Vatican Museums staff challenge the pope with a legal bid for better terms and treatment

ROME (AP) — Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits in an unusual, public challenge to Pope Francis’ governance.

The complaint, dated April 23 and made public this weekend in Italian newspapers, also alleged that staff faced health and security risks due to cost-saving and apparent profit-generating initiatives at the museum, including overcrowding and reduced security guards to keep tourists at bay.

Neither the Vatican spokesman nor Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the president of the Vatican City State administration which controls the museums, responded to an email seeking comment.

The complaint is the latest legal challenge to underscore how the Vatican’s laws, regulations and practices are often incompatible with Italian and European norms. Recently, civil and criminal cases have exposed how Vatican employees, especially lay Italian citizens, have little or no legal recourse beyond the peculiar justice system of the city state, an absolute monarchy where Francis wields supreme executive, legislative and judicial power.