By Shawn Tully, includes “… For financial purposes, the Vatican operates two quasi-independent entities, one for each of its two functions: operating as a nation and serving as the sprawling staff that supports the pope. The city state, or governorate, operates the Vatican’s commercial services. It resembles a medium-size municipal government. The city state has excellent sources of revenue. … The current spending number is due to rise sharply for a pressing need: taming big pension liabilities. It’s a problem the Vatican shares with virtually every Western economy. The Vatican inaugurated a generous defined-benefit pension plan in the early 1960s but didn’t have an actual pension fund until three decades later. …”

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