Pope Leo XIV marks feast day as Vatican launches campaign to help erase its $57-68 million deficit

ROME AP Pope Leo XIV on Sunday celebrated a special feast day traditionally used by the Catholic Church to drum up donations from the faithful with the Vatican under the first American pope rolling out a new campaign to urge ordinary Catholics to help bail out the deficit-ridden Holy See Leo celebrated Mass in St Peter s Basilica marking the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul and repeated his message calling for unity and communion among all Christians In churches around the world Masses on the July feast day often include a special collection for Peter s Pence a fund which both underwrites the operations of the central regime of the Catholic Church and pays for the pope s personal acts of charity With a promotional video poster QR code and website soliciting donations via credit card PayPal bank transfer and post office transfer the Vatican is betting this year that an American-style fundraising pitch under the Chicago-born Leo will help keep the Holy See bureaucracy afloat and erase its million to million euro - million structural deficit The video features footage of Leo s emotional first moments as pope when he stepped out onto the loggia of St Peter s Basilica and later choked up as he received the fisherman s ring of the papacy With an evocative soundtrack in the background the video superimposes a message available in several languages urging donations to Leo via the Peter s Pence collection With your donation to Peter s Pence you assistance the initiatives of the Holy Father it says Help him proclaim the Gospel to the world and extend a hand to our brothers and sisters in need Sponsorship the actions of Pope Leo XIV Donate to Peter s Pence The fund has been the source of outrage in current years amid revelations that the Vatican s secretariat of state mismanaged its holdings through bad investments incompetent management and waste The contemporary trial over the Vatican s bungled capital in a London property substantiated that the vast majority of Peter s Pence contributions had funded the Holy See s budgetary shortfalls not papal charity initiatives as various parishioners had been led to believe Between the revelations and the COVID- pandemic which closed churches and canceled out the traditional pass-the-basket collection on June Peter s Pence donations fell to million euros in a low not seen since that was nevertheless offset the same year by other financing income and revenue to the fund Donations rose to million euros about million in and hit million euros nearly million last year according to the Peter s Pence annual account issued last week But the fund incurred expenses of million euros million in continuing the trend in which the fund is exhausting itself as it covers the Holy See s budgetary shortfalls On top of the budget deficit the Vatican is also facing a billion euro about billion shortfall in its pension fund that Pope Francis in the months before he died warned was unable in the medium term to fulfill its obligations Unlike countries the Holy See doesn t issue bonds or impose income tax on its residents to run its operations relying instead on donations investments and revenue generated by the Vatican Museums and sales of stamps coins publications and other initiatives For years the United States has been the greatest source of donations to Peter s Pence with U S Catholics contributing around a quarter of the total each year Vatican executives are hoping that under Leo s pontificate with new financial controls in place and an American math major running the Holy See donors will be reassured that their money won t be misspent or mismanaged This is a concrete way to help the Holy Father in his mission of amenity to the universal Church the Vatican s market system ministry explained in a press release last week announcing the annual collection and new promotional materials surrounding it Peter s Pence is a gesture of communion and participation in the Pope s mission to proclaim the Gospel promote peace and spread Christian charity Associated Press religion coverage receives assistance through the AP s collaboration with The Conversation US with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc The AP is solely responsible for this content Source