Mismanagement: The State of the Vatican's Finances Is 'Shocking'
Meanwhile, the fund has continued to run a deficit, in line with the Holy See's broader financial crisis, raising serious doubts about the Vatican's ability to pay the pensions of lay and clerical employees," Badilla quotes The Pillar.
Last November, Pope Francis announced a major overhaul of the fund to achieve a "zero deficit". Meanwhile, the official information needed to know the truth is nowhere to be found.
The Secretariat for the Economy, which used to publish the annual budget, has not done so since 2022.
Despite the fact that ten years have passed since the first warning was issued, the necessary and urgent reforms or corrections have not been made.
The Vatican's financial authorities proposed measures to address the pension problem in 2015, but these were essentially ignored by Francis.
Badilla recalls Francis' letter of 19 November 2024 to the "College of Cardinals and to the Prefects and Heads of the Curial Institutions, of the Offices of the Roman Curia and of the Institutions attached to the Holy See" on the sustainability of the Vatican pension fund.
In this letter, Francis says nothing about what has been done to avoid such a serious imbalance.
He makes no mention of the many proposals made by Cardinal Pell in 2015 to correct the errors, inadequacies, waste and inefficiencies of the pension system. At the time, Pell was Secretary of the Secretariat for the Economy.
Pell used information provided by COSEA, the organisation for the economic and administrative structure of the Holy See, created by Francis in 2013.
COSEA had already reported that a funding gap of at least €700-800 million (based on 2013 interest rates) had been identified in the Holy See's pension and health care fund. It noted that it was expected to grow "to unsustainable levels", with per capita spending more than 50% higher than comparable Italian health funds.
"What are the benefits of reform if in 10 years the 'holes' are getting bigger?" - Badilla asks: "Why haven't Francis' economic reforms, "so praised and amplified, but so little known and explained", addressed the 'hole' in health and pensions over the last decade?
According to a source in the Secretariat for the Economy, an update of this figure would be "shocking".
In the case of the pension fund, the necessary funding has not been provided in recent years (2013-2025) and the necessary investments have not been made to cover the liabilities in a systematic and orderly way, with adequate governance.
Badilla's question: "Why has there been no intervention for a decade? The situation has only got worse".
Francis's "economic reforms" are famous and considered part of the "successes of Francis", but almost no one is able to explain them: "Everything is secret, difficult to understand, impossible to explain," writes Badilla.
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