The Vatican has been struggling with dwindling finances for years. Before Pope Francis was hospitalized on February 14 due to a double lung infection, he had been fighting against the resistance of some of his cardinals over how to close the growing financial gap of the Vatican, according to a report by Reuters on Thursday.
On February 11, three days before his hospitalization, the Pontiff established a new commission to promote donations to the Catholic Church, which has approximately 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, according to official figures.
The new commission for donations to the Holy See was created after the Pope encountered resistance within the Roman Curia to his proposals for budget cuts. At a closed-door meeting at the end of last year, some cardinals, including high-ranking ones, had spoken out against cuts and the Pope’s desire to seek external funding to cover the budget deficit, according to two Vatican officials cited by Reuters.
Since several years, Francis has been trying to reduce the Vatican’s budget deficit. Since 2021, he has cut the salaries of cardinals three times and in September, he had demanded a zero-deficit in the Church. The budget deficit in the previous year was 83 million euros, according to Reuters.
Besides the budget deficit, the Pope is also facing the growing liabilities of the Vatican’s pension fund, which was estimated to be around 631 million euros in 2022, although there has been no official update. Several people familiar with the matter told Reuters that they believed the figure had been inflated.
The Vatican may need to reduce its charitable work or its diplomatic presence in its embassies around the world, said Father Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest who has written about the Vatican’s finances, in an interview with the agency.
At the recent meeting, where the budget problems were discussed, the Pope had suggested that the Vatican’s offices could seek external financial resources to balance their expenses, as several people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Wealthy Catholic foundations in the US and Europe, which are normally independent, could be a good source of income, some of these people said.
The new commission is tasked with “specifically promoting donations from the faithful, bishops’ conferences and other potential donors, as these are important for the mission and charitable work of the Apostolic See” according to the Vatican News portal, citing the Pope’s document establishing the commission.
The Vatican has three main sources of income. The official fund of the Pope receives donations and the Vatican also has an investment portfolio, which includes stocks and more than 5,000 properties, most of them in Italy. The third source is the revenue from the entrance fees for the Vatican Museums.
This year, the Catholic Church is celebrating the Holy Year, also known as the Jubilee, which takes place every 25 years. The Vatican is expecting a record number of tourists, with around 32 million visitors expected. Many of them will pay at least 20 euros for the entrance to the museums, “which will definitely pour a lot of money into the Vatican’s coffers” explained John Pollard, a British historian who has written about the Vatican’s finances, in an interview with Reuters.
However, only a part of these revenues will contribute to closing the budget deficit, as the museums also need to pay for their own staff and the costs of conservation and restoration work, the agency reported.
The 88-year-old Francis might consider selling a part of the Vatican’s investment portfolio to cover the deficit, said Jesuit Father Tom Reese. Such a sale would bring immediate income, but would reduce future investment gains. “That just postpones the problem to a future pope” Reese said.