzetta dello Sport, nipped out to go shopping or spent some time with their lover while colleagues covered for them. The oldest ruse was leaving a jacket on the back of a chair and getting a colleague to tell the boss the missing employee had just "popped to the bathroom''. Vatican insiders say timecards would also be used as an "efficiency study" to clock the productivity of employees.They will also be used next year as a study on performance-related pay.Timecards were used until the Sixties but then abolished under Blessed Pope John XXIII because he considered them obsolete and "undignifying''.A Vatican source said: "On the whole they have been generally accepted but some of the older employees who were around in the Sixties when they were abolished have been complaining. Some even joked it was a typical Germanic attempt at efficiency. "But the idea has nothing to do with Pope Benedict although he would have been informed."The Vatican has a workforce of 2,748 which is made up of 1,637 lay people, 778 priests, 243 brothers and 90 nuns who are paid salaries.

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