Despite a recent slight increase in St Peter's collection, the Vatican is apparently still in a financially precarious situation.
This is evident from figures recently published by the Holy See.
The proportion of German donations from the collection for the Pope has been declining for years. For the head of the church and his apparatus alone, 90 million euros had to be raised from the St Peter's pence budget.
An additional 13 million euros were budgeted for aid projects.
Accordingly, a total of 103 million euros was spent from St Peter's pence.
However, donations from the faithful worldwide only generated 48.4 million euros in 2023. An additional 3.6 million euros came from interest and the like. The total income totalled 52 million euros.
According to the press release, 51 million euros were therefore withdrawn from the assets of St Peter's Pennies last year. This was the only way to raise the required 103 million euros. Among the donor nations, the USA was far ahead with a share of 28.1 per cent, as it has been for years, followed by Italy (6.4 per cent). This was followed by Brazil (3.9 per cent) and then Germany, tied with South Korea (2.7 per cent each).
The proportion of donations from Germans was still 4.9 per cent in 2021, fell to 3 per cent in the following year and reached a new low of 2.7 per cent in 2023. In addition, according to information from the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) on Wednesday, the German dioceses transfer a "mid-single-digit million euro amount" to the Holy See.
The German bishops have been transferring an annual sum of around 5 million euros for decades. The church tax revenues of the German dioceses totalled around seven billion euros in 2023.