Pope Leo XIV has repealed the salary containment measures established by Francis in 2021 for the Holy See and the Vatican City State, adopted in a context marked by the deficit in Vatican accounts and the economic consequences of the pandemic.
The decision is set out in a new motu proprio, signed on 1 September and published this Monday, 14 September, by the Holy See. The repeal takes effect from 1 September and permanently maintains the economic effects produced while the measures were in force.
The measures approved by Francis in 2021
On 23 March 2021, Francis promulgated the motu proprio A Sustainable Future, which introduced several measures to contain personnel expenditure.
The document stated at the time that the economic and financial management of the Holy See had been in deficit for years and that the Covid-19 pandemic had worsened the problem by reducing revenues.
Among the measures adopted was, from 1 April 2021, a 10 % reduction in the remuneration paid by the Holy See to cardinals.
For those in salary grades C and C1, an 8 % reduction was established, while priests and members of institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life included in certain salary grades were subject to a 3 % reduction.
The provisions affected the Holy See, the Governatorato of Vatican City State and other bodies linked to it.
Leo XIV had already modified the measures in 2025
The regime established by Francis had already been partially modified during the current pontificate.
By means of a Rescriptum ex Audientia of 16 June 2025, Leo XIV repealed article 3 of A Sustainable Future.
The decision, which came into force on 1 July 2025, eliminated the 3 % cut affecting priests, religious brothers and sisters included in the categories provided for by that provision.
The decision published this Monday now completes the repeal of the regime established in 2021.
Leo XIV: the measures “can now be overcome”
In the new motu proprio, Leo XIV acknowledges the circumstances that led his predecessor to adopt the measures.
The Pope notes that they were also necessary to address the “exceptional challenge of the pandemic”, but considers that the situation now allows for the abandonment of that salary containment mechanism.
“They can now be overcome”, the Pontiff states, adding that the institutions of the Holy See and Vatican City State must continue “with different instruments” their commitment to ensuring economic sustainability.
The decision was taken after obtaining the opinion of the Secretariat for the Economy.
Previous effects will not be reversed
The repeal is not retroactive.
Leo XIV expressly states that all effects produced by A Sustainable Future during its period of validity remain definitively safeguarded.
The Pope specifically mentions the suspension of the generation of two-year seniority increments provided for in article 5 of Francis’s document.
That measure temporarily suspended the accumulation of those salary increments for various categories of workers.
The new motu proprio establishes that the effects produced by that suspension are “definitively acquired”. Therefore, the current repeal does not entail recovering the increments that ceased to be generated during the suspension period.
The Holy See will maintain the objective of economic sustainability
With this decision, Leo XIV does not eliminate the objective of containing the imbalance in Vatican accounts.
The new document establishes, instead, that this objective must be pursued through instruments other than the salary measures introduced in 2021.
The motu proprio takes effect from 1 September 2026, the date on which it was signed, and provides for its publication in L’Osservatore Romano and subsequently in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.