Overview
- Pope Leone issued a motu proprio that formally abrogates Pope Francis’s 2021 salary‑containment rules, including the 10% cut applied to cardinals in Vatican service.
- The repeal is strictly prospective, so pay reductions and the frozen biennial seniority increases applied between 2021 and 2026 will not be reimbursed or reconstructed.
- The Holy See said it will pursue economic sustainability using different instruments rather than across‑the‑board salary cuts after consulting the Secretariat for the Economy, and the rollback process began with a partial abrogation in June 2025.
- By chirografo, Leone ordered construction of a new building for the Vatican Apostolic Archive and the Vatican Library on the Fontana dell'Autoparco site and required those institutions to form a vatican instrumental foundation to raise and manage funds.
- For employees the change restores future pay scales but not past losses, and Vatican officials will now need to rely on the new foundation, budget choices, and alternative revenue measures to address the long‑running structural deficit.