Pope Leo XIV restores Vatican pay cuts on his 71st birthday

Vaticancity,UPDATED: Sep 14, 2026 20:08 IST

Pope Leo XIV marked his 71st birthday on Monday by giving Vatican employees a financial reprieve, with the Vatican publishing a papal decree that repealed salary cuts imposed in 2021 as part of the Holy See’s COVID-19 cost-saving measures.

In a separate move, Leo also cancelled Pope Francis’ plan to shift some of the Vatican’s secret archives and library holdings outside Vatican City. Instead, he ordered a new building to be constructed within the city state to house the growing collection.

In the decree on salaries, Leo said the pay-curbing measures “can now be overcome, in the certainty that the institutions of the Holy See and the Vatican City State will continue, through various means, their commitment to ensuring economic sustainability”. The cuts had included a 10 per cent reduction in pay for cardinals, along with smaller cuts for office heads and lower-ranking priests and nuns. Biennial pay rises were frozen for senior lay employees, though lower-ranking lay employees continued to receive raises.

Francis had said at the time that the measures were needed to save jobs, as the Holy See was facing a structural deficit estimated at around 70 million euros and a 1 billion euro pension fund shortfall. The pandemic had also forced the Vatican Museums to shut for months, cutting off one of the Holy See’s main sources of revenue. The Vatican’s finances were further hit by investment and currency fluctuations.

Leo, a mathematics graduate and former superior general of his Augustinian religious order, is seen as comfortable with financial matters and reading balance sheets. His brother, John Prevost, recently told Italian broadcaster Mediaset that the pope had recently helped him with a question about filing his taxes. Soon after his election, Leo said the Vatican’s financial situation was not nearly as bad as he had expected and that Francis had introduced some important reforms. Even so, he has spent much of his early pontificate changing or reversing some of Francis’ financial decisions.

In Monday’s second decree, Leo scrapped Francis’ proposal to move some archive and library material to the grounds of a pontifical university across town. Francis had approved the move because the collections were outgrowing their current storage areas, including a large underground bunker. Leo said that “unprecedented opportunities have arisen to create new spaces” within Vatican City itself, and ordered a new building on a current parking lot to house the material, including ancient manuscripts and full archival collections from past popes, religious congregations and benefactors.

Leo visited the Vatican Apostolic Library on Monday and said it was especially fitting to celebrate his birthday with its staff because his mother had been a librarian. “I’d just like to say that God, in His providence - and sometimes with a touch of humor - always reminds us that he is with us,” Leo told the staff. “Many of you may not know that my mother was a librarian, and today I’m here on my birthday specifically to say hello to all of you.”

The library and archive are open to scholars and researchers, while a small exhibition space in the library is open weekly to the public with reservation and pre-purchased tickets. Leo was there on Monday to inaugurate an exhibition on water, the first in a new five-year cycle titled “Catastrophe and Marvel”, featuring a giant wave design attached by scaffolding to the library’s facade by French artist JR. Together, the two decrees and the library visit marked Leo’s birthday with decisions on Vatican finances, archives and public cultural life.

With PTI Inputs

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