There are many dicasteries that perform a service for which they do not receive economic remuneration they are simply cost centers and have practically no revenue, and their service is always carried out with a deficit. That is, we cannot offset the expenses of some entities with the revenues of all the others. Much of the assets allocated to some entities go themselves to specific aims, and cannot be dedicated to something else. The reason, besides the financial results being in unrealized gains, is that many donations we receive go to specific causes they cannot be used for any other purpose. Of course, this is quite difficult to explain, because although we have a deficit of 3 million Euro in the total of the entities that refer to the Holy See, or a surplus of 28.8 million Euro in the Holy See or Curia-Peter’s Pence, and other papal funds included-in reality the Holy See divests itself every year of an average of 20-25 million Euro. The fact is that the Holy See sells assets every year to cover curial services. There is no doubt that we cannot act only on expenses by reducing them there will come a time when they cannot be decreased further without compromising the mission, so we are also working on ways to increase revenues. The 56 million Euro deficit is due to 33 million Euro better performance in finances and 23 million Euro better extraordinary performance than last year. The Curia has earned 14 million Euro more and spent 42 million Euro less but we must recognize, lest we delude ourselves, that the ordinary deficit has remained unchanged, ordinary expenditures have decreased by 15 million Euro, reaching a new low this year, but that is not enough, ordinary revenues have also decreased by 14 million Euro, another new low.

It is also good news that the Curia has made sacrifices by reducing expenses, taking care with the part it can control best, while ordinary income continues to fall. In 2021, the Curia (excluding the results of Peter’s Pence which were included in the budget) had a deficit of 10 million Euro, a 56 million Euro smaller deficit than it had in 2020, which is good news. The Curia, which is the organization that allows for a better comparison with previous years-under the old consolidated budget parameter-continues to show insufficient coverage, which I would define as an ecclesial problem. I think every institution of the Curia is very aware of its mission to help the Holy Father's mission, carrying it out with dedication and, in these difficult economic times, trying to do so with austerity, keeping to the essentials of the mission. We have significantly increased in size: we went from 60 entities in the previous fiscal year to 92 in the current period from total assets of 2.2 billion Euro in 2020 to 3.9 in 2021 from liabilities of 0.8 billion Euro to 2.3 from net assets of 1.4 billion Euro to 1.6 revenues went from 248 million Euro to 1.093 million Euro costs from 315 million Euro to 1.096 million Euro and the overall deficit was 3 million Euro. Under the previous parameters, which considered only the Curia, we saw only 35 percent of the total. In July 2021, the Council for the Economy introduced important changes that mean that the report now better reflects the economic reality of the Holy See.

This means a step forward in terms of transparency and visibility of the overall economic situation of the Holy See the path taken continues and deepens. Only the Governorate and the IOR are not included. This contains the financial statement of the entire Holy See. The first news item is the change in the scope of the consolidated report.

Catholic see finance problems