Another senior figure in Vatican finances told The Pillar that the lack of meaningful reform in Vatican finances in the last several years was “an opera that is both a comedy and tragedy.”
“There have been regulatory reforms, laws, norms, freezes on staff, redundancies, and salary cuts,” he said, “but these are little things. It is trying to empty the lake with coffee cups.”
In the course of its briefing notes and presentations to the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy’s working group made a number of detailed proposals for addressing both the pension fund shortfall and the wider Vatican financial crisis.
The 2015 documents highlighted especially “poor controls in real estate administration,” and found that “indicative market valuation – which was not available before – showed an aggregate market value which is 4 times as large as book value” for the Holy See’s property portfolio, which showed a “lack of any return-to-equity management.”
“Options and potential from the redevelopment of Santa Maria in Galeria,” a 1,000 acre site on the outskirts of Rome, were highlighted as a particular project.
According to the 2015 proposals, a decision on proposed site development options was due to be completed within 18 months, and development set to begin within 36 months.
“That was not the sort of plan identified for increasing revenue,” the official told The Pillar. “We had other ideas more directly focused on addressing the budget crisis, rather than the climate.”
Go here to read the rest. The besetting sins of too many clerics is love of money and complete folly, and worse, as to money management.
“In 2024, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had designated the 1,000 acre site for the erection of solar panels.”
Useless, worthless solar photovoltaics that don’t work at night, don’t work on cloudy days, don’t work at dawn and dusk, and have a less than 30% capacity factor even in the best of weather?
Why not a small modular reactor facility like GE-Verona’s BWRX-300, or NuScale’s VOYGR, or X-Energy’s Xe-100 that could be put into the same space? Even Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor would be better. Capacity factor would be greater than 92%, and power output an order of magnitude more than useless worthless shiny plates of silicone. In fact, the Vatican would be able to SELL excess electricity to Rome and thereby make up for its financial shortfalls.
Yeah, I know, I know! I am fantasizing again! This is all about environmentalist self-righteousness. Pharisees! The lot of them! May God Almighty depose and anathematize Jorge Mario Bergoglio and all his sycophants of idolatry and wickedness.
The Holy See should have a portfolio consisting of equities, bonds, commercial and municipal paper, precious metals, and cash. And that’s it. It should own no stakes in limited corporations or partnerships. It should own no real estate outside the Province of Rome; sacred architecture held outside the province should be transferred to local ordinaries and other holdings sold off. Employees posted to a locus should rent their residences and office space. In the Province of Rome, it should not hold any secular architecture or land bar what is operationally necessary (e.g. storage depots for equipment). Leave real estate development to real estate developers.
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You wish to cut expenses, stop traveling. IIRC, it wasn’t done prior to about 1966.
There was a lot of talk about “Finally! Fiscal reform! Cleaning up Vatican finances!” when Francis appointed the late Cardinal Pell, a man of universally acknowledged integrity, to clear up the Holy See’s murky books.
Unfortunately, it appears that His Eminence was hamstrung, undercut and obstructed at every turn. His appointment looks to have been a set-up, using the Cardinal’s solid reputation to make it look like the Vatican finally resolved to clean its financial Augean stables— and all the while making his task impossible and then blaming him for not getting the job done.
I suspect that the Vatican has a surfeit of prelates interested in little else beyond their status, their comfort, their perks and protecting their turf. There doesn’t seem to be much they won’t stoop to, and their true attitude towards ‘what sort of Church will we be handing over to the next generation’ looks to be ”Apres moi, le deluge”.
The fix was in when Pell got too close to the truth regarding where the money was going. They were orchestrating false historically abuse allegations with the Victorian Police because they didn’t realise how well he would do at the job. It’s the most obvious thing, even an idiot could see it.