Before he was hospitalized for double pneumonia, Pope Francis was battling firm resistance from some of his own cardinals about how to plug a widening gap in the Vatican’s finances.
Three days before his hospitalization, Francis ordered the creation of a new high-level commission to encourage donations to the headquarters of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church.
The new “Commission on Donations for the Holy See”, announced by the Vatican on Wednesday as Francis was spending his 13th day in hospital, was formed after the pope faced push back against his proposals for Vatican budget cuts from within the Roman Curia.
In a closed-door meeting late last year, Vatican department chiefs, including senior cardinals, argued against cuts and against the Argentine pope’s desire to seek outside funding to fix the deficit, two officials told Reuters.
The officials asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the information.
Francis, known to work himself to exhaustion, has continued leading the Vatican from hospital, as staff appointments requiring his approval are announced daily.
He has been seeking to patch up the budget for several years. He has cut cardinals’ salaries three times since 2021 and demanded a “zero deficit” agenda in September.
But his efforts appear to have had little impact.
Although the Vatican hasn’t published a full budget report since 2022, the last set of accounts, approved in mid-2024, included an 83-million-euro ($87 million) shortfall, the two sources said.
Reuters was not able to verify the deficit figure independently.
While the Vatican has operated with a deficit for years by rebalancing accounts and drawing on the dividends from its investment income, the gap has grown significantly in recent years. In 2022, the gap reported by the Vatican was 33 million euros.
Two cardinals who oversee the Vatican’s budget declined Reuters’ requests for interviews and did not provide current budget information. The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.
GROWING PENSION WOES
Adding to the budget concerns are growing liabilities within the Vatican’s pension fund, which were estimated to total some 631 million euros by the Vatican’s finance czar in a 2022 media interview.
There has been no official update to this figure, but several insiders told Reuters they believe it has ballooned.
“The budget problems are going to force the Vatican to do a lot of things it doesn’t want to do,” said Rev. Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest and commentator who has written about the Vatican’s finances.
The Vatican may have to limit its charitable works or down-size its diplomatic presence at embassies across the world, he said.
“The footprint of the pope could be severely reduced,” said Reese. “If you can’t pay your bills, you can’t do much.”
Reuters could not determine the precise reasons behind the Vatican’s growing budget shortfall. The Vatican suffered a substantial loss of tourist income during the Covid pandemic. And in October, the pope also said there would have to be cuts to the at-least 40 million euro budget for the Vatican’s extensive multi-language media operations.
