Can Pope Leo plug the black hole in the Vatican’s finances?

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost addresses the crowd

(Image credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)

“Habemus papam” – we have a pope – as the official Latin declaration goes. And “consistent with the Roman Catholic Church’s recent penchant for political surprises”, says Bloomberg, he is the first ever American to preside over the Holy See.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, is a sports-loving Chicagoan turned Augustinian missionary who served for many years in Peru. He is now pastor of a global flock numbering nearly 1.4 billion, not to mention head of a multinational business striving to shrug off centuries of opaque dealings and scandal, and plug a worrying black hole in its pension fund.

Although it is still early days, Pope Leo is widely regarded as a progressive in the mode of his predecessor, Francis I, who brought him to Rome and appointed him as a cardinal. In a possible nod to Trumpish bullying, the new pope marked his first press conference with a call to end “loud, forceful communication” and listen to “the voices of the weak”. Previously critical of the administration’s anti-immigration narrative, his appointment has met with a backlash from the MAGA faithful.

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The new pope certainly knows the territory, says The Telegraph. His brother, Louis, who lives in Florida, is an ardent Trump supporter. Another brother, John, is a retired schoolmaster who lives in Chicago. The three brothers grew up in Doulton, just south of Chicago, into “a family of Italian, French and Spanish origins”, says The Times. Young Robert sang in the church choir and served as altar boy – aspiring to the priesthood from a young age. After studying for a degree in maths in Philadelphia, he joined the Order of St Augustine in 1977 – eventually rising to become prior general of the worldwide order. “A quiet man and a good listener”, during his time as a missionary in Peru, he also gained “a reputation for… efficiency”.

Pope Leo will certainly need to deploy all his talents to tackle the Vatican’s finances, says Fortune. The late pope “worked a near miracle” in his efforts to bring “transparency, competence and integrity to perhaps the most notoriously byzantine corner of the financial world”. Francis pushed for “deep cuts” to tackle the Holy See’s troubled finances – the Vatican budget, perpetually in deficit, had an annual operating deficit of more than $90 million in 2023. But there is still a long way to go.

The situation hasn’t been helped by a series of alleged embezzlement scandals – recalling the bad old days of the early 1980s when financier Roberto Calvi “scammed” the Vatican Bank, then run by “the Gorilla” Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, and was later found hanging under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. In the latest debacle, the Vatican lost about £100 million after an enterprising cardinal overspent on a Knightsbridge property development. Other “unlikely” investments include funding the Elton John biopic Rocketman.

The Vatican's finances: a deep mystery

Despite attempts to improve , transparency, the Vatican’s finances remain “somewhat of a mystery”, says Investopedia. There’s little doubt that the Church – which has a huge international property portfolio as well as investments in stocks and bonds – “has significant reserves”, aided by a huge annual influx of donations. But it also has big, unfunded pension obligations. In short, “it’s nearly impossible to gauge the financial health of the Holy See”.

The issue of funding is what makes the new Pope’s nationality, and apparent political leanings, so intriguing, says former Catholic Herald editor, William Cash, in The Times. At a time when the Church is “bitterly divided and facing deep financial woes”, conservative American Catholics with deep wallets are jostling for influence. “This room could raise a billion to help the church,” one VIP at a recent fundraising said. “So long as we have the right pope…” Over to you, Your Holiness.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.