Vatican City 2014
Yearbook 2014
Vatican City. On Pope Francis’s 78th birthday in mid-December, a historic agreement between the United States and Cuba was published that had been negotiated with the help of the Vatican. Holy See population in 2020 is estimated at 812. The breakthrough in the negotiations, which took place in Canada and the Vatican, came when the United States offered Cuba to swap three Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States against a Cuban who had been an agent of the United States and served nearly 20 years in Cuban prison.
During a visit to Turkey during the autumn, the Pope gave a fire speech with the message that military means are not enough to tackle religious extremists and emphasized the importance of international involvement in the fight against poverty.
In line with its efforts to bring the Church closer to the people, the Pope has continued to reform the Curia – the Vatican’s administration during the year. From the outset, he made it clear that the courier is overly concerned about his own interests and thus neglects the outside world. His actions have shown that he does not allow himself to be manipulated or overlooked with the intrigue that darkened the representative of Benedict last year. By appointing the 58-year-old top diplomat Pietro Parolin as prime minister, Pope Francis got a second man who knows the courier inside and out.
The Pope continued during his second year to clean up the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank’s business so that the bank can no longer be suspected of advanced money laundering. For the Pope, it is necessary to have control and transparency in the Vatican’s business in order to assert the Church’s credibility.
St. Francis also dealt with the pedophile offenses committed by priests within the Catholic Church in a more tangible way than his predecessors. Already Benedict XVI expressed zero tolerance for the abuses, but St. Francis has gone a step further and allowed to arrest priests who have committed such crimes; In September, a former top diplomat and archbishop was arrested inside the Vatican.
It attracted a great deal of attention when the pope answered the question of how he looks at homosexuals: “Who am I to judge?” This more forgiving attitude was evident at the bishop’s meeting of the family held at the Vatican during the fall. It says in the final document that “people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and tenderness”. This phrase is interpreted by some Vatican connoisseurs as a sign of a new openness.
Demography and economic geography. – State located within the city of Rome. The population estimated by UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) in 2014 was 842 residents, With an annual decrease of 1.4%. A large part of the population resides abroad, for diplomatic and service reasons. Of the residents, about 450 enjoy Vatican citizenship, while others have only the authorization of permanent or temporary residence. It constitutes the smallest state in the world in terms of population and territory, while having autonomy over territories formally belonging to the Italian state for over 10 km 2.
History. – The years in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. they saw the Vatican face some difficulties and, above all, great changes. After the tensions of 2009 with the Italian government – caused by the publication in the newspaper “Il Giornale”, owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, of some gossip about the private life of Dino Boffo, editor of the newspaper of the CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) ” L’Avvenire “, which had criticized the work of the Italian executive and the moral conduct of the Prime Minister, in December 2010 the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion, the Vatican bank) was investigated for the alleged violation of some anti-money laundering rules, included in the financial agreement of December 2009 with the European Union which had confirmed the right of Vatican to use the euro as its official currency (among other things already in progress since 2002), and had established the clauses for issuing the currency. The investigations for the alleged financial crimes continued in the following years, even if in 2013 the AIF (Financial Intelligence Authority of the Vatican) stated that the IOR had aligned itself with the European legislation on banking transparency.
In May 2012, the Vatican then had to face a new scandal. Paolo Gabriele, butler of Pope Benedict XVI since 2006, stole and gave to an Italian journalist, who made it public, a large amount of confidential documents: focused on the divisions relating to government addresses and on the management of the IOR as regards anti-money laundering regulations, these documents showed greater attention to economic gain than to the spiritual mission. Gabriel was arrested but, forgiven by the pontiff, he soon returned to freedom.
On 11 February 2013, Benedict XVI, in office since the death of his predecessor John Paul II in 2005, announced his decision to renounce the pontificate due to advanced age. On March 13, 2013 the Conclave elected the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new pontiff, who chose the name of Francis: he was the first pope to come from Latin America. On 31 August 2013 Bergoglio appointed Monsignor Pietro Parolin, Vatican nuncio to Venezuela, as secretary of state, in place of Monsignor Tarcisio Bertone.
At the beginning of April 2015, a tax agreement was signed between Italy and Vatican which established by the latter the payment of taxes on financial annuities starting from 2014, the exchange of information on tax matters from 2009 and the possibility of regularizing with the repatriation of capital. The convention also confirmed the tax exemption of the extraterritorial properties of the Holy See, in accordance with the provisions of the Lateran Treaty.
