Pope Leo XIV reversed this week a Pope Francis-era policy which had proven deeply unpopular within the Roman Curia, which ended free or subsidized housing for senior Vatican officials and cardinals.
Sources in the Vatican told The Pillar that the policy was inconsistently applied before Leo’s Feb. 1 decision to rescind it, and that it posed a challenge to staffing open positions in the Vatican.
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In February, 2023, Pope Francis issued a policy removing housing benefits for cardinals and for prefects, presidents and secretaries of Vatican dicasteries. Under the provisions of that policy rescript, many senior officials were told they would become responsible for new rental obligations, or to absorb significant increases to market rates for the Vatican-owned apartments they occupied.
The decision was made at the request of Maximino Caballero Ledo, the prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, and posted on a public notice board in Vatican City in Feb. 2023.
The policy change was issued “in a context of an economic crisis such as the current one, which is particularly serious,” which Pope Francis said “has shown me the need for everyone to make an extraordinary sacrifice to allocate more resources to the mission of the Holy See.”
But several Vatican officials told The Pillar that the rescript was not generally applied to officials already living in Vatican-owned properties, instead affecting only cardinals and senior officials who did not already have free or subsidized Vatican housing at the time of its publication, or who were appointed afterward.
That meant, for example, that Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, was subject to the policy when he took office as prefect of the dicastery for bishops in March 2023.
And the 2023 regulations allowed the pope to grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
Still, while Francis’ measure applied concretely only to a handful of officials and cardinals created after 2023, many believed it created unintended consequences.
“Under Francis’ regulations, it became difficult to appoint bishops or cardinals to positions in Rome if they didn’t live here unless an exception to the regulation was granted, because a lot of people would be inclined refuse an appointment if they’re not assigned an apartment while they work considering the salary cuts in the Vatican and the cost of living in Rome,” one senior Vatican official told The Pillar.
“While there are exceptions to the law, it was always a case-per-case thing. It depends on the amount of years in service, their nationality, whether they had any additional income, whether they are lay officials coming with their families, religious who could live with their communities, or diocesan priests or bishops.”
Bringing back the old regulations simplifies these details moving forward,” the official added.
While Francis’ policy was not meant to be applied retroactively, there was at least one case in which it was done so.
In November 2023, Cardinal Raymond Burke was notified he should pay a market rate for his apartment or vacate the place, The Pillar confirmed in 2023.
Italy’s La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana website initially reported on Burke that the pope had “supposedly said” at a Nov. 20, 2023 meeting that the 75-year-old cardinal was “my enemy” and was taking away his apartment and salary as a retired cardinal.
The website said it had received the information from a Vatican source and confirmed it with other sources.
But Austen Ivereigh, author of a biography of Pope Francis, offered a different account Nov. 29, 2023, in an essay at the website Where Peter Is.
Ivereigh wrote that he met with the pope on the day the Italian article was published.
“In the course of our conversation, Francis told me he had decided to remove Cardinal Burke’s cardinal privileges — his apartment and salary — because he had been using those privileges against the Church,” he wrote.
Ivereigh added that he received a note from the pope Nov. 28, saying: “I never used the word ‘enemy’ nor the pronoun ‘my.’ I simply announced the fact at the meeting of the dicastery heads, without giving specific explanations.”
The Associated Press reported that month that a participant in the meeting recalled that the pope had said he was taking action against Burke because he was a source of “disunity” in the Church.
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Pope Leo’s decision this month means that senior curial officials will once again be eligible for free or subsidized Vatican accommodation.
Cardinals typically receive a monthly stipend of about 4,500 euros. Market-rate rents near the Vatican frequently exceed 2,500-3,000 euros per month, making it difficult for cardinals without additional income to cover housing costs.
Subsidized or free lodging in Church-owned buildings has been a traditional part of the remuneration of senior Vatican staff for generations, and has long been considered an offset to the relatively low wages paid by curial departments. It follows a previous salary cut of 8% for senior Vatican staffers and 10% to the stipend paid to cardinals in 2021.
Leo’s repeal of Francis’ rescript was not announced publicly by the Holy See but reported by Il Giornale. The Pillar confirmed the new regulations with several senior Vatican officials.
“Leo has returned to the earlier situation, without requiring additional payments required by Francis,” one curial official told The Pillar.
Turns out bills of attainder are very bad policies that have bad downstream effects.
Who knew?
Oh, you mean every civilized society since the 1700s has banned bills of attainder?