Pope Leo XIV marks feast day as Vatican launches campaign to help erase its $57-68 million deficit

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Sunday celebrated a special feast day traditionally used by the Catholic Church to drum up donations from the faithful, with the Vatican under the first American pope rolling out a new campaign to urge ordinary Catholics to help bail out the deficit-ridden Holy See.

Leo celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, during which he gave the pallium woolen stole to 54 new archbishops. He thanked donors who have contributed to the church, using the language of the publicity campaign to say their financial support was a sign of union with his young pontificate.

In churches around the world, Masses on the June 29 feast day often include a special collection for Peter’s Pence, a fund which both underwrites the operations of the central government of the Catholic Church and pays for the pope’s personal acts of charity.

With a promotional video, poster, QR code and website soliciting donations via credit card, PayPal, bank transfer and post office transfer, the Vatican is betting this year that an American-style fundraising pitch under the Chicago-born Leo will do more to help keep the Holy See bureaucracy afloat and erase its 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit.

The video features footage of Leo’s emotional first moments as pope, when he stepped out onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica and later choked up as he received the fisherman’s ring of the papacy. With an evocative soundtrack in the background, the video superimposes a message, available in several languages, urging donations to Leo via the Peter’s Pence collection.

“With your donation to Peter’s Pence, you support the steps of the Holy Father,” it says. “Help him proclaim the Gospel to the world and extend a hand to our brothers and sisters in need. Support the steps of Pope Leo XIV. Donate to Peter’s Pence.”

At the end of his noon blessing Sunday, Leo used the same language about his first steps to say the Peter's Pence fund is “a sign of communion with the pope and participation with his Apostolic Ministry."

"From the heart, I thank those who with their gifts are supporting my first steps as the successor of St. Peter,” he said.

The fund has been the source of scandal in recent years, amid revelations that the Vatican's secretariat of state mismanaged its holdings through bad investments, incompetent management and waste. The recent trial over the Vatican’s bungled investment in a London property confirmed that the vast majority of Peter’s Pence contributions had funded the Holy See’s budgetary shortfalls, not papal charity initiatives as many parishioners had been led to believe.

Between the revelations and the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed churches and canceled out the traditional pass-the-basket collection on June 29, Peter’s Pence donations fell to 43.5 million euros in 2022 — a low not seen since 1986 — that was nevertheless offset the same year by other investment income and revenue to the fund.

Donations rose to 48.4 million euros (about $56.7 million) in 2023 and hit 54.3 million euros (nearly $63.6 million) last year, according to the Peter’s Pence annual report issued last week. But the fund incurred expenses of 75.4 million euros ($88.3 million) in 2024, continuing the trend in which the fund is exhausting itself as it covers the Holy See’s budgetary shortfalls.

On top of the budget deficit, the Vatican is also facing a 1 billion euro (about $1.17 billion) shortfall in its pension fund that Pope Francis, in the months before he died, warned was unable in the medium term to fulfill its obligations.

Unlike countries, the Holy See doesn't issue bonds or impose income tax on its residents to run its operations, relying instead on donations, investments and revenue generated by the Vatican Museums, and sales of stamps, coins, publications and other initiatives.

For years, the United States has been the greatest source of donations to Peter’s Pence, with U.S. Catholics contributing around a quarter of the total each year.

Vatican officials are hoping that under Leo’s pontificate, with new financial controls in place and an American math major running the Holy See, donors will be reassured that their money won’t be misspent or mismanaged.

“This is a concrete way to support the Holy Father in his mission of service to the universal Church,” the Vatican’s economy ministry said in a press release last week announcing the annual collection and new promotional materials surrounding it. “Peter’s Pence is a gesture of communion and participation in the Pope’s mission to proclaim the Gospel, promote peace, and spread Christian charity.”

This version corrects the month to June sted July.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV celebrates a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, where he will bless the pallia for the new metropolitan archbishops, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV arrives in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican to celebrate a Mass where he will bless the pallia for the new metropolitan archbishops, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV celebrates a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, where he will bless the pallia for the new metropolitan archbishops, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV celebrates a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, where he will bless the pallia for the new metropolitan archbishops, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV look at a pallium, he blessed for the new metropolitan archbishops during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, June 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday fired off another warning to the government of Cuba as the close ally of Venezuela braces for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as Venezuela's leader.

Cuba, a major beneficiary of Venezuelan oil, has now been cut off from those shipments as U.S. forces continue to seize tankers in an effort to control the production, refining and global distribution of the country's oil products.

Trump said on social media that Cuba long lived off Venezuelan oil and money and had offered security in return, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!”

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO!” Trump said in the post as he spent the weekend at his home in southern Florida. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

The Cuban government said 32 of its military personnel were killed during the American operation last weekend that captured Maduro. The personnel from Cuba’s two main security agencies were in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as part of an agreement between Cuba and Venezuela.

“Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Trump said Sunday. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”

Trump also responded to another account’s social media post predicting that his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will be president of Cuba: “Sounds good to me!” Trump said.

Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive tone toward Cuba, which had been kept economically afloat by Venezuela. Long before Maduro's capture, severe blackouts were sidelining life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Trump has said previously that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, would slide further with the ouster of Maduro.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

A person watches the oil tanker Ocean Mariner, Monrovia, arrive to the bay in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)