Who runs the Vatican? The Roman Curia, the Holy See and the Vatican Bank

The pope runs the Vatican and the Church through the Holy See, which is viewed as the central government of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. In practice he governs through the Roman Curia, the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Curia was created by Pope Urban II, who reigned from 1088 to 1099. As of 2026, its structure is regulated by the apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium, issued by Pope Francis on 19 March 2022, which entered into force on 5 June 2022 and replaced Pastor bonus, issued by John Paul II in 1988.

The Curia is composed of the Secretariat of State, the dicasteries and a number of other bodies, all of which are juridically equal. The Secretariat of State is the oldest dicastery. When the Apostolic See becomes vacant, all the heads of curial institutions cease to hold office, with a few exceptions. The Holy See itself does not dissolve on a pope's death or resignation: it operates under a different set of laws.

Money has its own story. The Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, is a financial institution inside Vatican City, run by a Board of Superintendence that reports to a Commission of Cardinals and the pope. It is not a private bank: there are no owners or shareholders. Pope Pius XII founded it by papal decree in June 1942, and it is neither a department of the Curia nor a central bank.

Openness arrived in the 2010s. In July 2012, at the Vatican's own request, Moneyval, the Council of Europe's committee on money laundering, evaluated the Vatican City State, the first time the Holy See had submitted its institutions and laws to an international external auditor. On 1 October 2013, the bank published its first annual report: a net profit of 86.6 million euros for 2012, of which 54.7 million went to the Holy See's budget. In August 2022 Francis ruled that all financial resources of the Holy See and its associated institutions must be transferred to the Institute, as sole custodian of the Holy See's movable assets.