Young missionary dioceses will need to become more financially self-sufficient, Vatican official warns
June 05, 2026
A Vatican official told national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies that younger missionary dioceses will need to become more financially self-sufficient because of a decrease in donations from Catholics in the West.
“The processes of secularization in the Western world, together with belonging to a community of faith no longer by tradition but by personal free choice, are leading increasingly, among other things, not only to a drastic decline in the number of practicing faithful, but also to a substantial decrease in offerings,” Archbishop Samuele Sangalli, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said on June 2 at the national directors’ general assembly.
The situation “compels us to bring to completion that process of self-sufficiency of the young Churches which was initiated canonically with their recognition precisely as local Churches, endowed with an indigenous hierarchy,” Archbishop Sangalli continued, as he referred to the raising of jurisdictions such as apostolic vicariates to the dignity of dioceses.
In addition, the loss of donations from the West “must lead us, on the one hand, to profound transparency and integrity in accounting for the administration of temporal goods; and, on the other hand, to undertake ever more pilot projects aimed at guiding the young Churches, gradually and each according to its own capacities, toward models of self-sustainability through the shared use of resources,” he added.
The apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia entrusts the Dicastery for Evangelization with the care and support of new missionary dioceses. As adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s Section for the First Evangelization and New Particular Churches, Archbishop Sangalli is ex officio president of the Pontifical Mission Societies and is entrusted with “the management of the economic subsidies designated for missionary work and their equitable distribution” (Art. 67).
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