As a bishop in Peru, Robert Brevost was often looking for used cars that could purchase cheap and repair himself for use in his dioceses. With truly broken cars, he was watching YouTube Videos to learn how to fix it.
This type of Make-Do-Fix-Fix-IOURSELF mentality can serve Pope Leo XIV well as it addresses one of the biggest challenges it faces as chronic Pope:Retirement pension fund deficiencyThe donations that together constitute a bit of an existential threat to the central government of the strong Catholic Church of 1.4 billion.
As a pioneer in the Mathematics born in Chicago, Canon’s lawyer who is twice from his global religious system for Augustine, the 69 -year -old Pope is supposed to be able to read the public budget and learn complex finance in the Vatican, which has long been mired in a scandal. Whether he can change the financial culture of the Apostolic Chair, the unification of the reforms that Pope Francis started and persuaded the donors that their money will benefit well.
Liu already has one thing that goes to him: America. American donors have always been the system of support for the economic life of the Holy See, as it funds everything from charitable papacy projects abroad to the restoration of St. Peter’s Church at home. Liu elections as the first American door sent a tremor of excitement through American Catholics, some of whom were tense of donating to the Vatican after years of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with the best Catholic donations, charitable experts and church experts.
“An American election will give more confidence that any money is given by American principles, especially supervision and transparency,” said Reverend Roger Landri, Director of the Vatican Missionary Collaps Facultant in the United States.
He said: “Therefore, there will be great hope that the American generosity will be first place, then they will be dealt with secondly.” “This was not always the circumstances, especially recently.”
Informed repairs and businesses
Pope Francis was elected in 2013 based on a mandate to reform the dark financial affairs in the Vatican and made progress during its duration, most of which were on the organizational front. With the help of the late Australian Cardinal George Bell, Francis has established the Ministry of Economy and a council consisting of clerics and ordinary experts to oversee financial affairs in the Vatican, and the bureaucracy dominated by the Italian struggle to match the standards of international accounting and budget.
Perhaps,If it is a deep problemThe experience of corruption on a real estate investment in London, the strong Italian Cardinal condemned. He punished the state secretariat in the Vatican, which allowed the London deal to pass by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets.
But Francis left incomplete works and his general record, at least according to some in the donor community, less than positive. Critics are cited the frustrating efforts of Bill and the launch of the first public auditor, who says he was expelled because he was discoveredMany financial errors.
Despite the imposition of years of the belt freezing and employment, Francis left the Vatican in a somewhat harsh financial strait: the main suspension bucket of money that funds the budget deficiency, known as Peter Pence, has almost exhausted. The deficiency of the pension fund of 1 billion euros ($ 1.14 billion) that Bell has warned about about a decade of time unable, though thisFrancis had planned reforms. The structural deficit continues, as the Apostolic Chair recorded a deficit of 83.5 million euros (95 million dollars) in 2023, according to its last financial report.
As Francis’ health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform financial culture in the Vatican in the Middle Ages were not stuck either. The same secretariat of the state thatFrancis was punishedFor the loss of tens of millions of euros in the scandalous real estate deal in London, it ended in one way or another by seeing a new collection committee that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and laws, the committee is led by the Municipality of Al -Muqadim in the state, and it is entirely composed of the Italian Vatican officials who have no experience in collecting professional donations and does not have an external financial supervision required.
For some Vatican monitors, the committee intends the Italian -led state secretariat to take advantage of the sick Pope to announce a new flow of unparalleled donations in its treasures after the sovereign wealth fund of 600 million euros (684 million dollars) was given and granted another office to manage the penalty in Vien London.
“There are no Americans in the committee. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States in the committee,” said Ward Fitzgerald, President of the United States -based Papuiya Foundation. It consists of the wealthy Catholics that since 1990 he has offered more than $ 250 million (219 million euros) of scholarships and scholarships for global charitable initiatives of the Pope.
Fitzgerald, who spent his career in private real estate stocks, said that American donors-especially the younger generation-expect transparency and accountability from the beneficiaries of their money, and know that they can find non-Vixy Catholic charities that meet these expectations.
“We expect transparency before we start solving the problem,” he said.
However, Fitzgerald said he had not seen any great summary of donors’ willingness to finance donations for the project’s papal institution during Francis Pontefat. In fact, the American donations of the Vatican in general or less even when the offers of other countries have declined, as the American bishops and individual Catholics contributed more than any other country in the two main channels to donate the papal reasons.
Head of numbers and rear donations
Francis Pierrest moved to the Chicchlopic diocese, Peru, in 2014. Residents and colleagues of priests say he has constantly mobilized money, food and other goods for life to need-experience that indicates that he knows very well how to collect money when the times are narrow and how to spend it wisely.
A spokesman for the diocese said that he has strengthened the local Caritas Charitable Society in Chicoli, where the diocese created food banks that worked with local companies to distribute the donated food.
In 2019, Prevost opened a shelter on the outskirts of Chicoli, Villa Saint Vicente de Ball, to house desperate Vinzuele immigrants who fled their country’s economic crisis. theImmigrants are stillNot only to help give them and their children a shelter, but to bring the direct chicken obtained from the donor.
During the Covid-19s, Prevost launched a money raising campaign to build two oxygen manufacturers to supply the inverted population of life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when enormous rains were flooded in the area, he personally brought food to the built -in floods.
Within hours of the May 8 elections, videos on social media went in Prevost, wearing rubber shoes and standing on Ghamrt Street, and a Solidarity campaign, “Peru gives his hand”, to raise money for the victims of floods.
Reverend Jorge Milan, who lived with Privost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Czechle, said he had a “mathematical” mentality and knew how to accomplish the task. Milan said that Prevost will always be looking for used cars for purchase for use around the diocese, noting that the bishop often had long distances to reach all of his herd or reach Lima, the capital.
Prevost loved to repair them himself, and if he didn’t know what to do, he would search for solutions on YouTube and often find them. “
Before going to Peru, he served Prevost two periods as a general or a superior, fromAugustine’s global order. While the local provinces of the matter are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing its public budgets, supervising the budget and investing at the demand headquarters in Rome, said Reverend Franz Klein, an economist in Rome in Rome who worked with Prevost.
The campus of Oguminian is located at Prime Real Estate outside the ST. Peter’s Square completes revenues by renting its picturesque balcony to media organizations (including AP) for the Great Vatican events, including Conclave that elected LeoBob.
But even Prevost saw the need to better collect donations, especially to help the poorest provinces. Near the end of his term for 12 years, with his support, the Corporation of the Corporation of Augustine in the world proposed. At the end of 2023, she had 994,000 euros ($ 1.13 million) in assets and was helping to finance self -sustainable projects throughout Africa, including a center for rehabilitating former children’s soldiers in the Congo.
“He has a very good interest and a very good feeling of numbers,” Klein said. “I have no concern about the Financial affairs of the Vatican in these years because it is very smart.”
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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