With the aim of showing all the actions carried out by the Catholic Church in economic matters, as well as the work it does to be an example of transparency, UCAM experts, the Holy See and the Spanish Episcopal Conference, among other participating entities, have met at UCAM, in the '2nd Conference on Canon Law: Economy at the service of the mission', co-organised with the Diocese of Cartagena and CaixaBank.

The event was inaugurated by María Dolores García, UCAM president, who stressed that ‘as Pope Francis urges us to do, our university has always worked in favour of those in greatest need; because as the Holy Father also says, the economy has to be at the service of the mission of the Church and of people’. 

The UCAM president was accompanied by Monsignor Bernardito Cleopas, Apostolic Nuncio of the Pope in Spain, and Monsignor José Manuel Lorca, Bishop of the Diocese of Cartagena. The nuncio stressed that, through the Church's social doctrine, ‘we work to obtain greater social justice and reduce inequalities’, something which Monsignor Lorca also emphasised, affirming that ‘I am proud of the number of men and women in this diocese who are working as volunteers in this area’.

When asked by journalists, the nuncio said that ‘we are always awaiting the bulletins from the Holy See on the state of the Pope's health, and as the Episcopal Conference has requested, every day we offer our masses and prayers for him to recover’. 

Murcia is the 4th community that collaborates the most with the Church through the IRPF (Personal Income Tax)

One of the most important issues addressed at the conference was the contribution made by Spaniards to the Catholic Church by ticking the box on their income tax return.

In this respect, Fernando Giménez Barriocanal, Vice-Secretary for Economic Affairs of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, pointed out that ‘last year there was an increase of 200,000 taxpayers who ticked the church box’. In total, 9 million Spaniards collaborate with the institution in this way.

In the case of Murcia, it is the fourth region with the highest number of ticked boxes in favour of the Catholic Church, eight points above the average, Giménez Barriocanal emphasised, and thanked ‘all the taxpayers who have collaborated with us over the years, with whom we are genuinely very satisfied’.

The conference also included the participation of Maximino Caballero, prefect of the Secretariat for Economic Affairs of the Holy See, who gave the conference 'Sustainable Finance and Church doctrine'; David Alonso, head of Religious Institutions and Non-Profit Entities of Private Banking at CaixaBank, who reflected on 'Financial Planning', as well as José Antonio Planes, director of Caritas Diocese of Cartagena; Mother María Pilar, of the Hermanitas de los Pobres; María Mendoza, member of the San Antonio University Foundation Board of Trustees; María de León, Episcopal delegate for Social Communication Media of the Diocese of Cartagena; Belén López, UCAM vice-rector of Digital Education; Carlos Francisco Delgado, delegate for Data Protection and Guarantee of Digital Rights of the Diocese of Cartagena, and María Amparo Martínez, head of assistance for Jesús Abandonado.