Pope Francis, who has imposed a series of cost-cutting measures across the cash-strapped Vatican, warned Thursday that the city state's troubled pension fund needs urgent reform to guarantee future obligations.
Vatican employees responded by expressing concern that their compensation might be targeted in any further cost-cutting to shore up the pension system, and asked for the fund's finances to be made public.
In a letter to Vatican department heads and cardinals, Francis said he had named a top economic adviser Cardinal Kevin Farrell as a special administrator for the fund, suggesting that decisive, immediate action was necessary.
The letter was the latest evidence of the Vatican's precarious financial situation , after years of mismanagement, financial scandals and budget deficits -- all worsened by COVID-19 and the months-long closures of a key source of revenue, the Vatican Museums.
Already, Francis has cut the salaries of cardinals by 10, suspended some seniority bonuses, trimmed special stipends for Rome-based cardinals and begun charging some market-rate rents for their apartments.
