Leo XIV repeals the pay cuts imposed on the cardinals

By a decree published by the Vatican on 14 September 2026, Leo XIV has repealed the salary reductions that Francis imposed in 2021 on cardinals and other senior officials working in the Roman Curia. The austerity measure, enacted by decree in March 2021 to address a deficit then projected at 60 million dollars, had lowered cardinals' pay by 10 percent — their monthly remuneration stands at around 5,000 euros — that of other senior officials and employees of the Holy See and Vatican City State by 8 percent, and that of clerics and religious employed by the Vatican by 3 percent.

In 2021 these cuts were presented as necessary to an economically sustainable future; the new decree declares that they may now be lifted, the institutions of the Holy See and Vatican City committing to secure that same sustainability by other means.

What the Church has always taught on the cleric and money

The man of God does not draw his honour from his salary. The first of the Apostles, whom these prelates succeed, said to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate: "Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, I give thee." Saint Paul, writing to Timothy whom he had made a bishop, lays down the rule: "But having food and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content," for "the desire of money is the root of all evils." The Catechism of the Council of Trent, expounding the ninth and tenth commandments, would have the Christian be content with his condition, "whatsoever it be, low or exalted," and refers the pastor to what Scripture and the Fathers say "in praise of poverty and on the contempt of riches."

The measure

To restore a salary that had been reduced is not, in itself, a fault: the labourer deserves his hire, and no one is bound to destitution. But tradition has never measured the dignity of a cleric by his stipend; it has measured it by what he lets be seen of the poverty of Christ. A self-denial freely embraced, however modest, is a good; to undo it remains, at best, an opportunity lost. And the principle stands, whether one adds or subtracts: the higher a man is raised in the Church, the more evangelical poverty ought to shine in him.

Such is the meaning of the gesture of Peter, who had neither gold nor silver, and of Paul's warning to a bishop. The contentment with little that the Catechism prescribes to every Christian binds first of all those who go up to the altar. For the faithful, the lesson is an old one: the honour of a priest is not counted in euros, and the Church is not judged by the payslips of her princes, but by the fidelity of her doctrine.

Sources. Acts of the Apostles, III, 6; First Epistle to Timothy, VI, 8-10 (Douay-Rheims); Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the ninth and tenth commandments.