Msgr.Nunzio Galantino: the ethics committee will guide future investments in the Vatican

A Vatican bishop said this week that a committee of outside professionals has been created to help keep the Holy See's investments both ethical and profitable.

Mons. Nunzio Galantino, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), declared on November 19 that the statute for a new "Investment Committee" is waiting to be approved.

The committee of "high-profile external professionals" will collaborate with the Council for the Economy and the Secretariat for the Economy to "guarantee the ethical nature of the investments, inspired by the social doctrine of the Church, and, at the same time, their profitability “Galantino told the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis called for investment funds to be transferred from the Secretariat of State to APSA, Galantino's office.

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The APSA, which acts as the treasury of the Holy See and manager of the sovereign wealth, manages the payroll and operating expenses for the Vatican City. It also oversees its own investments. It is currently in the process of taking over the financial funds and real estate assets which until now were administered by the Secretariat of State.

The 72-year-old Galantino said in the interview that the new Vatican law on the awarding of contracts was “an important step forward, therefore. But that is not all."

"Transparency, fairness and control stop being meaningless words or reassuring proclamations only when they walk on the legs of honest and capable men and women who truly love the Church," he said.

Galantino has been at the helm of APSA since 2018. In October of this year, he was forced to deny claims that the Holy See was heading towards financial "collapse".

“There is no danger of collapse or default here. There is only a need for a spending review. And that's what we're doing. I can prove it with numbers, ”he said, after a book claimed the Vatican may soon be unable to meet its normal operating expenses.

In an October 31 interview with Italian journalist Avvenire, Galantino said the Holy See did not use Peter's Pence money or the pope's discretionary fund to cover its losses in the controversial purchase of a building in London, but that the sum came from the Reserves of the Secretariat of State.

There had been no "looting" of accounts intended for charitable purposes, he insisted.

Galantino said "independent estimates" put the losses at 66-150 million pounds (85-194 million dollars) and acknowledged that "mistakes" had contributed to the Vatican's losses.

“It will be up to the [Vatican] court to decide whether it was a matter of errors, recklessness, fraudulent actions or otherwise. And it will be up to the same court to tell us if and how much it can be recovered, ”he said