Pope Francis created a commission for promoting donations to the Holy See shortly before his hospitalization, the Vatican announced Wednesday.
The Holy See press office released Feb. 26 a chirograph signed by the pope founding the Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede, or Commission of Donations for the Holy See.
The pope signed the document Feb. 11, three days before he was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he remains in a critical condition following a diagnosis of pneumonia in both lungs.
The Holy See, the legal person of the Catholic Church’s central government, encompassing both the Roman curia and the operations of the Vatican City State, is facing a budget black hole, with its expenses believed to exceed its income by tens of millions of dollars annually.
Pope Francis announced in November a sweeping overhaul of the Vatican’s pension fund with the overall goal of achieving “zero deficit.”
In a preface to the donation commission’s statutes, the pope said he had decided to establish the new body “to support the service of the Apostolic See and in view of the current economic situation.” He noted that it would be a permanent institution “dedicated to the collection of donations and offerings for the Apostolic See.”
He said its “specific task” would be to “encourage donations with special campaigns among the faithful, bishops’ conferences, and other potential benefactors, emphasizing their importance for the mission and for the charitable works of the Apostolic See.”
He added that the commission would also raise funds from donors “for specific projects presented by the institutions of the Roman Curia and the Governorate of Vatican City State, without prejudice to the autonomy and competencies of each institution.”
The statutes, which the pope approved on an experimental basis for three years, said the commission would coordinate other fundraising mechanisms, including the annual Peter’s Pence collection, “while respecting the nature and purpose of the individual institutes.”
The donations commission will have a maximum of six members and be led by a president serving a five-year term.
The commission, which will meet at least four times a year, will inform the pope about its activities every six months. It has three months from the chirograph’s publication to issue implementing regulations.
According to the statutes, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) and the Governorate of Vatican City State will provide the commission with an initial endowment of 300,000 euros (around $314,000).
Vatican News reported that the commission currently has five members: its president Msgr. Roberto Campisi, the Secretariat of State’s assessor for general affairs; Archbishop Flavio Pace, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Sr. Silvana Piro, undersecretary of APSA; and the lawyer Giuseppe Puglisi-Alibrandi, one of two newly appointed secretaries-general of the Governorate of Vatican City State.
The major current mechanism by which the Holy See receives donations for its work is via Peter’s Pence, the annual collection to support the pope’s work, which reported an uptick in donations for 2023, but allocated nearly 90% of revenue to Vatican operating expenses.
Although voluntary donations climbed after 2022, total revenue to Peter’s Pence in 2023 nearly halved, after the fund disposed of millions of euros in real estate assets to help cover the operations of the Roman curia the previous year.
It is unclear what percentage of the annual Vatican operational budget was made up by the 90 million euros (about $95 million) it received from Peter’s Pence. The Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy formerly published an annual mission budget presentation, but has not done so since 2022.
According to the last published budget report, curial operations in 2022 were due to cost 796 million euros per year (roughly $836 million), with a forecast operating loss of 33.4 million euros ($35 million) after expected donations from sources including Peter’s Pence.
In October 2023, the secretariat’s prefect, Maximino Caballero Ledo, gave an indication of the scale of the Vatican’s financial “crisis” when he said that the Holy See had a structural budget deficit of “between 50 and 60 million euros a year,” despite years of cost-cutting measures implemented by the Holy See and a curia-wide hiring freeze.
