Pope creates new commission to help cash-strapped Vatican

Pope Francis has established a commission aimed at boosting donations to the Vatican as it faces a crippling deficit, including a looming crisis in its pension system. The composition of the commission’s membership, and the way it will work, means that prominent female religious figures in the Vatican will play a signifiant role.

The Pope has previously lauded the role of women and the contributions they can make in the Catholic Church, despite being unable to be ordained, and has made a point during his papacy of appointing more women to leadership roles in the Vatican.

Similar to the Pope’s recently released Lenten message that was penned before his admission to Gemelli Hospital, in a papal chirograph dated 11 February – three days prior to his being hospitalised – but issued on 26 February, the Pope has established the Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede, a new commission aimed at promoting financial donations to the Vatican and the Roman Curia.

Led by Monsignor Roberto Campisi, Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, the commission’s main task is to promote fundraising campaigns among the Catholic faithful, bishops’ conferences and other potential benefactors around the world.

Its emphasis is on providing financial assistance to the church’s missionary and charitable work. To this end, the commission, composed of five members (with a maximum of six), will seek to court willing donors for specific projects that are proposed to them by the institutions of the Roman Curia and the Governorate of Vatican City.

The chirograph also stipulates that the commission, while proposing specific projects of the Curia and Governorate, will respect both the independence and responsibility of each curial body in accord with existing regulations.

As of 1 March, the Governorate will be led by Italian Sister Raffaella Petrini, who will take over from Spanish Cardinal Fernando Vergéz Alzaga, and whose new role makes her the most powerful woman in the Vatican.

Other members of the commission include Archbishop Flavio Pace, Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; Sister Alessandra Smerilli, an economist and Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Sister Silvana Piro, Undersecretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See; and Italian lawyer Giuseppe Puglisi-Alibrandi, Deputy Secretary General of the Governorate of Vatican City.

RELATED: Pope lauds role and need for women in top Vatican jobs

There are open rumours that Smerilli will soon succeed Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny as head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development, making her another woman tapped by the Pope to lead a Vatican department.

As part of their work, the commission will also serve as a coordinating body both for other formal and informal fundraising initiatives, such as the contributions made through the annual Peter’s Pence collection and those given under Canon 1271, which are the annual contributions made to the Vatican by national bishops’ conferences around the world.

Canon 1271 stipulates: “by reason of the bond of unity and charity and according to the resources of their dioceses, bishops are to assist in procuring those means which the Apostolic See needs, according to the conditions of the times, so that it is able to offer service properly to the universal Church.”

The chirograph states that the commission will coordinate the procurement of these funds while ensuring the specific intention and character of each, a provision likely made in a bid to ensure the funds are allocated to the purposes for which they are given.

This is an especially relevant provision given the fact that in the Vatican’s recent mega-trial over financial crimes related to a shady real estate deal in London, it lost some 200 million euros ($209 million). The trial followed suspect deals struck with dubious Italian financiers, in which money from the Vatican’s Peter’s Pence fund, an annual parish collection taken up to support the works of the Pope and pitched as supporting works of charity, was used to procure a high-priced property in a swanky London neighbourhood that then resulted in significant losses for the Vatican.

When it was discovered that money from the Peter’s Pence fund had not, in fact, gone to support charitable works and missionary endeavours in the Church, but had instead been used in misguided Vatican investments, there was a broad outcry followed by a drop in donations to the annual fund.

The Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede, then, will have the task of fundraising and driving new donations amid fresh mistrust of the Vatican at the financial level, and as the Holy See itself faces a glaring deficit and a swelling crisis over its practically non-existent pension fund, meaning that, in the short term, it will not be able to meet pension obligations for its retiring workforce.

The commission is tasked with annually outlining the various fundraising and awareness campaigns to be launched, and with defining its scope and strategy. It will also oversee the planning and implementation of these initiatives and can also delegate specific tasks to individual members.

As part of its mandate, the commission will also identify and evaluate projects that require financial support, and outline finding priorities. If no projects are submitted by Vatican institutions, the commission will have the ability to reserve funds to be allocated to future initiatives. Members of the commission will have three months to finalise a plan of implementation for any suggested strategy and course of action.

Pope Francis has made several moves in recent years to tackle the Vatican’s deficit, including pay cuts for cardinals and top-ranking curial officials, and a hiring freeze as part of his attempted overhaul of Vatican finances and his bid to help the Holy See recover from significant losses in recent years.

In September 2024, he penned a letter to cardinals asking them to tighten their belts in a bid to help the Vatican seek new resources and exhibit an ethos of generosity, all towards the goal of a “zero deficit” in its annual budget. But critics says these moves have been applied with inconsistency.

RELATED: Pope tells cardinals to tighten belts as Vatican struggles to sort its finances

Photo: Religious Sisters visit St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Vatican City State, 18 February 2025. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images.)

The post Pope creates new commission to help cash-strapped Vatican first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Pope creates new commission to help cash-strapped Vatican appeared first on Catholic Herald.