The Vatican has indicated how many properties it owns around the world

For the first time, the The Vatican has indicated how many real estate properties possesses. These data are part of two documents: a financial statement ordered in 2020 by the Holy See, and the first public budget for the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

The agency (APSA) is a kind of general accounting office, which also manages real estate and investments, pays salaries, and acts as a purchasing office and human resources department. Between the two documents, the Vatican released over 50 pages of financial material.

“Private property is a secondary right,” said Pope Francis.

The APSA budget comprises about thirty pages. It was detailed there that the Vatican has 4,051 properties in Italy and 1,120 properties abroad. Their embassies around the world were not included in this calculation. Of the properties the Vatican owns in Italy, only 14% have been leased at market rates. The rest were rented at reduced rates, many of them even to Church employees. About 40 percent correspond to institutional buildings such as schools, convents and hospitals.

In the aforementioned documentation it was also detailed that there are properties as investments in luxury areas European cities such as London, Geneva, Lausanne and Paris. In South Kensington (London), there is a building that generated huge losses after the Vatican Secretary of State bought it as an investment in 2014. Indeed, on Tuesday July 27, the Vatican begins a trial of the ten people involved purchase. Among these ten, there is even Cardinal Angelo Becciu. The indictment includes charges for embezzlement, money laundering, fraud, extortion and abuse of power.

For the Pope “financial speculation is unsustainable and dangerous”

Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, head of the Vatican Economic Secretariat (SPE), told the official website of Vatican News This South Kensington building will be put up for sale. This judgment reads as a “turning point” in the credibility of the Vatican in economic matters. And it also prevents a similar event from happening again. In 2020, Pope Francis transferred control of his funds to the Patrimony Administration of the Apostolic See (APSA), under the supervision of the SPE. Before, they were in the hands of the Vatican Secretariat of State. The document presented shows a deficit of 64.8 million euros in 2020, against a deficit of 79.2 million euros in 2019.

The budget of the Holy See includes the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, known as the Curia, which oversees governance of the 1.3 billion member world churchs, its global diplomatic representations and media operations. Vatican City, including its Vatican Museums and the Vatican Bank, has a separate budget. The pandemic affected the income of the Vatican in 2020. St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums, the latter being a significant source of income given that it receives around 6 million visitors who pay entry each year. And these tourist attractions have been closed or partially open for much of 2020.

ei / ds