Pope Leo XIV Repeals Decree that Led to Tripling of Cardinal Raymond Burke’s Rent

The 2023 rescript also reportedly affected then-Cardinal Robert Prevost.

ROME, 1 February 2026 — Pope Leo XIV is to repeal a 2023 decree on Sunday that led to Cardinal Raymond Burke paying more than triple his usual rent for his Vatican apartment and also reportedly affected then-Cardinal Robert Prevost.

In February 2023, Pope Francis issued the administrative decree, called a rescript, denying free or subsidized housing to cardinals, heads of dicasteries, presidents, and serving secretaries.

Issued two years after Francis cut cardinals’ salaries by ten percent, the rescript called on “everyone to make an extraordinary sacrifice to allocate more resources to the mission of the Holy See.”

It permitted exceptions, subject to the Pope’s authorization, and was intended to “meet the growing commitments that the Holy See [was] facing for the fulfillment of the service of the universal Church and the needy.”

The measure was not announced online in the Holy See’s daily bulletin but instead was pinned to a noticeboard in Vatican City.

In comments to me on Jan. 31, Italian journalist Nico Spuntoni of Il Giornale who broke the story of Pope Leo’s new decree, noted that “when the rescript came into effect in 2023, it did not apply retroactively, meaning that only heads of dicasteries who assumed office after March 2023 were subject to the denial of benefits. Among them was Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who ended up paying full rent for his residence on Via di Porta Angelica for nearly two years.”

“As someone with a great respect for the law, he likely found the inequity created by the rescript hard to accept,” Spuntoni said. “As a result, he decided to repeal it, allowing all cardinals, heads of dicasteries, presidents, and secretaries to use properties belonging to the Holy See either free of charge or on favorable terms.”

The 2023 rescript would have applied to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, who was appointed prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 1, 2023, but he may also have enjoyed an exemption.

The Argentine cardinal, who is believed to reside either at the Vatican Mint Building (Pallazina della Zecca) or the Pontifical Ethiopian College overlooking the Vatican gardens, shared on Facebook shortly after his appointment:

“Once I said yes, last week Francis asked me to go see a little home he had chosen for me to live in, inside the Vatican, with a small terrace and a view of the gardens. He said to me: ‘Because you come from Río Cuarto, from the countryside, you need a wide view, to see greenery.’ Indeed, if I open the window and see only buildings, I feel suffocated. But I tell you this so you can see Francis’s sensitivity and exquisite charity.”

Someone who clearly did not enjoy an exemption was Cardinal Burke, who was obliged to pay more than triple his prior rent, even after Pope Francis had revoked his pension.

As Pope Leo prepares to move into the Apostolic Palace later in February, Spuntoni said he sees the repeal of the 2023 rescript as a sign that the Pope “is thinking not only about his own home, but also about those of the people who work in the Curia” and serve as his collaborators.

Here is an English translation of the article, published with the author’s kind permission.

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Apostolic Palace: Prevost’s Move Delayed. Vatican Restores Free Housing to Cardinals

by Nico Spuntoni

Work is continuing at the Apostolic Palace in preparation for the move of Leo XIV, which, originally scheduled for January, has been postponed to February. Yesterday Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni explained that the Pope “intends to use as his residence the spaces made available to his predecessors, for himself and for his closest collaborators.” Among these spaces is the attic above the Third Loggia, where the small apartments of the papal secretaries once stood and where the Pope himself could now take up residence.

The Apostolic Palace will be Prevost’s third home since his arrival at the Vatican in 2023. At present, the Pope lives within the Palace of the Holy Office, where he was residing at the time of his election. The apartment is about 250 square meters and is located on the third floor of Staircase C, directly above the office of the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is an unprecedented papal residence, with a view straddling two states, thanks to windows overlooking both the dome of St. Peter’s and Via di Porta Cavalleggeri. Prevost has spent more time there as Pope than as a cardinal, having moved in only in February 2025, following a modest renovation. The apartment had stood empty since the death of its long-time occupant, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes.

Before moving there, however, the future Pope had lived for nearly two years in a house outside the extraterritorial zone, inside a building on Via di Porta Angelica. He then relocated in order to remain closer to the Augustinian curia, where Prevost used to dine as a cardinal and to which he has returned several times as Pope, even for Christmas lunch.

We have discovered that today the Pope’s former Roman home on Via di Porta Angelica is inhabited by one of the most important families in Italian cinema: the Avatis. The tenant is Antonio, brother and producer-screenwriter of the renowned director Pupi Avati. “We didn’t know—it was something we discovered by chance when we found receipts made out to Prevost,” the celebrated filmmaker recounted, not ruling out the possibility of making a film about the story. “At a difficult moment for our family, learning in this way that we were being welcomed into the Pope’s home felt like a kind of spiritual embrace,” the director explained with evident emotion.

Meanwhile, on the real estate front, Leo XIV is sending another signal of his desire to turn a page compared to the previous pontificate. We can reveal, in fact, that as of tomorrow a decree will come into force at the Vatican, repealing the unpopular rescript of February 13, 2023, introduced by Francis to deny free or subsidized housing to cardinals, heads of dicasteries, presidents, and serving secretaries.

These categories will thus once again be able to benefit from the free use of housing from the Holy See’s property assets. Leo, therefore, is thinking not only about his own home, but also about those of the people who work in the Curia, thereby shelving a measure that many had regarded as pauperist.