The ten percent cut in the monthly stipend of the cardinals that Leo XIV repealed on September 14 saved the Holy See about 8,000 euros per year for each cardinal residing in Rome. The figure is published by Ed Condon on the portal The Pillar, in an analysis dated September 14, and places the measure approved by Francis in 2021 in its real dimension: a gesture of austerity with little accounting weight and high visibility, whose repeal has exactly the same two properties, inverted.
The arithmetic is simple. If the savings per cardinal are measured in thousands of euros and the structural deficit of the Curia is measured in tens of millions, the 2021 measure could never have been an instrument of financial recovery. Nor does its repeal appreciably worsen the accounts. What changes is the message.
Read also: Leo XIV repeals the salary containment measures approved by Francis in 2021
A structural deficit that remains in the tens of millions
The structural deficit of the Holy See fell from 83.5 million euros in 2023 to 44.4 million in 2024. The improvement is real, although it was not accompanied by a reduction in spending: operating costs went from 1,235.6 million to about 1,275 million, nearly 40 million more.
The Secretariat for the Economy attributed the reduction of the deficit to an increase of almost 79 million euros in revenues, driven by the growth of donations, hospital activity, and real estate and commercial management. The year also ended with a surplus of 1.6 million thanks to financial returns, one-off asset sales, and increased donations.
APSA: more assets, less operating result
What is also published and on record is the annual report of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See for 2025. Net assets rose from 2,597 million euros to 2,686 million: 89 million more. The breakdown explains where they come from: 40.8 million from the revaluation of physical gold in the portfolio, 39.2 million from the increase in the value of real estate, and 16.3 million from the positive valuation of financial assets. The gold was not sold and the buildings remain where they were. What changed was the price at which they are recorded on the balance sheet.
The decisive figure is in the other column. APSA’s operating result was 22.8 million euros in 2025, compared to 62.2 million in 2024. The agency transferred in full the 22.7 million requested for the operation of the Roman Curia and closed the year with a surplus of 155,000 euros. In other words: the nominal value of the portfolio rose by 89 million while the capacity to generate ordinary income fell to little more than a third of the previous year’s level.
Read also: APSA Report 2025: the net assets of the Holy See rise to 2,686 million euros
The president of APSA, Archbishop Giordano Piccinotti, explained in the presentation of the report that 2025 reflects the return to ordinary management after a 2024 conditioned by extraordinary operations linked to the reorganization of the financial portfolio, and that is why the two years are not directly comparable. The warning is pertinent and worth keeping in mind: the drop in the result does not by itself indicate a deterioration in management. It indicates that the previous year’s result was not repeatable.
The structural problem remains
There lies the underlying problem, and it is not accounting but structural. An asset that appreciates and yields less does not solve a structural deficit: it postpones it. The revaluations of gold and brick swell the balance sheet without contributing a single euro to the payment of Curia payrolls, which is what the deficit measures. As long as the price of gold holds, net assets will continue to grow on paper; the day it stops holding, the gap between recurring revenues and current expenditure will appear without the cosmetic touch-up.
Read also: Is the financial optimism the Vatican is selling realistic?
It remains to be seen whether the motu proprio published on September 14 is merely the restitution of some emoluments or the first move in a change of economic policy. Leo XIV signed it on September 1 and established that the repeal would take effect from that same day. The text also definitively safeguards the effects produced during the validity of the previous regulations, including the suspension of biennial increases for seniority. The Secretariat for the Economy has not published a projection of the impact that the restitution of remuneration will have on future years. Until that effect can be measured, the most visible change is one of narrative.