Former Bank of Valletta chairman Joseph FX Zahra will be heading a commission Pope Francis set up to look into the Vatican’s finances.

The aim is to reform the Holy See’s administration and finances in a bid to move away from a series of scandals that emerged under the last Pope, Benedict XVI.

It will recommend ways to remedy shortcomings.

The Pope has ordered all departments to collaborate with the commission, which can examine any Vatican papers or digital documents, and bypass rules binding officials to secrecy.

Made up of seven international lay people and a monsignor, the commission would report directly to the Pope, advise him on economic affairs, improve transparency and ensure correct application of accounting principles, the Vatican said.

This means that it will be bypassing the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the chief administrative office that was hit by allegations of corruption.

This is the third commission Pope Francis set up since his election last March.

In April he named eight cardinals to help him govern and study an overall reform of the Vatican bureaucracy and another commission is investigating the scandal-plagued Vatican Bank, whose top two managers resigned amid a widening money-laundering probe by Italian magistrates. The Vatican’s bank and its internal administration had been hit by major scandals under Pope Benedict XVI.

The members of the commission presided by Mr Zahra include Mgr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu (France), Enrique Llano (Spain), Jochen Messemer (Germany), Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui (Italy), Jean Videlain-Sevestre (France) and George Yeo (Singapore). Mr Zahra and Dr Messemer are international reviewers of the Prefecture of Economic Affairs of the Holy See.

The commission’s first meeting is scheduled shortly after the Pope’s return from Brazil.