The Vatican investment office made 32.27 million euros (about $A55 million) in profit in 2022 and contributed the entire amount to the Vatican’s operating budget, said Bishop Nunzio Galantino, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See. Source: NCR Online.
The profit was close to 6 million euros ($10 million) less than the investments earned in 2021, the bishop said in the annual report of the administration, which is known by its Italian acronym APSA and controls most of the Vatican’s portfolio, including real estate.
“Transparency of numbers, achievements and defined procedures is one of the tools we have at our disposal to ward off – at least in those who are free of preconceptions – unfounded suspicions regarding the extent of the Church’s assets, its administration or the fulfilment of the duties of justice, such as payment of due taxes and other tributes,” the bishop wrote in his introduction to the 104-page report.
The Vatican, like other countries in Europe, was impacted by “negative financial and economic consequences arising from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine”, including a significant increase in energy costs in 2022, the bishop said.
The uncertain global economic picture, he said, led APSA to maintain a conservative investment policy.
After earning close to 20 million euros ($33.7 million) through its investments in stocks, bonds, gold and currencies in 2021, APSA lost more than 6 million euros ($10 million) with its investments in 2022, the report said. But it made more than 52 million euros ($87.8 million) from its real estate holdings.
The Vatican, Bishop Galantino noted, gave rent reductions of 30 to 50 per cent to some individuals and small businesses during and immediately after the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 in response to Pope Francis’ concern that people not lose their jobs or livelihoods during the pandemic. Now, the bishop said, the office is working to convince non-paying renters to meet their obligations.
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Vatican investment office reports $35 million profit for 2022 (By Cindy Wooden, CNS via NCR Online)
