The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Tracy Cabrera
VATICAN CITY, Rome — It’s not only the Philippines which has been shaken by greed and corruption connected with the flood control scandal, even the Catholic Church has been struggling from financial losses wrought by mismanagement and irregularities.
Pope Francis tried to stem the widening gap in Vatican’s dwindling finances and during his final illness before his death, he instituted the ‘Commission on Donations for the Holy See’ in February (the current year) to encourage Vatican donations andsomehow assuage the hemorrhage.
But, Francis’ successor, American Leo XIV has dissolved the high-level Catholic commission, rolling back one of the late Argentine pontiff’s final decisions.
Comprised of five Italian Church officials, the group aimed to encourage contributions from lay Catholics and other benefactors, though some insiders questioned their fundraising expertise.
Leo’s decree, dissolving the Commission, offered no specific reasons for the dissolution. He merely directed that all collected funds be given to the Vatican’s general accounting office, saying that a new work group would consider a future fundraising commission.
The Vatican reported its first budget surplus in November after years of deficits that had long-frustrated Church leaders.
Francis, who died in April, had long struggled to get the Vatican’s budget under control. He battled firm resistance from his own cardinals in his last months as he sought to plug the gap in the Vatican’s finances and slashed cardinals’ salaries three times between 2021 and 2024.
Adding to the budget concerns are growing liabilities within the Vatican’s pension fund, which were estimated to total some €631 million by the Vatican’s finance czar. There has been no official update to this figure, but several insiders said that they believe it has ballooned.
According to Reverend Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator who has written about the Vatican’s finances, “the (Holy See’s) budget problems are going to force the Vatican to do a lot of things it doesn’t want to do,” which could include limiting its charitable works or downsizing its diplomatic presence at embassies across the world.
Reese likewise mentioned that the Vatican suffered a substantial loss of tourist income during the Covid pandemic, prompting cuts to the at-least €40 million budget for the Vatican’s extensive multi-language media operations from October 2024.