Rome, Italy
AP
Pope Francis has essentially nationalised all assets and property owned by Vatican departments and affiliated institutions, declaring them to be sovereign patrimony owned by the Holy See and not any individual or office.
The action outlined in a new law published Thursday marks Francis’ latest initiative to centralise Vatican assets so they can be managed properly, following years of mismanagement that led to huge losses and, prosecutors allege, criminal wrongdoing.
Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, on Wednesday, 22nd February, 2023. PICTURE: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File photo.
Francis previously stripped the Vatican’s secretariat of state of its €600 billion portfolio and ordered the assets transferred to the Vatican’s patrimony office following a scandal involving a €350 million investment in a London property.
VATICAN ESTABLISHES DIPLOMATIC TIES WITH OMAN, WIDENING OUTREACH TO ISLAM
The Vatican and Oman established diplomatic ties on Thursday, marking a further widening of the Holy See’s official relations with the Arab Muslim World.
In a joint statement, both sides said they wanted to promote mutual understanding and cooperation and that ambassadors would be named.
The Vatican, a sovereign city-state surrounded by Rome, now has diplomatic relations with every country on the Arabian Peninsula except Saudi Arabia.
Oman, a Sultanate, is predominately Muslim, like the other countries on the peninsula. Oman has only four Catholic parishes and 12 priests, the Vatican said in a separate statement.
The Vatican hopes that with the upgrading of relations, the church could continue to contribute to the social wellbeing of the country, the statement added.
Pope Francis visited Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in 2019 and Bahrain last year.
In both places, he attended inter-religious meetings to promote dialogue among faiths.
– PHILIP PULLELLA, Vatican City/Reuters
Vatican prosecutors have charged 10 people, including a cardinal, of defrauding the Holy See of tens of millions of euros through the London venture.
The new law makes clear that the Holy See owns any asset, security or property owned or acquired by a Vatican office or affiliated institution. This “ecclesiastic public property” is “entrusted” to individual departments to use but is destined for the universal needs of the church to fulfill its mission, the law states.
In previous stages of Francis’ financial reforms, the Vatican ordered all Vatican offices to submit to standardized annual budgeting and accounting measures. Individual offices, or congregations, were allowed to operate in financial silos before then.
The Pope also centralised and overhauled the Vatican’s investment strategy to ban speculative investments and to prioritize prudent investing in industries that promote the common good.
Meanwhile, the Pope cancelled one audience and skipped speeches he was set to deliver Thursday because of a bad cold, the Vatican said.
Francis, 86, did meet with young Orthodox priests and monks and members of the Max Planck Society, the German research organisation that is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. But because of a “bad cold,” Francis merely had printed copies of his remarks handed out and didn’t read them aloud, the Vatican said in a note.
He later cancelled a planned audience with members of an Italian YMCA group, the Holy See said in its daily bulletin.
On Wednesday, Francis coughed repeatedly during Ash Wednesday services that he presided over at a Roman church, and opted not to participate in the traditional procession that inaugurates the church’s Lenten season.
This time of year in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to hit Italy, Francis also suffered a bad cold that forced him to cancel several days of official audiences and his participation in the Vatican’s annual spiritual retreat. The Vatican had already scrubbed the retreat for this year in favor of personal spiritual exercises.
The Argentine Pope had part of one lung removed as a young man because of a respiratory infection, and in 2021 had a chunk of his colon removed because of an intestinal inflammation. He has been using a wheelchair and cane since last year because of strained knee ligaments and a small knee fracture that have made walking and standing difficult.
