Pope Francis assigns U.S. cardinal to carry out ‘urgent’ overhaul of Vatican pension fund

Cardinal Kevin Farrell celebrates Mass for the World Meeting of Families 2022 on June 25, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Nov 21, 2024 / 08:03 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed U.S. Cardinal Kevin Farrell to oversee “new and unavoidable” reform to the Vatican’s pension system as it faces a “serious prospective imbalance” that means changes can no longer be postponed.

In a Nov. 21 letter to cardinals, dicastery prefects, and managers in the Roman Curia, the pope underlined the gravity of the unsustainability of the Vatican’s pension fund, and noted the solution will require difficult decisions, “special sensitivity, generosity, and willingness to sacrifice on the part of everyone.”

To address the challenges, the pontiff said he had taken an “essential step” by naming Farrell “sole administrator” of the fund.

Farrell, 77, is prefect of the Vatican’s laity, family and life dicastery, as well as camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, and president of the Pontifical Commission for Confidential Matters.

The Irish-born cardinal, who was bishop of Dallas for nine years before his transfer to Rome, has also been chair of the Pontifical Committee for Investments since 2022. 

In his roles in the confidential matters commission, Farrell is responsible for authorizing the confidentiality of economic actions of the Roman Curia, if needed “for the greater good of the Church,” according to the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium.

Farrell also oversees the Roman Curia’s investments, ensuring they are in line with the social doctrine of the Church — a role he was named to after the Holy See came under scrutiny for certain investments, including the purchase of a luxury building in London, which lost the Vatican hundreds of thousands of euros and ended in a criminal trial.

Pope Francis said in his Nov. 21 letter that the pension fund is one of the central pieces of Vatican financial reform, a key part of the pope’s project since his election in 2013.

“Different studies have been carried out from which it has been derived that the current pension management, taking into account the available assets, generates an important deficit,” the pontiff wrote on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the figure that now emerges, at the conclusion of the latest in-depth analyses carried out by independent experts, indicates a serious prospective imbalance in the fund, the size of which tends to expand over time in the absence of intervention,” he continued. 

He added that “in concrete terms,” the Vatican cannot “guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations.”

While the pope thanked those who have tried to address the pension fund’s problems until now, he said it is imperative that the Vatican move into a new phase “with promptness and unity of vision so that the necessary actions are expeditiously implemented,” and he asked for everyone’s support, cooperation, and prayers.