Pope Francis changes the way saints are made in the Catholic Church

Pope Francis is cracking down on a little-known but controversial problem within the Vatican, the money associated with recognizing a person as a saint.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - Recognizing a person as a saint is actually an expensive process that takes a long time and a lot of effort. Before a person can be recognized, an exhaustive investigation must be launched into their life. Miracles must be researched, often by doctors and other experts, and cases need to be made.

Donors often become involved in the canonization process, bankrolling investigations to speed things along. This means popular individuals and candidates with wealthy devotees can be canonized much more quickly than a poor saint with a humble following.

All this is well  understood by Vatican insiders, but they also noticed an odd dependency. Leftover funds from well-funded candidates would be deposited into a fund to support work on less popular, poorer candidates. Yet no matter how much money would be put into a saint's case, there were never any leftovers.

Understanding why should be a simple process, except nobody has been keeping track of the financials. Without budgets and reports, and no financial statements, it becomes impossible to track what happens to money.

This was one of the points of contention critics have had with the Vatican, often insinuating corruption. Pope Francis appears inclined to agree, there should be accountability.

Pope Francis is not interested in presiding over a saint-making mill that produces money. Such an endeavor would be immensely corrupt. Instead, he wants to ensure the process is transparent and fair, and free of the influence of big money and corruption.

At the Pope's direction, several accounts at the Vatican have been frozen, pending investigation and the Pope has convened a fact-finding mission to determine how the Vatican's money is being spent. In the event abuse is found, there will be punishments.

Now, people involved in the saint-making process will be required to submit financial details and reports. And money that is left over will go into a new fund to finance the cases of poorer saints.

These reforms are the latest to come from the Papal investigation into the Vatican's finances and it's a welcome sight to observe the Pope himself working hard to ferret out corruption and abuse. If the Church does not have integrity, then who can be trusted?

Thank God for Pope Francis.