Pope Leo XIV Reforms Vatican Financial Structure: Reversing Francis' Banking Centralization

Vatican City: Pope Leo XIV has initiated rectifications to several of Pope Francis' financial reforms, beginning with the revocation of a law on Monday that had previously centralized financial authority within the Vatican bank.

Leo has completely nullified the 2022 legislation which had declared that managing the Holy See's assets was the "exclusive responsibility" of the Institute of Religious Works (IOR).

The revised legislation states that while the Holy See generally utilizes the IOR, it now maintains the option to engage non-Vatican financial institutions in other countries when the Vatican's investment committee "deems it more efficient or convenient" to do so.

This legislative change represents the most evident indication yet that Leo is working to address some of Francis' more controversial decisions and is rebalancing power structures within the Vatican, following a period when Francis appeared to rely heavily on IOR guidance.

The 2022 law had caught many Vatican officials off guard as it seemed to conflict with the Holy See's constitutional foundation, which designates the patrimony office APSA as the entity responsible for managing the Vatican's real estate holdings and financial investments.

This marks the second significant adjustment Leo has implemented in recent weeks to recalibrate Francis' decisions. On September 27, Leo reassigned a senior administrator from the Secretariat of State to serve as ambassador to UNESCO in Paris.

Monsignor Roberto Campisi had maintained close relations with Francis, to the extent that the late pontiff appointed him to lead a newly established fundraising commission tasked with generating donations for the financially strained Holy See.

The commission's statutes and membership were announced on February 26 while Francis was hospitalized, consisting exclusively of Italian appointees lacking professional fundraising expertise.

The absence of qualified fundraising professionals and American representatives immediately undermined the commission's credibility, particularly as Americans constitute a significant portion of Holy See donors who typically expect levels of transparency and accountability that have not always characterized Vatican operations.

The new legislation was promulgated on the same day Leo met with the Knights of Columbus, the influential U.S. Catholic charitable organization that serves as a major donor to the Holy See. During his address, Leo expressed gratitude to the knights for their most recent philanthropic initiative: the restoration of Bernini's baldacchino canopy above the altar in St. Peter's Basilica.