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By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican is cutting the already shrinking pay packages of cardinals who head the Catholic Church's top offices in Rome by about 10% or 500 euros ($540) a month as the pope pursues a "zero deficit" agenda of greater thrift.
The cardinals will no longer receive two monthly allowances that are often used to defray the cost of hiring personal secretaries, said a note written by Maximino Caballero Ledo, a Spanish layman who heads the Vatican's finance ministry.
The Vatican press office did not respond to a request for comment, but a senior Vatican official provided the letter to Reuters.
Caballero said in the letter, dated Oct. 18, that he was acting at Pope Francis' request and that the cuts would go into effect on Nov. 1.
They affect only cardinals who serve as heads of the Vatican's various departments in Rome: about 20 of the world's more than 230 "princes of the Church".
Cardinals in Rome receive a monthly stipend believed to be around 4,000 to 5,000 euros ($4,300 to $5,400), according to Italian media reports. The scrapped allowances are estimated at around 500 euros.
Francis has recently prioritised cutting Vatican spending.
He wrote an unusual letter last month to all the world's cardinals, asking them to pursue a "zero deficit" agenda to help improve the Vatican's economic standing and promote "a spirit of essentiality, avoiding the superfluous and selecting our priorities well".
Francis previously ordered a 10% pay cut for cardinals in Rome in March 2021, as the Vatican reeled from the impact of reduced tourism during the coronavirus pandemic. He also began to eliminate subsidised rents for cardinals and other top Vatican officials in 2023.
The headquarters of the Church comprises two entities, the internationally recognised sovereign entity of the Holy See and the Vatican, a 108-acre city-state surrounded by Rome.
They maintain separate budgets, and Vatican City income, including from the popular Vatican Museums, has often been used to plug deficits in the Holy See's budget.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
