Financial corruption of the RCC

[Steelfaithu2]

Hello everyone, I’ve been a browser of these forums and website for a few years now, and it’s been extremely helpful to me in many ways to get closer to finding and understanding Christ’s Church. Currently I’m leaning very close to Orthodox Catholicism, but there’s some issues that I’m still not sure about and I need to hear the Roman Catholic’s official view on them. I hope you all can be patient and understanding with me, and realize I’m not trying to attack anyone here, I just want to have some tough questions answered for me.

One of the biggest walls I’ve faced in accepting the claims of the RCC, is their history with their finances and wealth. I’m aware Satan would want to smear the Church’s reputation to drive away millions of people to understand the Church better, but I’m not sure if this issue can be easily dismissed as lies against the Church or not.

From my understanding, the RCC is an incredibly rich and powerful organization, and it’s wealth surpasses even that of the Oil companies. Despite what the exact amount of money and power the RCC holds, we all know it’s the wealthiest Christian church in the entire world. So the question I have is this: if Christ’s own Church has the sacred mission to aid in the Salvation of all mankind, and is created to be a mercy to those in need, then how can it be justified and accepted that the RCC possesses so much wealth just sitting in bank accounts, yet there’s countries like the Philippines (composed of millions of starving Catholics) who are in destitute poverty and the people there have literally NO opportunity to better their lives - not even if they work hard, have degrees, and live an honest life - so why is the RCC not helping these people and doing something significant to care for their spiritual and physical needs?

"You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? (Matthew 7:16)

Ever since I left Islam and came to know Christ’s Word, I’ve always been mindful of this to protect me.

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Welcome!

A question as we consider your OP - what do you mean by Orthodox Catholicism?

 

[aragonjohn1]

The things the Vatican owns aren’t the personal property of anyone. John Paul II, for example, left almost no personal property of any kind in his will - he had little to leave! He HAD few personal possessions, received no salary for doing his job. He owned barely a thing. Certainly no cars, tvs, stereos, houses, nothing like that.

The things the Church has are, mostly, priceless works of art and architecture - part of the world’s cultural heritage, not just the private playthings of the churchmen. The Sistine Chapel, for example, belongs to all - rich and poor, Catholic and non-Catholic - who come to see it. More good is being done, and more money being raised for the poor, by keeping the chapel as is and charging a modest fee to people to see it, than would ever result from trying to sell the place.

As for helping the poor - NO organisation on the planet spends more on the poor than the Catholic Church - not remotely close! if it is Rich is is spiritually not physically rich ( most money goes to Charity, some to education, Seminaries etc…, )

• forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=153704

Shalom
God Bless

 

[Steelfaithu2]

I meant Orthodox Catholic/Christian - one in the same. The Orthodox Church is also universal and that’s stated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed they recite and declare.

Are the questions here answered by an official apologetic, or only by other forum members?

 

[pnewton]

I do not know where you got the idea that the Church is rich, but I assure it is not, not in any sense used by the world. Yes, it has tons of property which it uses in it mission. Yes, it has a wealth of art that has been given to it over centuries. Yes, it receives and uses billions from donations and sent back out to do the very things you mention. Yes, there are millions in bank accounts, as that is what is needed to keep the light on in the Churches that minister to a billion human beings. In some cases, there have even been criminals who have stolen this money.

However,

1. None of this is a sign of corruption.
2. The Catholic Church already does all the things you say need to be done.
3. The lowest exectutives in the oil industry make more than the top members of the clergy. Since corruption would mean some person being corrupt, this clearly isn’t happening, with the exception of possible sporadic criminal activity.

I think most people truly do not have the idea of the scope of administration of the Catholic Church. It’s fluid assets are large because they must be large.

I was reading of a story of the late pontiff, Bl. John Paul during is illness right after the turn of the century. He was in need of low impact exercise so there was a pool built at his residence. This addition was initially delayed because it was thought to be an unnecessary expense. The physicians had to argue the need to have it done. You tell me any other lead of a country or any organization one percent the size of the Catholic Church that would not have the best of facilities they wanted even without medical necessity.

 

[sw85]

IIRC the Vatican’s annual budget is approximately 300 million dollars, and it is in debt for far more than that. The Vatican is not wealthy, or rather, its wealth is tied up in things it cannot liquidate, such as art and buildings. Most money that is donated to the Church never leaves the parish and its environs, and what little does goes primarily to the diocese.

 

[pnewton]

I meant Orthodox Catholic/Christian - one in the same. The Orthodox Church is also universal and that’s stated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed they recite and declare.

Are the questions here answered by an official apologetic, or only by other forum members?

I found this:

catholic.com/quickquestions/is-there-a-concise-way-to-respond-to-criticisms-of-the-churchs-wealth

Likewise, many of the great cathedrals of Europe were built with donations and labor from the poor, who wanted to build such monuments to God’s goodness and sovereignty. The Vatican does not control enormous liquid wealth, and its annual operating budget has been compared to that of a large archdiocese such as that of Chicago.

 

[RobbyS]

Hello everyone, I’ve been a browser of these forums and website for a few years now, and it’s been extremely helpful to me in many ways to get closer to finding and understanding Christ’s Church. Currently I’m leaning very close to Orthodox Catholicism, but there’s some issues that I’m still not sure about and I need to hear the Roman Catholic’s official view on them. I hope you all can be patient and understanding with me, and realize I’m not trying to attack anyone here, I just want to have some tough questions answered for me.

One of the biggest walls I’ve faced in accepting the claims of the RCC, is their history with their finances and wealth. I’m aware Satan would want to smear the Church’s reputation to drive away millions of people to understand the Church better, but I’m not sure if this issue can be easily dismissed as lies against the Church or not.

From my understanding, the RCC is an incredibly rich and powerful organization, and it’s wealth surpasses even that of the Oil companies. Despite what the exact amount of money and power the RCC holds, we all know it’s the wealthiest Christian church in the entire world. So the question I have is this: if Christ’s own Church has the sacred mission to aid in the Salvation of all mankind, and is created to be a mercy to those in need, then how can it be justified and accepted that the RCC possesses so much wealth just sitting in bank accounts, yet there’s countries like the Philippines (composed of millions of starving Catholics) who are in destitute poverty and the people there have literally NO opportunity to better their lives - not even if they work hard, have degrees, and live an honest life - so why is the RCC not helping these people and doing something significant to care for their spiritual and physical needs?

"You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? (Matthew 7:16)

Ever since I left Islam and came to know Christ’s Word, I’ve always been mindful of this to protect me.

Appearances aside, the Church is hardly as wealthy as the major oil companies, Furthermore the museums in NYC alone contain objects d’arte more valuable than the Vatican museum. The First Baptist Church in Dallas, a single congregation, is wealthier than the Catholic diocese of that city. Plus there is other mag-churche ins the DFW area for which that is also true. A long time ago, the Catholic Church owned perhaps a tenth of the wealth of all Europe, But in a series of confiscation by the Protestant sovereigns, such as Henry VIII of England, that wealth was taken away. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars took even more wealth, and in nFrance, the Church today owns hardly anything. In American its wealth is the accumulation of more than two hundred years. It has enjoyed more freedom, and allowed a much large social role, than in any European state. That freedom is under threat.

 

[Steelfaithu2]

Thanks for all the good responses, it really means a lot to me. I wasn’t sure if what I heard is verifiable fact or just lies to smear the Church. For many years I was under the teaching first by Muslims, and later by Protestants about how evil the RCC was because of the gold and decorations in their Churches, and that they’re so incredibly rich.

But I read this and it really opened up my eyes and my heart to God. It helped me realize that these possessions belong to god in His temple, and not to any individual.

A woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at table. But when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For the ointment might have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

So my question didn’t really have anything to do with the physical possessions of the Church in forms of ornaments, paintings, buildings, vestments etc. But look at this…

The Vatican’s treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country.

dailypaul.com/107469/is-the-catholic-church-the-dominant-financial-force-in-the-world

How true is this info?

 

[RobbyS]

Thanks for all the good responses, it really means a lot to me. I wasn’t sure if what I heard is verifiable fact or just lies to smear the Church. For many years I was under the teaching first by Muslims, and later by Protestants about how evil the RCC was because of the gold and decorations in their Churches, and that they’re so incredibly rich.

But I read this and it really opened up my eyes and my heart to God. It helped me realize that these possessions belong to god in His temple, and not to any individual.

So my question didn’t really have anything to do with the physical possessions of the Church in forms of ornaments, paintings, buildings, vestments etc. But look at this…

dailypaul.com/107469/is-the-catholic-church-the-dominant-financial-force-in-the-world

How true is this info?

Exactly would the Church acquire such wealth? How could it keep a Napoleon or a Hitler, for instance, from taking it by force? In 1800, the Church lay totally under the heel of Napoleon. My thought is that this reminds me of the stories about the wealth of the Jews.

 

[pnewton]

So my question didn’t really have anything to do with the physical possessions of the Church in forms of ornaments, paintings, buildings, vestments etc. But look at this…

dailypaul.com/107469/is-the-catholic-church-the-dominant-financial-force-in-the-world

How true is this info?

Always follow the links. The sources here quote these blogs.

cai.org/bible-studies/vatican-billions

and

soulcast.com/

The first is an independent Christian blog. No where are the sources for these claims documented. From else where in the blog I read,

The Roman Empire staggers, sprawls, is thrust off the stage, and reappears, and - if we may carry the image one step further - it is the Church of Rome which plays the part of the magician and keeps this corpse alive.

Anticatholic opinion blogs that mention undocumented claims are a terrible place to find information. Yet this is the very place that the link you posted goes to for documentation.

The second source is a dead link.

The daily Paul is nothing but one person writing articles, a person who does not mind using dubious and unreliable resources. If in doubt, always follow the links back to the source, see what they use for documentation, and follow those. Periodically click on the “About Us” info to see what the agenda of the site is. On a side note, I think Dr. Paul would object to his name being used for this purpose, but then I knew him in 1989 as a physician.

 

[pnewton]

I think one more thing should be noted about the Catholic Church. At one time, it did exercise some temporal power. The dissolution of the papal states ended all that, which was truly a good thing. Not having any civil responsibility has enabled the Church to return to its primary mission without the distraction of being responsible for civil law. Now, the only power the Church exercise is the power of moral authority. This should not be underestimated. It was the elevation of the dignity of Man as a free, moral being that laid bare the hypocricy inherent in communism. It was no coincidence that communism first fell in Poland where the late pontiff served as priest and bishop before being Pope.

 

[bitznbitez]

The “Church is Rich” line usually emerges around the time some rulers ( Henry VIII ) or certain German princes have managed to get into a fair amount of debt and need cash. The “rich chuch” bit circulates but when the dust settles the people never get the $$ it rather goes into the pockets of the princes.

Here in the US the Catholic Church owns a lot of stuff more than meets the eye. In my county besides a bevy of very large churches, larger than only a couple protestant ones, they also run the facility that takes care of homeless when they are discharged from the hospital, the run facilities to take care of homeless families so the families can stay together, they run feeding programs, supply school kids with school supplies on and on. These type of things all go up in smoke when “the rich church” attack leads to confiscation.

The key though is to understand how they fund things. Most protestant stuff I’ve ever seen, Baptist and congregational/non denom, is started with a big fund drive and ongoing appeals for $$. When the local ministry to homeless families was started at the Catholic parish it had a big fund drive to create the endowments to allow the mission to function even if there were down years in giving. Funding via endowments I’ve found in Lutheran and Anglican circles too.

The endowments are invariably part of the cause of the church attacks even though they make a lot of sense fiscally. Ironically universities who use endowments are not attacked for it just the Church.

 

[tafan]

IIRC, the annual budget of the Vatican is approximately $400M ; to put that in perspective, the budget of Harvard University is around $3.7B. Almost 10 times higher.

 

[mountee]

I meant Orthodox Catholic/Christian - one in the same. The Orthodox Church is also universal and that’s stated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed they recite and declare.

Are the questions here answered by an official apologetic, or only by other forum members?

There is a place to ask an apologist on this forum if you want an “official” answer. The responses you will receive here are from forum members.

 

[Crescentinus]

Exactly would the Church acquire such wealth? How could it keep a Napoleon or a Hitler, for instance, from taking it by force? In 1800, the Church lay totally under the heel of Napoleon. My thought is that this reminds me of the stories about the wealth of the Jews.

Both ideas (the one about the Catholic Church being rich and the Jews being rich) had resurfaced with the Occupy Movement, sadly.

 

[Cristiano]

I meant Orthodox Catholic/Christian - one in the same. The Orthodox Church is also universal and that’s stated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed they recite and declare.

Are the questions here answered by an official apologetic, or only by other forum members?

There is a place to ask an apologist on this forum if you want an “official” answer. The responses you will receive here are from forum members.

I think that if you want a truly official answers in regard to the Church you have to talk to the Bishop in governing the Catholic Diocese where you leave. However, I would consider the priests and any person, that replies to the answer posted in the apologist section of CAF, to be truthful and accurate even if the are not officially speaking for the Church. There are also some priests and religious people, here in the regular threads, that give great insights and explanations in regard tot he Church, her teachings and disciplines.

 

[Steelfaithu2]

I apologize for the poor link I provided before, it was just the first link I found with some of the accusations I was wanting to ask about.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9323288/Prosecutors-investigate-Vatican-Bank-mafia-link.html

rt.com/news/vatican-mafia-laundering-money-716/

rt.com/news/vatican-bank-chief-corruption-185/

There’s always reports of financial corruption coming out against the Vatican though, but I’m not saying any of it has been proven criminal in a court of law, but it just seems very odd to me.

As for my original question; from experience I’ve not seen poor Catholics - such as the Filipinos - really receive any kind of substantial aid or support from the Church. Every time I go to Church with my wife’s family in the Philippines, the RCC’s are always asking for donations, even from the very poor, yet I’m not seeing any kind of help being given to their communities. surely the very wealthy western Catholics could spare some aid to their Catholic brethren in the Philippines and other 3rd world countries? I know from experience, even a few hundred dollars can feed people there for many months, yet it really pains me to see so many devout Catholics in that country just largely forgotten about.

What are the likely reasons for this?

 

[pnewton]

I apologize for the poor link I provided before, it was just the first link I found with some of the accusations I was wanting to ask about.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9323288/Prosecutors-investigate-Vatican-Bank-mafia-link.html
…What are the likely reasons for this?

I do not mean to complain, but it seems like you keep changing the argument every time you get an answer. This Telegraph article has nothing to do with the points of your first post. I will answer one more, but please do not change again to something new.

This article has nothing to do with the Church being wealthy or whether it helps the poor. It is a criminal investigation of money laundering going through the Vatican Bank. Realizing the Telegraph is notoriously anticatholic, we can see this bias in the article. For example, they use, without reason, the adjective “secretive” for the Vatican bank. Check out this last paragraph:

The latest development comes as prosecutors in the Vatican continue to question the Pope’s butler Paolo Gabriele, 46, in connection with the leaking of documents which then ended up in a whistle blowing book published by an Italian journalist called His Holiness.

No-one from the Vatican was immediately available to comment.

LOL! The first statement is a whole new unrelated incident that is totally unimportant. The second is totally nothing. What did they do, try and call the Pope and get a busy signal? This is the Telegraph for you.

As to thet details in the story, there is a priest that they suspect was laundering money and prosecutors want to try him. The Church suspended this priest. Doesn’t this seem like proper action is someone may have been using your funds to launder money?

And did you note the amount involved? One million euros,* suspected*. This story has nothing to do with the wealth of the Vatican being used to feed the poor.

 

[pnewton]

I know from experience, even a few hundred dollars can feed people there for many months, yet it really pains me to see so many devout Catholics in that country just largely forgotten about.

What are the likely reasons for this?

The reason is that they are not forgotten. No one has “forgotten” them. Are they poor? Yes, as are other countries. My own parish is poor relative for the States, yet these people donated few dollars here and there and we sent thousands to Haiti when the earthquake hit. We did the same thing when the tsunami hit Malaysia and we do this everytime there is a need. Likewise, when Ike hit us our diocese gave us a lot of aid for the families that were hardest hit. Like I said, we are very poor with probably half or more below the poverty level. A hurricane is devistating to such people.