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With major deficits projected, Vatican says Holy See not at risk of default

May 13, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, May 13, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The new head of the Holy See’s financial office said Wednesday the Vatican is not at risk of fiscal default, even while reports in the Italian media indicate dire deficit projections for the Holy See.  

Speaking to Vatican Media May 13, Jesuit Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves said the Holy See is sure to see its deficit grow due to the coronavirus pandemic, but is not in danger of default.

“That doesn’t mean that we are not naming the crisis for what it is. We’re certainly facing difficult years,” the priest said.

In fact, the Vatican had been facing difficult financial prospects before the coronavirus pandemic. In 2018, the Holy See had a budget deficit of 70 million euros in its 300 million euro budget.

Part of the 2018 budget deficit is connected to the write-off of a controversial loan involving a bankrupt Italian hospital. But even apart from that expense, Vatican deficits had raised alarms among curial leaders and the pope’s cardinal advisers before the pandemic began a global economic crisis.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the ledgers indicated that income and expenses had remained “constant” from 2016 to 2020, Guerroro said, with expenses outpacing income by an average of 60 to 70 million euros annually, the priest said.

For the Holy See, the coronavirus crisis has meant the loss of revenue for the Vatican Museums, a major source of income for the Church’s curial work, along with collapsing market investments, uncertain income from real estate investments, and diminished contributions for the Church around the world.

On May 10, Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported on an internal Vatican report that projects income reduction of at least 30%, and possibly as much as 80%, in the next fiscal year. Those projections forecast substantial increases in the annual budget deficit of the Holy See.

Responding to the situation, Guerrero offered different numbers. The priest said of internal projections that “the most optimistic calculate a decrease in revenue of around 25%; the most pessimistic, around 45%.”

The priest did not explain the discrepancy between his numbers and those of the internal report, but he did tell Vatican News “the best we can do is to be diligent and transparent. We’ll depend on the money we can count on.”

“We’ll build a zero base budget for 2021, beginning with the essentials for mission,” he added.

Guerrero underscored that the Holy See “is not a business,” and its “objective is not to make a profit,” but to be mission-focused.

According to Guerrero, the Holy See’s operating budget is “less than the average American university.”

He also said that the ongoing budget deficit “has nothing to do with” “poor administration” or an “immobile bureaucracy.” The priest added that the Peter’s Pence collection is not used as a deficit stop-gap, but is instead a donation intended to finance the mission of the Holy See, including the pope’s charitable work.

Forty-five percent of the Holy See’s budget goes to payroll, but neither Il Messaggero nor Guerrero said directly that layoffs could be coming. Instead, the internal report cited by the Italian newspaper discussed training staff to be able to complete more tasks, and mentioned the need for a broad overhaul of the Holy See’s approach to personnel, which it said was unlikely to happen amid current circumstances.

Guerrero started his term as the Vatican’s finance minister in January, after Pope Francis made the appointment in November 2019, to fill the position left empty by Cardinal George Pell’s departure in summer 2017.

The priest explained the distribution of the Holy See’s expenses, stating that roughly 45% covers personnel, 45% general and administrative expenses, and 7.5% is donated.

“There is a goal behind these numbers,” the priest said. “Behind the balance sheet there is a mission, the service that these expenses make possible. Perhaps we need to better explain, tell the story better. We certainly need to be clearer.”

Some portions of the Holy See’s budget, 15%, or 48 million, is used to operate Vatican Media and the related communications and publishing operations, he said. Ten percent goes to the nunciatures, the Vatican’ embassies in foreign countries.

Another 10% goes to support the Eastern churches and another 8.5% to the mission churches, according to Guerrero.

He also said that 6% of the budget, roughly 17 million, is paid in taxes to Italy every year.

About the impact COVID-19 will have on the Holy See’s finances, Guerrero said their calculations estimate a decrease in income of 25 to 45%.

He said the Holy See intends to cut expenses this year to help make up for the likely smaller revenue, but “it is clear that the deficit will increase.”

“We have asked each Entity to do everything possible to reduce expenses while safeguarding the essential services of its specific mission. At a more structural level (since the deficit is structural), we will have to centralize financial investments, improve personnel management, improve procurement management. Guidelines for procurement are about to be approved which will certainly lead to savings. We are working in constant collaboration with all the dicasteries, combining centralisation with subsidiarity; autonomy with checks and balances; professionalism with vocation.”

The prefect said he hopes to release a budget sheet sometime this year to show that the Holy See spends its money “to do good, and in the service of the Church.”

“It deserves trust.”

“We are not a great power. You can talk about the difficulty of making it in the large European countries. Imagine us. We need to be humble. We are a family with a small patrimony and the generous help of many. We’ll make it with our ability to manage well, with the help of God and the faithful. The whole Church is sustained in this way.”

 

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Pope Francis: Christians can pray to the Father without fear

May 13, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, May 13, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Jesus has transformed the human experience of prayer, Pope Francis said at the general audience Wednesday.

Speaking via livestream due to the coronavirus crisis, the pope said May 13 that thanks to Jesus, Christians can approach God without fear, addressing him as “Father.”

“Christianity has banished from the bond with God any ‘feudal’ relationship. In the heritage of our faith there are no expressions such as subjection, slavery or vassalage; rather words such as covenant, friendship, promise, communion, closeness,” he said.

In his address from the library of the Apostolic Palace, the pope continued his cycle of catechesis on prayer, which he began last week. 

He noted that prayer is practiced by “people of every religion, and probably also to those who profess none.” It is born in what spiritual writers call “the heart,” our innermost being.

“To pray, then, in us is not something peripheral. It is not some secondary and marginal faculty of ours, but it is the most intimate mystery of ourselves. It is this mystery that prays,” he said.

Prayer, he continued, leads us beyond ourselves. It is the voice of an “I” searching for a “You”. 

He said: “The prayer of the Christian is born instead from a revelation: the ‘You’ has not remained shrouded in mystery, but has entered into a relationship with us. Christianity is the religion that continuously celebrates the ‘manifestation’ of God, that is, his epiphany.” 

He reflected on Jesus’ speech to his disciples at the Last Supper in which he addresses them as “friends,” saying: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (John 15:16).

The pope commented: “But this is a blank cheque: ‘Whatever you ask of my Father in my name, I give you’!” 

“God is the friend, the ally, the bridegroom. In prayer, one can establish a relationship of confidence with Him, so much so that in the ‘Our Father’ Jesus taught us to ask Him a series of questions,” he said. 

“We can ask God everything, everything; explain everything, tell everything. It does not matter if in our relationship with God we feel at fault: we are not good friends, we are not grateful children, we are not faithful spouses. He continues to love us.”

He noted that Jesus showed this definitively at the Last Supper when he said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you” (Luke 22:20). 

“In that gesture Jesus anticipates in the Upper Room the mystery of the Cross. God is a faithful ally: if men stop loving, He continues to love, even if love leads him to Calvary. God is always close to the door of our heart and waits for us to open it to him,” he said.

“And sometimes he knocks on the heart, but he is not intrusive: he waits. God’s patience with us is the patience of a father, of one who loves us so much. I’d say, it’s the patience of a father and a mother together. Always close to our heart, and when he knocks, he does it with tenderness and with a lot of love.” 

He concluded: “Let’s all try praying like this, entering into the mystery of the Covenant. To put ourselves in prayer in God’s merciful arms, to feel enveloped by that mystery of happiness which is the Trinitarian life, to feel like guests who did not deserve so much honor. And to repeat to God, in the amazement of prayer: is it possible that you know only love?” 

“He does not know hate. He is hated, but He does not know hate. He knows only love. This is the God we pray to. This is the incandescent core of all Christian prayer. The God of love, our Father who awaits and accompanies us.” 

In his greetings to different language groups after his catechesis, the pope noted that May 13 is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, as well as the anniversary of the attempted assassination of St. John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981. 

Addressing Polish Catholics, he said: “In our prayer we ask God, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for peace for the world, the end of the pandemic, the spirit of penance and our conversion.”

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