Pope warns the Vatican pension fund needs urgent reform as employees demand transparency

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Pope warns the Vatican pension fund needs urgent reform as employees demand transparency

2024-11-21 23:32 Last Updated At：23:40

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis, who has imposed a series of cost-cutting measures across the cash-strapped Vatican, warned Thursday that the city state’s troubled pension fund needs urgent reform to guarantee future obligations.

Vatican employees responded by expressing concern that their compensation might be targeted in any further cost-cutting to shore up the pension system, and asked for the fund's finances to be made public.

In a letter to Vatican department heads and cardinals, Francis said he had named a top economic adviser Cardinal Kevin Farrell as a special administrator for the fund, suggesting that decisive, immediate action was necessary.

The letter was the latest evidence of the Vatican’s precarious financial situation, after years of mismanagement, financial scandals and budget deficits -- all worsened by COVID-19 and the months-long closures of a key source of revenue, the Vatican Museums.

Already, Francis has cut the salaries of cardinals by 10%, suspended some seniority bonuses, trimmed special stipends for Rome-based cardinals and begun charging some market-rate rents for their apartments.

The pension fund has long been the source of particular concern, and in the new letter Francis acknowledged that the current analysis “indicates a serious prospective imbalance in the fund, the size of which tends to expand over time in the absence of intervention.”

“In concrete terms, this means that the current system is unable to guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations,” he wrote.

The Association of Lay Vatican Employees, the closest thing the Vatican has to a labor union, voiced alarm at Francis’ warning about their pensions, insisting that lay employees had already sacrificed enough in his cost-cutting initiatives and that the Vatican leadership should listen to workers’ concerns.

“Salaries have not been indexed to the cost of living, while rent increases for Vatican properties have been related to inflation,” the group said in a statement that also called for the Vatican to make public the pension fund’s balance sheet.

Noting that Francis frequently preaches about the need to give workers dignified wages and pay special attention to the needs of families, the union said employees were “exhausted by cuts and especially by the lack of responses to their legitimate request to be heard.”

The Vatican has some 4,500 employees, around 3,100 of whom work for the Holy See bureaucracy and the rest for the Vatican city state itself, in the museums and other offices that run the territory. The union counts some 700 lay employees.

While Vatican salaries are typically low, the benefits can be attractive to Italian laypeople, including tax-free income and access to a private health system, below-market rents and a tax-free supermarket, gas station, pharmacy and department store.

Lay employees, however, have increasingly been raising their voices about cost cuts and overwork. Earlier this year 49 museum employees filed a class-action lawsuit in the Vatican tribunal about labor woes.

The Holy See ended 2023 with a profit of 45.9 million euros, according to the latest financial statement.

As recently as 2015, the pension fund had insisted it was in sound financial health, and that it was expected to top 500 million euros by the end of 2015 after having started out with the equivalent of 5 million euros in 1993.

Farrell, an Irish-born American who heads the Vatican’s laity and family office, has increasingly been entrusted with the Vatican’s most sensitive financial and administrative issues under Francis. He is the camerlengo, who runs the Holy See after the death of a pope, and heads the investment committee, the commission that deals with the most sensitive “reserved” matters facing the church and is the president of the Vatican city state’s supreme court.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Romanians cast ballots in presidential race that could pit nationalist against leftist in a runoff

2024-11-24 20:05 Last Updated At：20:11

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanians are casting ballots on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election that could pit a far-right nationalist against the incumbent leftist prime minister in the runoff.

Thirteen candidates are vying for the presidency in the European Union and NATO member country, and the vote is expected to go to a second round on Dec. 8. Polls opened at 7.00 a.m. local time (0500GMT) and will close at 9.00 p.m. (1900GMT). Romanians abroad have been able to vote since Friday.

By 2 p.m. (1200GMT), 4.8 million people — about 27% of eligible voters — had cast ballots, according to the Central Election Bureau.

The final vote could see George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, face off against incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, backed by Romania’s largest party, the Social Democratic Party or PSD.

The presidential role carries a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy, and judicial appointments.

Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on Dec. 1 that will determine the country's next government and prime minister.

Simion, 38, is a vocal supporter of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and has long been a controversial figure. He campaigned for reunification with Moldova, which this year renewed a five-year ban on him entering the country over security concerns, and he is banned for the same reason from entering neighboring Ukraine.

“I would like that in the next five to ten years, for Romanians to be really proud to be Romanians, to promote Romanian culture, Romanian products,” he told reporters on Wednesday in the capital, Bucharest. “As a Romanian president, I will promote Romanian interests. In most cases, Romanian interests coincide with partner interests.”

Ecaterina Nawadia, a 20-year-old architecture student, said she voted for the first time in a national election on Sunday and hopes young people turn out in high numbers.

“Since the (1989) revolution, we didn’t have a really good president,” she said. “I hope most of the people my age went to vote … because the leading candidate is not the best option.”

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, says Sunday's vote will be "a tight race" in which the diaspora will likely play a key role in which candidates make it to the runoff.

“We are at a point where Romania can easily divert or slip toward a populist regime because (voter) dissatisfaction is pretty large among a lot of people from all social strata," he told The Associated Press. “And the temptation for any regime, any leader — will be to go on a populist road.”

He added that Romania's large budget deficit, high inflation, and an economic slowdown could push more mainstream candidates to shift toward populist stances amid widespread dissatisfaction.

Ciolacu told the AP that if he is elected, one of his biggest goals is “to convince Romanians that it is worth staying at home or returning” to Romania, which has a massive diaspora spread throughout EU countries.

“Romania has a huge chance to become a developed economy in the next 10 years, where honest work is fairly rewarded and people have the security of a better life," he said. "But for this, we need balance and responsibility ... I am running for the Presidency of Romania because we need a change.”

Other key candidates include Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party, or USR; former NATO deputy general secretary Mircea Geoana, who is running independently; and Nicolae Ciuca, a former army general and head of the center-right National Liberal Party, which is currently in a tense coalition with the PSD.

Geoana, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, told the AP that he believes his international experience qualifies him above the other candidates. “I think I bring a lot of competence and experience and connections in this complicated world,” he said.

Lasconi, a former journalist and the leader of the USR, said she sees corruption as one of the biggest problems Romania faces and that she supports increased defense spending and continued aid to Ukraine.

Romania has been a staunch ally of war-torn Ukraine since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. But Simion of the AUR party said he opposes Romania — which has sent a Patriot missile system to Ukraine — contributing further military aid and that he hopes Trump can “stop the war.”

In 2020, the AUR party went from relative obscurity to gaining 9% in a parliamentary vote, allowing it to enter parliament. Opponents have long accused Simion and AUR of being extremists, charges he denies.

“We are sort of a Trumpist party in this new wave of patriotic political parties in Europe,” Simion said.