Pope Leo XIV reverses Francis-era salary cuts for cardinals

On Sept. 14, 2026, his 71st birthday, Pope Leo XIV blew out a candle at the Vatican Apostolic Library and repealed the salary restraint measures Pope Francis signed on March 23, 2021. The decree, reported by Vatican News, ends the cuts and frozen seniority increments for cardinals, senior officials and other affected Holy See staff. Cardinals of the Roman Curia had been reduced 10%; heads and secretaries of Dicasteries and C and C1 employees 8%; clerical and religious employees 3%. Biennial seniority raises were frozen for serving staff and, for lay employees, from the fourth salary level upward, excluding the lowest-income categories. When Francis acted, the Holy See faced a structural deficit of about 70 million euros and a pension fund shortfall of about 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion), per the Associated Press. Leo said the steps answered COVID's extraordinary challenge and that "Now they can be brought to an end, in the certainty that the institutions of the Holy See and Vatican City State will continue, through different means, their commitment to ensuring economic sustainability." He told library staff his mother was a librarian and that he came on his birthday to greet them. Contested: no factual disputes found in the sourcing. The same day Leo also decreed a new building in Vatican City for the Library's growing manuscripts, calling on-site facilities preferable to the earlier seminary arrangement.