Pope to SPE staff: ‘Much progress has been made’

By Vatican News

"We are all responsible for preserving our patrimony to ensure the necessary resources to continue the journey even for those who come after us." This is what the Pope writes in the letter sent in recent days to the staff of the Secretariat for the Economy, now published on the dicastery's website. 

Pope Francis announced his forthcoming letter during an audience with SPE personnel on Monday, 13 November 2023.

"Looking back and noting the current situation," writes the Pope, "I cannot help but see the progress made. For this, I thank you, as you perform a delicate and complex service. Many appreciations have been received for the work done to provide the Holy See with tools aimed at ensuring that its patrimony is dedicated to the mission, preventing the risks of falling into past mistakes we all know about." Pope Francis mentions Cardinal George Pell, the first Prefect of the SPE, and his successor, Father Juan Antonio Guerrero.

"What has been done," the letter continues, "should not make us think that the path of economic reforms has ended. On the contrary, it has just begun," and the Secretariat for the Economy is "called to promote, within its scope, a constant action of change for the better." The reform, explains the Pope, "does not mean changing just to show that things are necessarily done differently from the past. Change is a functional renewal commensurate with needs. Therefore, in some cases, it is radical, in other cases, it is an adaptation of what is already good: and the effects of these changes must be monitored as choices can be made that need correction."

Francis urges the SPE staff to imagine their service to be performed like "the role of a parent towards a child... And it is delicate work because even the best intentions of a parent can result in behaviors that must be avoided: being authoritarian rather than authoritative; feared rather than respected and recognized; exercising power instead of making decisions by feeling the responsibility to protect the common good; preserving money without a purpose instead of using it for the mission to grow and flourish, forgetting that the Church is poor because everything it owns is not for itself but to be used where it is needed selflessly."

The Pope explains that "loyalty to the mission and prudence are the virtues that must accompany you in your work, in managing every issue, as the many responsibilities entrusted to you expose you to the risk of small and large mistakes to be avoided. One of the great mistakes is a habit: that of giving primacy to formality over reality. You must find the ability to listen and make yourselves heard, to make available to those who turn to you for your skills and professionalism, the economic and legal tools to implement the initiatives that make the mission possible. Constant effort must be made to support those initiatives, taking care to reconduct them not to the rules and technical details, not to the arbitrary will of those who have the responsibility to decide or authorize, but to the common good."

"But you must also always have," Pope Francis adds, "the loyalty to say no when what is represented to you or what you find during controls betrays the mission, when the individual interest of some prevails over the collective one, when the rules are violated or artificially bypassed to pursue purposes alien to those of the Holy See and the Church... Loyalty means never becoming complicit, even just pretending not to see, not wanting to disappoint those friendships that arise in a work community like the Holy See - and it is beautiful that they arise."

The Pope therefore says that what is needed is "to work having the courage to make responsible choices even if unpopular." The Holy See, acknowledges the Pontiff, "records a significant deficit every year. In fact, the whole organization is for the mission, and the sources of funding are limited. But we know that if a deficit is experienced, this means that a part of the patrimony is eroded and this compromises the future. For this reason, a reversal of the trend is needed. This awareness must be acquired at every level of our community: we are all responsible for preserving the patrimony to ensure the necessary resources to continue the journey even for those who come after us." This "requires freeing ourselves from rigidity and making ourselves available, sincerely, to renewal. With loyalty and prudence, this can be achieved."

"We must take care of the patrimony," Pope Francis concludes, "when we are in a position to save it, and we must also invest it carefully, ethically, so that the fruits of management are equitably divided, and everyone has what they need. Investments must not have the goal of speculation or accumulation. Balances and budgets must not be a sterile accounting exercise, they must represent the effort to accompany the mission of all by redistributing resources according to actual needs, even asking someone at times to take a step back or share income with others."

(This is a working translation of the Pope's letter)