VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Before leaving for his first apostolic trip to Turkey and Lebanon in November, Pope Leo XIV issued reforms to the Vatican’s labor laws. Both recognize the rapid changes in the makeup of the Catholic Church’s workforce and hope to bring the church’s employment practices into the 21st century.
The Rules for the Personnel of the Roman Curia, published Nov. 24, streamlined hiring procedures, set basic requirements for employees and spelled out anti-nepotism rules, all meant to accommodate a growing number of lay people in the ranks of the Curia, as the Vatican bureaucracy is known.
Working at the Vatican used to be considered an honor reserved mostly for clergy, but rising secularization and financial strain have made the work of a curial officer a less appetizing option. Working in the Curia offers certain advantages, such as tax exemptions and access to the Vatican’s grocery store and pharmacy, whose prices are generally lower than in Roman stores. But the Vatican has lagged behind Italy in providing attractive salaries and benefits.
Not only are lay people not incentivized to work at the Vatican, but few are trained, or inclined, to buy into the nonprofit mission of the Catholic city-state.
“If you have been a company manager and come to deal with the economy of the Curia as you would in any other organization, you have to understand that this economy is not oriented toward income but toward a specific purpose that is specific to the Church, and therefore at times you must accept losing numbers because you are required to achieve certain results,” said Bishop Juan Ignatio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Legislative Texts, in a meeting with Vatican reporters organized by the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome.
The Office of Labor of the Apostolic See “is continuously dedicated to updating the regulations, including the welfare and social security legislation for Curia employees,” Arrieta explained.
In addition to placing hiring under the supervision of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, the new rules allow the Office of Labor of the Apostolic See to operate independently on employment matters, without getting bogged down in questions about how the Curia, a vast and highly hierarchical structure, is organized.
Given its modern shape in the 16th century, the Curia — the Latin term for a royal court — has been restructured several times since the early 1900s, most recently in the Praedicate Evangelium, the apostolic constitution promulgated by Pope Francis in 2022.
Leo’s reforms follow Francis’ constitution but reflect a change in tone in relating to the Vatican’s staff. Francis was not above publicly scolding the Roman Curia, especially in his Christmas addresses, accusing officials of hypocrisy, power-grabbing and insulation from the outside world. Leo, by contrast, appears to favor moving institutional levers to incentivize efficiency and accountability.
In his first meeting with Vatican employees after his election in May, Leo reminded them of the old saying, “Popes come and go, the Curia remains,” adding his thanks for their service.
The day before the meeting, the pope reinstated the practice of handing out a 500 euro bonus to employees for their work during the conclave. In August, Leo approved paternity leave and expanded benefits for families with disabled children. The reforms announced last month will make such changes easier to make.
The laicization of the Curia is partly the result of declining vocations — people who feel called to be priests. In this atmosphere, good workers are hard to come by, ordained or not. “Hiring is not easy at the Vatican,” Arrieta explained, “especially because the bishops are rather reluctant to give you their best priests, since they need them for their own dioceses.”
As the number of qualified clergy dwindled, Francis promoted the role of lay people, particularly lay women, whose presence he also saw as a cultural and even theological boon. Leo has accelerated these efforts, most notably in a decree published Nov. 21 that amended the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State to allow a lay person to lead a Vatican commission. Sister Raffaella Petrini currently serves as the first lay president of the Pontifical Commission of Vatican City State and the Governorate and was appointed to this role by Francis in March 2025.
But if Leo’s new rules make working at the Vatican easier, they haven’t addressed other challenges facing the Vatican workforce. The Vatican pension fund, which has a shortfall estimated to be 600 to 800 million euros, is a serious long-term liability. In an open letter issued late last year, the Association of Vatican Lay Workers, the closest thing the Vatican has to a labor union, complained of a lack of information regarding the pension funds and called for greater transparency.
Meanwhile, 49 employees of the Vatican Museums — among the largest revenue streams at the Vatican — filed an unprecedented lawsuit at the Vatican, citing unsafe conditions, overwork and understaffing, putting an added pressure on the institution to raise its standards.
A May statement by the Vatican workers association said that the meeting with the pope was “an encouragement to continue dialoguing and building bridges.” But Leo has yet to show whether these early gestures will translate into a long-term strategy capable of confronting the Vatican’s looming financial and personnel crisis.
