A difficult year that required the Vatican dicasteries to reduce expenses.
A year in which less than in the past has been drawn from the Pence of St. Peter to support the service of the dicasteries for the Pope's mission but the Churches in the countries most affected by the pandemic have been helped more. This is what emerges from the consolidated financial statements of the Holy See, which Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy presents today. For the first time, the financial statements of APSA (Administration of the Apostolic See's assets) are published, relating to the financial year 2020, which show an operating result of 21.99 million euros, down by 51.2 million compared to 2019 (it was of 73.21 million). Asset management produced a result of € 15.29 million (-27.1 compared to 2019), real estate management € 15.25 million (-8.3), other assets a deficit of € 8,56 million (with a decrease of 15.8 million on 2019). Despite the "reduced economic results", largely due to the Covid crisis, Apsa however contributed to covering the Curia deficit for 20.6 million.
"Last year's deficit was 11.1 million euros and this year's is 66.3 million euros", explains Guerrero Alves in an interview with the Vatican media. "All in all, better than we expected - underlines the Vatican prefect for the Economy -. I can't say it was a good year. But given the circumstances, I can say that for 2020, before the pandemic, we had budgeted a deficit of 53 million euros. When Covid appeared, the deficit forecasts we made in the best scenario would have been 68 million euros and in the worst 146 million euros. In the average scenario, the deficit was expected to be 97 million of Euro". "So we revised the budget in March, accepting a deficit of 82 million euros. The result that occurred instead,with a deficit of 66.3 million euros, it was slightly better than the best of the hypothetical scenarios, and much better than we had forecast in the revised budget in March ", observes Guerrero Alves, according to whom" the good news is that, thanks to the efforts made, the results are very close to those of a normal year. The ordinary deficit is 14.4 million euros lower than in 2019: 64.8 million euros in 2020, compared to 79.2 million euros in 2019 ".The ordinary deficit is 14.4 million euros lower than in 2019: 64.8 million euros in 2020, compared to 79.2 million euros in 2019 ".The ordinary deficit is 14.4 million euros lower than in 2019: 64.8 million euros in 2020, compared to 79.2 million euros in 2019 ".
