Pope Leo XIV appoints new members to Vatican’s Council for the Economy

Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 11 named eight new members, including four laypeople, to the Council for the Economy, the body that oversees the administrative and financial structures and activities of the Roman Curia and institutions connected to the Holy See.

The council also approves the annual budget and the consolidated financial statements of the Holy See and submits them to the pope.

Members are appointed by the pope for a five-year term and, according to the constitution of the Roman Curia, are always divided between eight cardinals or bishops and seven expert laypeople chosen from diverse nationalities.

The new cardinals appointed to the council Aug. 11 are Grzegorz Ryś, archbishop of Krakow, Poland; Ladislav Nemet, SVD, archbishop of Belgrade, Serbia; Jean-Paul Vesco, OP, archbishop of Algiers, Algeria; and Roberto Repole, archbishop of Turin, Italy.

Among the laypeople, Pope Leo appointed H.S.H. Gisela Bergmann, princess of Liechtenstein and the daughter of H.S.H. Prince Michael of Liechtenstein. The 36-year-old holds a degree in engineering and has worked in various positions in investment banking and engineering in England, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland.

Since 2022, Bergmann has been CEO of Industrie-Und Finanzkontor, a financial company founded by the Princely Family of Liechtenstein.

Leo also appointed French businessman and philanthropist Denis Duverne, who has been chair of the board of directors of the French multinational insurance corporation AXA since 2016. He has a background in regulatory affairs in France and abroad.

The pope also appointed two Italians to the council. Elena Principato-Wettstein, an Italian currently based in Switzerland, is executive director and head of sales management WM Europe International at UBS, the Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services firm.

Paolo Nusiner, meanwhile, has had a long career managing Catholic institutions in Italy, including holding the top positions at the Catholic newspaper Avvenire and the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

He has been director for general affairs at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication since 2015, and president of the Isola Tiberina-Gemelli Isola Hospital in Rome since 2022.

Leo confirmed the following people, originally appointed by Pope Francis, for additional five-year terms: Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil; Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, ISPX, archbishop of Québec, Canada, and primate of Canada; Cardinal Joseph William Tobin, CSSR., archbishop of Newark, New Jersey; Leslie Jane Ferrar, trustee of the Archdiocese of Westminster, Great Britain; Alberto Minali, chief executive officer of REVO Insurance; and Father Brian Edwin Ferme, a canon lawyer and secretary of the council.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who has led the council since it was established by Pope Francis in 2014, will also continue in his position, as will the council’s vice coordinator, the German legal scholar Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof.

According to the constitution of the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium, the council “carries out its functions in the light of the social doctrine of the Church, following the best practices recognized internationally in the field of public administration and striving for an administrative and financial management that is both ethical and efficient.”