Circulate baskets among the 600,000 faithful gathered at Place de la Concorde and on the Champs-Elysées, Saturday September 26, to attend the mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV? “Out of the question! We are going to broadcast QR codes on the giant screens, encourage donations by SMS…”, smiles Sylvie Bretones, responsible for finding the money to finance the papal stay in the diocese of Paris. If each faithful gave five euros that day, the costs of this giant mass would be covered. “The problem in the Church is that everything is free, but everything has a cost,” continues the big financier of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris.
The latest figures from the Conference of Bishops of France bring the bill for the four days spent by Leo “Twenty million euros is a bit like the minimum base,” notes Christian Terras, editor-in-chief of the Golias magazine, which represents the progressive movement of the Church.
Aside from the security expenses linked to the protection of a foreign head of state, the State does not pay a cent – except, concordat obliges, for the passage to Metz (Lorraine was not French in 1905 when the law of separation of Church and State was promulgated). However, renting the Stade de France on Friday or even organizing a mass for more than half a million faithful on Saturday is not free. “During the last visit of Benedict XVI, in 2008, we held a mass at the Invalides without toilets,” remembers Sylvie Bretones. “It was completely acceptable at the time.” Now, the faithful are entitled to more comfort: 4,000 toilets will be available, in addition to 48 giant screens at 50,000 euros each for the celebration of Leo XIV on the most beautiful avenue in the world.
Spanish tips, French prohibitions
The equation seems insoluble for the Church of France. The campaign to call for donations must have been launched in the heart of summer, when the French and the faithful had their minds elsewhere. The sale of derivative products, at the beginning of September, will only raise a fraction of the necessary sum.
However, there is a practical manual for successfully completing this type of exercise: Megaeventos de la Iglesia catolica. Its author, Yago de la Cierva, is a true conductor of Catholic gatherings: WYD in Madrid in 2011, in Krakow in 2016, or even the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia (United States) in 2015. It is therefore not surprising that he was entrusted with the organization of the visit of Leo XIV last spring, an event of a magnitude comparable to that of the Parisian meeting.
But in Spain, we have assets unavailable in France. According to the economic newspaper Expansion, around half of the bill (estimated at 25 million euros) was paid by donations from companies, foundations and wealthy donors. French companies established around the world, such as Orange or JCDecaux, contributed, via donations in kind or cold hard cash, to Léon XIV's stay in Madrid and Barcelona. Organizations that are much more cautious about being associated with a religious event in the country champion of secularism. “There, it’s not a problem,” sighs Sylvie Bretones. “In France, it’s much more delicate for them.”
Also count 30% of the sum drawn from the nest egg of the Church of Spain and 20% from public funds – up to the local executives of the Canaries and Catalonia. Donations from the faithful only cover 5% of the total, which represents 1.25 million euros, all the same, according to the count of the Spanish Bishops' Conference. “Their total is never very significant, but it gives everyone the feeling of participating,” writes Yago de la Cierva in the book based on his experience.
Desperately seeking major donor
Looking for money, yes, but not at any cost. In March, the Spanish press was moved by a price list proposed by the Spanish Church to those who considered signing a check: it started at 1,000 euros, with a paper certificate of participation, up to a private audience in return for a donation of 500,000 euros or more. “It was only a working document drawn up by a local committee”, attempts to defuse the Conference of Bishops of Spain with franceinfo. “None of these private hearings ever took place.” Not sure that big bosses need to take action to have the ear of the Pope. The boss of the energy company Iberdrola, one of the main Spanish donors, was received in audience by Leo XIV in August at the Vatican.
This is not the first time that a disruptive financing idea has hit the headlines on the other side of the Pyrenees. For the 1989 WYD, in Santiago de Compostela, Cardinal Rouco recounts in the book Megaeventos de la Iglesia catolica that Coca-Cola had offered to cover all expenses, in return for the brand's red logo on the altar and behind the pope... like a Formula 1 podium. "An extreme example, but very telling", commented the dignitary. The soda brand was also a sponsor of the 2011 World Youth Day in Madrid, but in a more discreet manner. “We appealed to sponsors to be independent of the government,” Yago de la Cierva explains to franceinfo. “These same companies helped us in the spring, because the WYD experience was very satisfying for them.”
Receiving the Pope costs a fortune. And the problem of financing is not new: since John Paul II, the sovereign pontiff is no longer cloistered in Rome, but has become a true sales representative of Catholicism. The Los Angeles Times put the hourly cost of the pope's visit across the Atlantic in 1987 at $93,572 (he stayed there for ten days). “We are trying to raise the funds without shearing the flock [of faithful],” Father Riley, of the diocese of San Francisco, admitted at the time.
A quarter of a century later, François's Irish trip was worth a million euros per hour. “More expensive than Barack Obama,” noted The Irish Times. The Argentine pope's express stay, eight hours in Luxembourg, cost more than 1.5 million euros, the government admitted to Luxemburger Wort. One of the rare immediate results: the sovereign pontiff paid for the coffee he sipped at the Le Gruppetto bar, where he had come to protect himself from a downpour, describes the daily L'Essentiel. The blessing of the owner and customers of the establishment remained free.
During Pope Francis' visit to Colombia in 2017, local organizers chose not to communicate on the budget, a silence interpreted by opponents as an admission of a pharaonic addition. “Transparency of information is necessary from the beginning,” concluded Diaz Bohorquez, director of communications for the event, quoted in the book Megaeventos de la Iglesia catolica.
Slates flying away
Obviously, when questions of national prestige get involved, the bill can quickly soar. The record in all categories undoubtedly belongs to Cameroon, which spent more than 76 million euros to welcome Léon XIV in April, according to Jeune Afrique. Even if it means building roads to connect the airport to downtown Yaoundé, and abandoning the work as soon as the papal plane leaves, says Brice Molo, Cameroonian academic at the Catholic Institute of Paris. The indestructible Paul Biya had to patch things up with the clergy at all costs. “The religious people had estimated during the electoral campaign that even the devil would make a better president than him!, underlines the researcher. The pressure was maximum before this visit.
The Cameroonian government even dug into its gold reserves to give 1.5 kg to the Pope as a gift, a decision which shocked this country ranked 155th out of 193 in the human development index. “Which did not prevent Leo XIV from being very harsh. He used the right words to point out Cameroon's problems," comments Brice Molo. No one was able to see Paul Biya's reaction, national television carefully avoiding, according to the opposition press, showing cutaways on the face of the 93-year-old president, regularly hospitalized in Switzerland...
The papal visit to Equatorial Guinea, a few days later, was financed by a special tax, withheld at source from the salaries of civil servants and soldiers, provoking a wave of indignation. Francis' trip to East Timor in 2024 had also drained public finances: 12 million euros, including one million just to build a giant altar at the cost of the expropriation of a dozen families. Enough to provoke controversy in this country which is 96% Catholic, but where almost one in two inhabitants lives below the poverty line. “The government is making fun of the poor people of this country by spending so much money on this,” complains the NGO La'o Hamutuk. The latest news is that the monumental altar is still there, as shown in promotional videos intended for tourists, but has hardly been used any more.
