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Posted on 06/04/2025 2:10:25 PM PDT by ebb tide
Recent investigations have revealed that one of Pope Francis’ most notable and purportedly “humble” decisions actually cost the Vatican around €200,000 a month.
For the past 12 years, secular pundits and close allies of Pope Francis have relentlessly pushed the message that his humility is striking. One of the earliest and most prominent examples cited to support this argument was Francis’ decision to reject the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace in favor of the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse.
The guesthouse, built during the reign of Pope John Paul II, is intended for the cardinals to stay during a papal conclave, and for the rest of the time is a guesthouse for visiting clerics or occasional dignitaries having business with the Vatican.
Francis famously decided not to live in the traditional papal suite in the Apostolic Palace, and also rejected the summer residence of Castel Gandolfo. Both decisions were cited by his allies as evidence of an immensely humble man.
Indeed this line was parroted almost ad nausea by secular outlets during the past few weeks of papal funeral and conclave coverage.
In the early years of his pontificate, some outlets and talking heads would go as far as to contrast Francis with Pope Benedict XVI on this point, leaving TV viewers with the impression that Benedict’s decision to use the papal apartments was now to be understood as a failing in the humility which Francis so perfectly embodied.
Room 201 – Francis’ apartment in the Santa Marta – became internationally famous as the tangible rejection of the supposedly corrupt and indulgent pontificates of the past.
Except that this narrative was entirely false.
Recent investigations by Italian outlet Il Tempo revealed that Francis’ decision to live in the Santa Marta cost the Vatican almost €200,000 per month.
That results in around €29 million over the 12-year pontificate.
This revelation has not received the publicity it deserves – especially given the Vatican’s financial crisis and Francis’ personal decision to remove customary benefits for Vatican employees, both clerical and lay.
When all is said and done, a decision which costs €29 million does not smack of humility, but of something else. Ostentatious is the word which springs to mind, or “performative humility.”
During this time, the second floor on which Francis lived was kept mostly out of bounds for normal residents and guests of the Santa Marta, especially as his use of rooms expanded.
Additional security personnel were detailed to ensure the protection of the pope in a building which had never been designed for that purpose.
In contrast, the papal apartment has been described as frugal by many journalists who have visited, as the rooms for the actual living quarters are notably simple. The pope has a bedroom and a study; his secretary also has an office. Then there are certain communal quarters occupied by the various household staff such as the kitchen and dining room, a living room and a chapel.
A small medical facility has also been included, which was especially important during the pontificate of John Paul II.
Commenting on Francis’ living arrangements, Archbishop Georg Gänswein – the former aide and secretary of the late Benedict XVI – noted that the papal rooms of the Apostolic Palace are not as grand as the media have suggested.
He opined that the rooms available to Francis in the usual papal apartments “were equivalent to those of Francis in the Santa Marta Apartment; while all the other rooms – from the kitchen to the dining room, from the chapel to the rooms for the Particular Secretariat and other collaborators – in Santa Marta are equally available, albeit as part of the hotel complex.”
Gänswein’s assessment is not to be dismissed lightly: he served as prefect of the Papal Household for Pope Francis from 2012 through 2023, although in the latter years of that period he was prefect only in name, after Francis fired him.
The German prelate’s consideration is also supported by Church historian Henry Sire, author of The Dictator Pope, who wrote that the renovation of the Casa Santa Marta accommodation for Francis cost close to €2 million.
Sire also notes another aspect about Francis’ aversion to using the papal apartments: namely, it isolated him from the Vatican staff and Curia who were present in Santa Marta, and thus meant that he could not listen to everything that was being said.
This served as a “method of control, in order to get informed at lunch about the happenings in the diverse camps in the Vatican,” wrote Sire quoting journalist Matthias Matussek.
Indeed, while Francis was living in Santa Marta, large areas of the Apostolic Palace nevertheless had to be maintained to the normal degree, since Francis would still use certain of the larger functions rooms to welcome visiting prelates, politicians, and other dignitaries.
It seems, though, that the same degree of care for the historic building was not afforded for the rooms forming the papal apartment above the meeting rooms, as sources now suggest the apartment will need up to three months restoration work before it is livable. The extent of this restoration is not known.
Rumors have gone back and forth about whether Leo XIV will use the papal apartments, with often viral social media posts presenting it as fact that he will return there shortly.
In reality, although restoration work is reportedly being carried out, Leo himself told U.S. Vice President JD Vance that it was not yet decided whether he would live there.
Currently, Leo is residing in his old room in the Palace of the Holy Office, now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Asked about the new pontificate and the controversy about the living quarters, Henry Sire commented that “the reversal of this Santa Marta extravagance is the first step that needs to be taken to begin filling the gigantic hole in the Vatican’s finances created by Francis’s anti-Reform, i.e., in effect anarchic destruction.”
Sire, a respected analyst on Vatican affairs, told this correspondent that Leo would be able to effect further benefits if he tackled the ever-growing problem of the Vatican financial crisis:
An even more far-reaching remedy will be if Pope Leo finally carries out the intended overhaul of the Vatican’s finances, which was intended with the appointment of Cardinal Pell, before he was brought down and the former regime of Vatican non-accountability restored.
In particular, it would go a long way to solving the Vatican’s deficit if its huge property portfolio were put on a cost-effective footing, eliminating the huge incompetence and corruption under which it currently suffers.
Sire proposed former Vatican Auditor General Libero Milone as “the obvious candidate to put in charge of these reforms,” lamenting how Milone was “dismissed like a criminal, and who is still trying to obtain redress for the injustice he suffered.”
Milone, along with his recently-deceased deputy Ferrucio Panicco, worked alongside Pell to reform the Vatican finances, at the express wish of Pope Francis.
Together with Pell, Milone was apparently “increasingly effective” in the investigations into the Vatican finances, and “came too close to uncovering dangerous things.”
Milone and Panicco were abruptly fired in 2017, and in a prior $9.25 million suit against the Vatican Secretariat of State they argued that they were unjustly accused of spying and embezzlement in June 2017 by Cardinal Angelo Becciu: accusations which, they argue, stemmed from their audit of Vatican finances which uncovered widespread corruption within the hierarchy of the Holy See.
Milone has continually insisted that Becciu’s accusations against him and Panicco are absolutely false.
He has also consistently argued that the accusations were the result of his audit uncovering uncomfortable financial corruption, like the infamous London apartment deal which cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of euros, investments in pharmaceutical companies that produced abortifacients and contraceptives, contrary to the Church’s moral doctrine, embezzlement by high-ranking cardinals and officials, and money laundering conducted by the Secretariat of State and the Vatican Bank.
In fact, Pope Leo’s decision of where to live will have a direct impact on the Vatican’s dire financial situation. Should he follow the choice of his predecessor then he risks dragging the Vatican further down the black hole of financial ruin.
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Ping
And meanwhile “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head”
Jesus said to a scribe who said he’d follow him wherever he went. Jesus making sure this guy knew what he was in for if he meant it.
Was anything about Mr. Bergoglio NOT fake?
Typical phony baloney communist masquerading as a man of the people. His shunning Castel Gandolfo also caused economic hardship to the owners of the little shops and restaurants in that location due to lost tourism.
It makes sense to me. Francis was quite proud of his humility.
No surprise, unfortunately.
(Someone needs to tell this writer that the Latin phrase is “ad nauseam.”)
So. Fake climate change has cost trillions.
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