Pope Francis urges support for Hurricane Fiona victims

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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The tomb of José Gregorio Hernández in the Church of Our Lady of Candelaria in Caracas, Venezuela. / Guillermo Ramos Flamerich via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Vatican City, Apr 30, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis sent a video message for the b… […]

Vatican City, Aug 28, 2017 / 02:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday the Vatican confirmed rumors that have been swirling the past few weeks about a papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, announcing that Pope Francis will visit the two Asian countries Nov. 27-Dec. 2.

“Welcoming the invitation of the respective heads of state and bishops, His Holiness Pope Francis will make an apostolic visit to Myanmar from 27 to 30 November 2017, visiting the cities of Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw,” an Aug. 28 statement from Vatican spokesman Greg Burke read.

The communique also noted that after Myanmar, the Pope will head to Bangladesh “from 30 November to 2 December 2017, visiting the city of Dhaka.” The logo for the trip was also published, however, the schedule is expected to be released shortly.

The Pope has been talking about a visit to Asia for several months, however, until now nothing had been confirmed. Still, he managed to slip the visit in just before Christmas. It also falls just two months before a second tour of South America, which will take him to Peru and Chile in January 2018.

The Pope has been talking about a visit to Asia for several months, however, until now nothing had been confirmed. Still, he managed to slip the visit in just before Christmas. It also falls just TWO MONTHS before a second tour of South America, which will take him to Peru and Chile in January 2018.

Though India was initially part of the plan for this year’s Asia trip, a visit to the country had to be cut due to complications with the country’s government.

Despite hopes from all sides, it’s taken longer than anticipated to work out some of the details with the government of Prime Minister Narhendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist seen by many as hostile to India’s Christian minority.

Francis’ decision to visit Bangladesh and Myanmar, however, is not only a shining example of his attention to the peripheries, but it also speaks of the great attention he has placed on Asia since his election.

His second trip as Pope was a visit to South Korea in August 2014, made in part to celebrate Asian Youth Day, and just five months later, in January 2015, he traveled to Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

The upcoming visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, then, will mark his third tour of Asia so far in his four-year tenure.

According to the 2014 census of the Burmese government, at 88 percent Buddhism is the primary religion of Myanmar. In an overall population of roughly 5.1 million, Christians make up just 6.2 percent, around 700,000 of whom are Roman Catholics, while Muslims make up 4.3 percent and Hindus are only .5 percent.

The Holy See and Myanmar officially established diplomatic ties in May, agreeing to send ambassadors to each others’ countries when the country’s de-facto civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, visited the Vatican.

The move to officially establish diplomatic ties comes just two months after Myanmar’s parliament voted in March to make their country the 183rd nation to enjoy diplomatic relations with the Holy See.

Also serving as Myanmar’s Foreign Minister, Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese diplomat, politician and author who currently serves as the country’s State Counselor. Before her rise to power, she spent much of her career under house arrest due to her push for human rights and democracy, which contradicted the military rule at the time.

As far as the Catholic Church in Myanmar, the country has 16 Catholic dioceses and a total of 29 living bishops, both active and retired. In 2015 Pope Francis appointed Myanmar’s first-ever cardinal, giving a red hat to Charles Maung Bo, archbishop of Yangon.

Just this past year, in the November 19, 2016, consistory, the Pope made a similar gesture toward Bangladesh, naming Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka the first-ever cardinal for the Muslim-majority country.

Listed among the top ten most populated countries in the world, with roughly 163 million citizens, Bangladesh has a minority Catholic population of around 0.3 percent, while the majority of the population, about 90 percent, is Muslim.   

In addition to Francis’ affinity for the global margins, another key element of the trip close to his heart is the plight of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya people, which he has spoken of often and is likely a key reason for his symbolic decision to travel to both Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The Rohingya

The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since clashes began in 2012 between the state’s Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, some 125,000 Rohingya have been displaced, while more than 100,000 have fled Myanmar by sea.

In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens of Myanmar – have made perilous journeys by sea in hope of evading persecution.

In 2015, a number of Rohingya people – estimated to be in the thousands – were stranded at sea for several months with dwindling supplies while Southeastern nations such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refused to take them in.

However, since last year around 87,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, giving way to horrifying stories of rapes, killings and arson by security forces. Dozens of new deaths have been reported in recent days amid fresh clashes between the Rohingya and Myanmar’s army.

In Bangladesh, however, the Rohingya have had little relief, since they are not recognized as refugees in the country. Since last October, many who had fled to Bangladesh have been detained and forced to return to the neighboring Rakhine state.

Pope Francis and the Rohingya

Pope Francis has spoken out on behalf of the Rohingya on several occasions, first drawing attention to their plight during an audience in 2015 with more than 1,500 members of the International Eucharistic Youth Movement.

“Let’s think of those brothers of ours of the Rohingya,” he told attendees. “They were chased from one country and from another and from another. When they arrived at a port or a beach, they gave them a bit of water or a bit to eat and were there chased out to the sea.”

This, he said, “is called killing. It’s true. If I have a conflict with you and I kill you, its war.”

He brought the topic up again a month later in an interview with a Portuguese radio station, and he has consistently spoken out on behalf of the Rohingya in Angelus addresses, daily Masses and general audiences.

In his Feb. 8 general audience, Pope Francis asked pilgrims to pray with him “for our brother and sister Rohingya. They were driven out of Myanmar, they go from one place to another and no one wants them.”

“They are good people, peaceful people; they aren’t Christians, but they are good. They are our brothers and sisters. And they have suffered for years,” he said, noting that often members of the ethnic minority have been “tortured and killed” simply for carrying forward their traditions and Muslim faith.

He then led pilgrims in praying an “Our Father” for the Rohingya, asking afterward for St. Josephine Bakhita, herself a former salve and the patroness of annual international day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking, to intercede.

The Pope also used yesterday’s Angelus address to draw attention to a recent uptick in violence that has caused nearly 100 new Rohingya deaths. 

His visit, then, will likely be used as an occasion to push for a peaceful resolution to the conflict that puts respect for human dignity above ethnic disputes.

As far as previous Popes, St. John Paul II visited Bangladesh in 1986. However, Francis’ visit to Myanmar will mark the first time a Pope has ever made an official visit to the country.

Other confirmed international trips for Pope Francis are his upcoming visit to Colombia Sept. 9-13, and his visit to Chile and Peru at the beginning of next year, from Jan. 15-21, 2018.

Hannah Brockhaus contributed to this report.

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