The Vatican has launched a task force encouraging donations in an effort to tackle deepening financial woes hampered by payments and legal costs surrounding sexual abuse scandals and a failed London property investment.
The Commission was revealed this week after being signed off by the ailing Pope Francis on February 11, three days before he was admitted to hospital with what was originally described as a bronchitis, later revealed to have developed into something more serious.
A priest, an archbishop, two nuns and a lawyer will lead the task force to ‘encourage donations with special campaigns among the faithful, bishops’ conferences, and other potential benefactors’.
According to the Vatican, the ‘Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede’ is explicitly ‘dedicated to promoting donations’, above all running fundraising campaigns and seeking out willing donors for specific projects eyed by the Catholic church.
The Church recorded a €45.8 million deficit in 2022, the last time it released full financial data. This is partly due to a wider trend of falling donations and significant payouts around the church’s sex abuse scandals – the publicity of which has, in turn, also been linked to a drop off in donations.
Over a period of two decades, Catholic dioceses, eparchies and men’s religious communities have spent more than $5bn on allegations of sexual abuse of minors, U.S. research published last month concluded.
The Vatican has also been embroiled in a costly fraud trial at London’s High Court centred on a west London property that the church ultimately sold at a loss of about £115mn in 2022. The building was one of 5,000 Church-owned properties the Vatican has been accused of managing poorly.
Pope Francis poses during an audience at the Apostolic Palace on January 10, 2023 in Vatican City
Nuns pray in front of the statue of John Paul II at the entrance to the Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis is hospitalized, in Rome, Italy, 28 February 2025
In its effort to recoup costs, the new Commission will act as a coordinating body for other fundraising initiatives, overseeing the wider ‘scope and strategy’ of the Church’s campaigns.
Additionally, the Church says it will identify and assess projects requiring financial support, establishing priorities for funding.
A plan for its implementation is ‘set to be finalised within three months’, a statement published on February 26 reads.
Raising awareness and bringing in more cash will be the challenge of Monsignor Roberto Campisi, Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State.
Campisi was previously appointed Assessor of the Secretariat of State in October 2022, 20 years after he was ordained priest of Siracusa, Italy in December 2002.
Increasing income will be a key issue for the Church, with few functions left to cut.
Ed Condon, the editor of The Pillar, a Catholic news site, told The Times that ‘many departments operate on a shoestring’.
‘The doctrinal office costs €3 million a year to run — not bad given it oversees a church of 1.4 billion Catholics,’ he said.
Pope Francis arrives to meet with a group of pilgrims from the Scandinavian Episcopal Conference, in the Pope Paul VI hall, at the Vatican, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025
Nuns pray for Pope Francis at Almudena Cathedral in Madrid, Spain, on February 27, 2025
Bad investments continue to prove a challenge for the Church. In 2022, the Vatican sold off a west London property at a loss of more than £100mn.
Italian financier Raffaele Mincione sued the Vatican at London’s High Court, seeking declarations that he acted ‘in good faith’ in relation to the deal, but the High Court refused.
The court did, however, grant the vast majority of the declarations Mincione sought and rejected the Vatican’s allegations that Mincione and his companies were involved in a conspiracy to defraud the Vatican.
The investment led to a long-running corruption trial which exposed infighting and intrigue in the highest echelons of the Vatican, ending with the conviction of a cardinal, Mincione and others in December 2023.
Mincione is appealing against his conviction and has also lodged a complaint with the United Nations’ human rights watchdog.
The broader Catholic Church has also been blighted by huge payouts to victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Last year, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a staggering $880 million to hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades, after previously paying $740mn.
The Spanish government, also last year, approved a similar compensation plan to be financed by the church for victims Spain.
A report by Spain’s Ombudsman concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sex abuse in Spain by people linked to the Catholic Church.
The cases have had felt reverberations around the world. A study of thousands of faithful in England and Wales found a third of those who previously went to Mass said they had reduced their attendance or stopped going altogether in the wake of the child sexual abuse crisis.
A third also said they had stopped donating financially for the same reason.
The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University concluded in a report published on January 15 that as much as $5.025bn had been paid to abuse victims by Catholic dioceses, eparchies and men’s religious communities.
Three-quarters of the sum went to the victims, while 17 per cent went to paying attorneys.
The CARA report combined 20 annual surveys sent to dioceses and eparchies within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope Francis attends the consistory ceremony to elevate Roman Catholic prelates to the rank of cardinal, in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, September 30, 2023
A landmark report in 2021 found that attacks on some 330,000 children in France had been covered up ‘by a veil of silence’.
The abuse occurred between 1950 to 2020, with an estimated 216,000 people abused by priests and other clerics.
Eighty per cent of victims were young boys between the ages of 10 and 13, however many girls also suffered abuse, not only by priests but also by nuns.
A victim named ‘Marie’ testified that she was abused as an 11-year-old and that when she complained about the abuse to her parents they refused to believe a nun could do such a thing. The abuse continued for another year.