ANNUAL DISCLOSURE 2021

General Overview

Peter’s Pence (the Obolo) is the name given to the financial support offered by the faithful to the Holy Father as a sign of their shared concern with the Successor of Peter in addressing the necessities of the Universal Church and to help those most in need.

In 2021 the Obolo’s income amounted to € 46.9 million, while the expenses sustained totaled € 65.3 million, as shown below in Table 1.

Table 1: income and expenses overview

Donations received by the Obolo

Peter’s Pence consists of:

-       the collection carried out during the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in all dioceses of the world;

-     the offerings received via wire transfers, postal slips, checks, cash and through the web page

https://www.obolodisanpietro.va/en/dona.html ;

-       inheritances and bequests.

Registration of all donations are clustered under four different sources (Table 2):

-       Dioceses

-       Private Donors

-       Religious Orders

-       Foundations.

Table 2: donations breakdown by donor

The donations mentioned above may also all be grouped according to originating country, except for those under the categories Religious Orders and Foundations.

Table 3: donations breakdown by originating country

Contributions granted by the Obolo

All the collections received by Peter’s Pence aim at supporting two main areas of the Pope’s Universal Mission: funding the activities of service carried out by the Roman Curia (e.g. formation of the clergy, communication, promotion of human development, education, justice, etc.), and contributing to numerous charitable works that directly assist those most in need.

Overall, as previously pointed out, donations and contributions granted during 2021 by the Peter’s Pence Fund added up to € 65.3 million, € 46.9 million of which have been funded thanks to the offerings received in 2021, whereas the remainder, totaling € 18.4 million, have been funded by its patrimony. These initiatives can be further broken-down as follows:

-       € 55.5 million to support the activities promoted by the Holy See in carrying out the Holy Father’s Apostolic Mission;

-       € 9.8 million to implement projects of direct assistance to those most in need.

Table 4: donation breakdown by source and destination

Direct assistance to those most in need (€ 9.8 million)

The Pope, the Pastor of the Universal Church, is concerned with the material assistance to poor dioceses, religious institutes and faithful with serious difficulties (the poor, children, the elderly, the marginalized, as well as situations involving victims of natural disasters, war victims, Bishops or Dioceses in need, Catholic education, aid to refugees and migrants, etc.).

Throughout 2021, the Holy See, in carrying out its Apostolic Mission, has donated more than € 35 million. The Obolo itself has funded 157 different projects in 2021 across 67 different countries, for an amount of € 9.8 million (included in the € 35 million previously mentioned), geographically distributed as follows:

Table 5: number of projects divided by continent

The activities promoted may be divided into three different areas: i) social projects; ii) support to the evangelizing presence of churches in need; iii) expansion and preservation of the evangelizing presence with new churches.

Table 6: projects divided by category

The following are some examples of projects per category, as shown in the table above:

i)               Social projects: these initiatives encompass aid towards local communities.

ii)             Support to the evangelizing presence of Churches in need: these activities are meant to help, strengthen and assist local Churches, congregations etc., operating in needy or mission countries.

iii)           Expansion and preservation of the evangelizing presence with new churches: these projects aim at strengthening and encouraging new-born local Churches in their evangelizing presence, through the construction of new buildings, facilities or churches as well as maintenance of the existing ones.

Support to the Holy Father’s Apostolic Mission (€ 55.5 million)

The offerings of the faithful are intended to support the activities of the Holy Father in favor of the entire Universal Church, which includes the needs for evangelization (spiritual, educational, justice, communication, political charity, diplomatic activity, etc.). These activities are carried out by the Holy See, and many of the services provided and destined for the universal Church are possible thanks to Peter’s Pence. In fact, it guarantees the activities of the Dicasteries that assist the Pope every day in exercising his ministry.

For representation purposes, the different Dicasteries and entities of the Holy See are clustered in: i) Entities performing services & administration; ii) entities managing the patrimony; iii) entities that support the Holy Father’s Apostolic Mission.

In 2021, the total expenses of the 70 Dicasteries and entities grouped as “Supporting Apostolic Mission” of the Holy Father amounted to € 237.7 million, € 55.5 million (23%) of which were funded by the Obolo. These entities are consolidated in the following groups:

Table 7: Apostolic mission groups

“The Church is all of us! All those who follow the Lord Jesus and who, in his name, come close to the least and the suffering, seeking to offer a little relief, comfort and peace.”

Pope Francis, General Audience, 29 October 2014