ECONOMIST: The Vatican’s finances have been squeezed by covid-19
經濟學人：梵蒂岡的財政一直受到新冠肺炎的擠壓
But they are so opaque it is impossible to say how badly
但它們如此不透明，很難說有多糟糕
As nativity scenes go, the one in St Peter’s Square unveiled on December 11th is a startling departure from tradition. Several of the 54 giant ceramic figures would not look out of place on a Star Wars set. 「Ugly and demonic-looking,」 one appalled Catholic called them on Twitter. But the crib, apparently inspired by Greek, Egyptian and Sumerian art, is of a piece with a year that has been as exceptional for Europe’s smallest state and its ruler, Pope Francis, as for the rest of the world.
就耶穌誕生的場景而言，12月11日在聖彼得廣場揭幕的這一場景是對傳統的驚人背離。在《星球大戰》的場景中，54個巨大的陶瓷人物中有幾個看起來不會格格不入。一位嚇壞了的天主教徒在推特上稱他們為「醜陋和惡魔般的」。但這座顯然受希臘、埃及和蘇美爾藝術啟發的嬰兒床，是歐洲最小的國家及其統治者教皇方濟各和世界其他地方一樣特殊的一年。
Like most other countries, the Vatican City State will end 2020 with its public finances in a precarious condition. Just how precarious is hard to know, since the latest figures date from 2015 when it had a budget surplus of almost €60m ($73m). But what is known is that the city-state depends largely on revenues from the Vatican Museums to stay in the black. The Catholic News Agency rcently estimated that ticket sales alone bring in just over €100m. And, because of the pandemic, the museums have been closed for months. Even when they have been open, because of restrictions on the number of visitors and the scarcity of tourists in Rome, they have sold far fewer tickets than normal.
像大多數其他國家一樣，梵蒂岡城國將在2020年底公共財政狀況岌岌可危。很難知道到底有多不穩定，因為最新數據始於2015年，當時該國預算盈餘接近6000萬€(合7300萬美元)。但眾所周知的是，這個城市國家很大程度上依賴梵蒂岡博物館的收入來維持收支平衡。天主教新聞社最近估計，僅門票銷售一項就為€帶來1億多英鎊的收入。而且，由於大流行，博物館已經關閉了幾個月。即使它們已經開放，由於遊客數量的限制和羅馬遊客的稀缺，它們出售的門票也遠遠少於正常水平。
All this means that the city-state could well end up with a deficit of €15m or more for 2020. And unlike its bigger neighbours, it does not issue bonds to cover its debts. Nor can it rely on the eu to bail it out. But it doubtless has reserves.
所有這一切意味著，這個城市國家很可能在2020年出現1500萬€甚至更多的赤字。不像它的大鄰居，它不發行債券來償還債務。它也不能依靠歐盟保釋出來。但它無疑有儲備。
The city-state’s surpluses have till now been used to help fund the spending of the other half of the Vatican: the Holy See, the central administration of the world’s biggest Christian church. Even after contributions from the city-state’s governorate, a dividend from the Vatican Bank and donations from the faithful, the Holy See ended 2019 €11m in the red. The Vatican’s 「finance minister」, the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, said that, had it not been for extraordinary items, the deficit would have been twice as big.
到目前為止，這個城市國家的盈餘一直被用來資助梵蒂岡另一半的開支:教廷，世界上最大的基督教教會的中央政府。即使在該城邦各省捐款、梵蒂岡銀行分紅和信徒捐款之後，羅馬教廷還是以1100萬英鎊的赤字結束了2019年的€。梵蒂岡的「財政部長」，經濟秘書處的長官胡安·安東尼奧·格雷羅·阿爾維斯神父說，如果不是因為非常項目，赤字將會是現在的兩倍。
The Holy See can count on a much increased dividend from the Vatican Bank, which made a profit of €38m in 2019. But, in reaction to the pandemic, Pope Francis has halved the rent on the properties that the Holy See owns and on which it depends for about a third of its revenue. It will also have lost much of its income from commercial activities, such as the sale of publications. And contributions from the Catholic church’s dioceses are likely to be lower too, since fewer worshippers have been able to attend church services. Il Sole-24 Ore, a financial daily, reported in June that the Holy See was bracing itself for a €53m deficit. With Italy now in the grip of a second wave of infection, that could prove to be an underestimate.
教廷可以指望梵蒂岡銀行大幅增加股息，該行2019年盈利3800萬€。但是，為了應對這種流行病，教皇方濟各已經將羅馬教廷擁有的房產租金減半，羅馬教廷大約三分之一的收入來自這些房產。它還將失去商業活動的大部分收入，如出版物銷售。天主教會教區的捐款也可能較低，因為能夠參加教堂禮拜的禮拜者較少。伊爾索爾-24礦石英國《金融日報》6月報導稱，羅馬教廷正準備應對€5300萬英鎊的赤字。隨著義大利現在陷入第二波感染，這可能被證明是低估了。
The Vatican’s financial difficulties are entangled with two other interconnected issues awaiting Francis in 2021, a year in which he will undertake a potentially hazardous visit to Iraq. The first is the outcome of a judicial investigation into a deal worth €200m involving the purchase of a property in London. Prosecutors are investigating whether the Holy See was swindled. The second is a report on the Vatican’s finances by Moneyval, the European anti-money-laundering watchdog, expected in April.
梵蒂岡的財政困難與弗朗西斯2021年面臨的另外兩個相互關聯的問題糾纏在一起，在這一年，他將對伊拉克進行一次潛在的危險訪問。首先是對一項價值2億€、涉及在倫敦購買一處房產的交易的司法調查結果。檢察官正在調查教廷是否被騙。第二份是歐洲反洗錢監察機構「反洗錢委員會」(Moneyval)預計於4月份發布的一份關於梵蒂岡財政狀況的報告。
Though the investigation, which has dragged on for 14 months without charges being laid, appears to show a determination to clamp down on anything that might give rise to suspicions of jiggery-pokery in the Vatican’s notoriously opaque financial dealings, it has also cast doubt on the papacy’s capacity to regulate them. It has prompted the removal of the director of the Vatican’s financial regulator, who denies any wrongdoing, and turned the spotlight on a third, hitherto virtually unknown sphere of financial activity. This consists of funds running to hundreds of millions of euros that are managed by individual Vatican departments. (The property in London was bought not by the papacy’s sovereign-wealth fund, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, or apsa, but by the Secretariat of State, which combines the roles of a foreign and interior ministry.)
儘管調查已經持續了14個月，沒有提出任何指控，但似乎顯示出打擊任何可能導致梵蒂岡臭名昭著的不透明金融交易中的欺詐嫌疑的決心，這也對教皇的監管能力提出了質疑。這促使梵蒂岡金融監管機構負責人被免職，他否認有任何不當行為，並將焦點轉向迄今為止幾乎無人知曉的第三個金融活動領域。這包括由梵蒂岡各個部門管理的高達數億歐元的資金。(倫敦的房產不是由教皇的主權財富基金羅馬教廷遺產管理局購買的，或者促進會而是由國務秘書處負責，該秘書處結合了外交部和內政部的作用。)
Management of the secretariat’s pot of gold has since been transferred to apsa, but the confusion and secrecy that still envelope the Vatican’s finances are symptomatic of an administration that is in many respects highly efficient, yet patently in need of modernisation more than 50 years after the last big reform, under Paul vi.
此後，秘書處的黃金儲備管理工作已移交給促進會但是，梵蒂岡財政仍然籠罩在混亂和秘密之中，這是一個政府的症狀，這個政府在許多方面都非常高效，但在保羅領導下的最後一次大改革50多年後，顯然需要現代化視覺識別系統。
Francis was elected in 2013 as the candidate of cardinals who were urging a shake-up of the Holy See. One of his earliest moves was to delegate the job to a council of advisers drawn mostly from outside Rome and notably short on Vatican bigwigs—a sign of his preference for decentralising the church’s bureaucracy. That alone made him deeply suspect to many in the Holy See and is part of the explanation for a resistance to Francis’s papacy that often manifests itself as opposition to his theological ideas.
弗朗西斯在2013年當選為樞機主教候選人，這些樞機主教敦促教廷進行改革。他最早的舉措之一是將這項工作委託給一個顧問委員會，該委員會主要由羅馬以外的人組成，特別是梵蒂岡的大人物——這表明他傾向於將教會的官僚機構下放。光是這一點就讓他在教廷的許多人面前產生了深深的懷疑，這也是對弗朗西斯教皇職位的抵制的部分原因，這種抵制經常表現為對他的神學思想的反對。
After seven years of effort, the pontiff’s advisers are currently working on the final draft that is expected to form the basis in 2021 for an Apostolic Constitution, the most solemn kind of papal edict. Its promulgation is likely to be the high point of the Vatican’s year. A draft of the edict that was circulated in Rome and sent to national bishops』 conferences in 2019 would diminish the status of the Vatican’s feared doctrinal enforcement body, once known as the Holy Office. Revolutionary? Certainly. But perhaps the message of those bizarre figures in St Peter’s Square this Christmas is that, under Pope Francis, nothing should be taken for granted.
經過七年的努力，教皇的顧問們目前正在起草最終草案，預計將在2021年形成使徒憲法的基礎，這是最莊嚴的教皇法令。它的頒布可能是梵蒂岡這一年的高潮。該法令草案在羅馬傳閱，並於2019年提交給全國主教會議，將削弱梵蒂岡令人擔憂的教義執行機構的地位，該機構曾被稱為神聖辦公室。革命？當然可以。但或許今年聖誕節聖彼得廣場上那些古怪人物傳達的信息是，在教皇弗朗西斯的領導下，沒有什麼是理所當然的。
本文章英文原文來自經濟學人，不代表公眾號立場
英文文章及圖片來源：
https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/12/19/the-vaticans-finances-have-been-squeezed-by-covid-19
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