Pope Francis on Monday opened the most critical week of his year-old papacy: Two commissions of inquiry on Vatican finance are reporting their recommendations for reform, and preparations get underway for a summit on family issues that will deal with the widespread rejection by Catholics of church teaching on contraception, divorce and gay unions.

In between, Francis will preside over his first ceremony to formally welcome 19 new cardinals into the elite club of churchmen who will eventually elect his successor. In typical Francis style, the new cardinals hail from some of the poorest places on earth, including Haiti, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

The first half of Francis’ busy week is devoted to the third meeting of his “Group of Eight” advisers, the senior cardinals representing every continent appointed to help govern the church and overhaul antiquated and inefficient Vatican bureaucracy.

On Monday, the group, the pope and his top deputy heard recommendations from a panel of experts on reforming the Holy See’s overall financial and administrative structures. On Tuesday, they heard from the commission of inquiry studying how to fix the troubled Vatican bank.

Francis was elected with a mandate to reform the Roman Curia, as the Holy See administration is known, to make it more responsive to the needs of the 21st-century Catholic Church. Francis has said he wants  the curia to help.

The pope has placed particular priority on overhauling the scandal-marred Vatican bank, long criticized by Italian authorities as an off-shore tax haven for well-connected Italians and, more recently, a place where money could be laundered.

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