Just 10% Of Vatican’s Annual Fund Collection Spent On Charity, Rest On Plugging Church’s Budgetary Deficit, Investments

A meagre 10% of donations raised by Vatican Church helping the poor and suffering actually go toward charitable work, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Vatican receives donations from Roman Catholics that are specifically advertised as helping the poor and suffering.

The annual collection, called “Peter’s Pence”, describes the donations from millions of church faithful as participation in the “mission of mercy” and a “gesture of solidarity,”

Around two-thirds of the annual funding goes to fixing Vatican’s budgetary deficits, while another 25 percent is invested in commercial ventures. The fund has reportedly lost around 100 million euros over the last decade, “largely on account of unsuccessful investments,” according to the The Wall Street Journal report.

According to The Wall Street Journal report, the use of Peter’s Pence for the budget “is raising concern among some Catholic Church leaders that the faithful are being misled about the use of their donations, which could further hurt the credibility of the Vatican’s financial management under Pope Francis.”

According to the report, assets of Peter’s Pence have significantly dwindled since Francis became pope in 2013 from more than $775 million to $665 million. The Vatican’s budgetary deficit has ballooned to more than $76 million on a budget of around $333 million.

In October, reports emerged that that the Secretariat of State, the Holy See’s executive which manages the fund, was misusing the donations.

The Secretariat of State serves as the central papal governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. It is responsible for tall the political and diplomatic functions of the Holy See. It manages the millions of dollars in charity given by Catholics around the world

In October, as a part of an investigation of suspected financial irregularities, Vatican police this month raided the offices of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State and its Financial Information Authority, or AIF and took away documents and electronic devices. The two departments were searched for evidence involving alleged financial crimes.

The focus of investigation was on how $200 million funds that Vatican had parked in Swiss bank accounts eventually ended up financing a luxury property development in London’s upscale Chelsea district and in the process generating windfall profits for a company that managed the investment for the Holy See.

The sum of $200m held in Swiss bank accounts was controlled by the Secretariat of State and was transferred to a Luxembourg investment fund called Athena Capital. The funds were channeled towards a project to construct 49 luxury apartments at 60 Sloane Avenue. The Vatican is said to be engaged in the project since 2014.

The Vatican itself had announced that raids were prompted by complaints lodged in the summer by the Vatican’s bank and auditor-general about “financial operations carried out over the course of time”.