Pope Francis, throughout his pontificate, tried to reveal the backstage of complex financial mechanisms operating inside the Vatican. At the very end of his life, he received further reports, which indicated that the city-state had invaluable works of art, and yet it is getting into debt more and more.
Take a look: Habemus Papam! Robert Prevost, or Leon XIV. What do we know about the new pope?
The Pope appointed a special financial commission
According to Daily Express, the Vatican recorded a deficit of $ 87 million only in 2023. (almost PLN 329 million). It is over $ 5 million. (almost PLN 19 million) more than a year earlier. This deficiency is largely due to a dramatic decrease in donations.
“The crisis is further deepened by the fact that the Vatican is less and less visited by tourists, who were an important source of the Church's income. The level of tourism did not return to this before the pandemic of Coronavirus. The number of visitors of the Vatican Museums and the Basilica of St. Peter remains low” – wrote Business Insidera Polish journalist Beata Michalik.
On February 11, just before his hospitalization, Francis appointed a special donation committee for the Holy See. However, three days later, the Pope was hospitalized. The implementation of the commission was to last three months, so before the death of the Argentinean it did not start working on a larger scale.
Check: That's what the conclave costs. Food itself is tens of thousands of euros
What do we know about the new Pope Leon XIV?
Pope Leon XIV is a newly elected Pope, who was Cardinal Robert Prevost. He was elected on May 8, 2025. Cardinal Prevost, from the USA, is 69 years old and is a member of the Augustinian order. Before choosing as a pope, he served as a prefect of dicasteries for bishops, and earlier he was a missionary in Peru
