S
Shin
Guest
'The total number of employees of the Vatican city-state in 2003 was 1,511, which includes 4 top directors, 75 men and women religious, and 1,432 laity. Also on the books are 566 retired employees drawing a pension. Salaries for Vatican employees are shockingly low by American standards; a mid-level official working int he Vatican travel agency, for example, might earn the equivalent of $18,000 a year.
Among Italians, however, Vatican jobs are highly coveted, because they bring access to the Vatican supermarket, clothing store, electronics store, the gas station, the products are all untaxed and therefore significantly cheaper than anywhere else in Rome. The Vatican also offers access to quality health care and a well stocked pharmacy. In addition, the salaries are not taxed, and the Vatican has a generous pension system and severance plan. . .
[Regarding the Roman Curia] Today; 2,659 people work for the Roman Curia, of whom 744 are diocesan priests, bishops, archbishops, or cardinals, while there are 351 men and women religious and 1,564 laity. Also on the books are 892 retired employees drawing a pension. . . the majority of the lay employees are engaged in work that is essentially secretarial.
[Myths about the Vatican] The first bit of news, which will be surprising to many readers, is that there is no such thing as “the Vatican.” At least, there is no “the Vatican” in the sense that most English-speaking journalists, commentators, and activists use the phrase. One finds such phrases as, “The Vatican wants,” or “The Vatican announced today,” or “The Vatican is afraid that. . .” In reality, such formulae are built on an image of the Vatican that is more mythic than real. . .
The Vatican is not an organism, it is a bureaucracy. It is staffed by human beings, each of his whom has his or her own wants, fears, intentions, visions, hopes, and dreams. . . Spend some time around the Holy See, and it will become clear that in some ways, though certainly not all it reflects the diversity of the wider Catholic world. . .
[Vatican Wealth] To put it bluntly, the Vatican is not rich. It has an annual operating budget of $260 million, which would not place it on any top list of major social institutions. To draw a comparison in the nonprofit sector, Harvard University has an annual operating budget of a little over $1.3 billion, which means it could run the equivalent of five Vaticans every year. That is to say nothing of the corporate world. The Microsoft Corporation in 2002 spent $4.7 billion on research and development alone, meaning that its R&D budget could fund the Vatican eighteen times over and still take clients out to lunch. That number, by the way, represents a mere 16 percent of Microsoft’s annual sales of $293 billion. The point should be clear: on the scale of the world’s mammoth enterprises, the Vatican doesn’t rate. Its budget would qualify it as a mid-sized American Catholic college. It’s bigger than Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles (annual budget of $150 million) . . . but substantially less than the University of Notre Dame ($500 million). . .
But is the Vatican sitting on a large pile of wealth that doesn’t show up in its annual budget? The total patrimony of the Holy See, meaning its property holdings (including some thirty buildings and seventeen hundred apartments in Rome), its investments, its stock portfolios and capital funds, and whatever it has stored up in a piggy bank for a rainy day, comes to roughly $770 million. This is substantial, but once again one has to apply a sense of scale. What the Holy See calls patrimony is roughly what American universities mean by an endowment – in other words, funds and other assets designated to support the institution if operating funds fall short. The University of Notre dame has an endowment of $3.5 billion, a total 4.5 times as great as the Vatican’s. Once again, when it comes to Vatican wealth, there is less “there” than most people believe.
. . . But what of some eighteen thousand artistic treasures in the Holy See? No one’s ever done an accounting of their potential cash value, but certainly it would run into the billions. Yet the artworks are nowhere included in official Vatican figures. From the Holy See’s point of view they are part of the artistic heritage of the world, and may never be sold or borrowed against. In 1986, facing a $56 million budget deficit, the Vatican put out a statement saying the artifacts owned by the Roman Catholic Church constitute a treasure “for all humanity” and cannot be sold.
. . . Any number of times I have sat down with intrepid journalists and researchers mesmerized by tales of Vatican wealth, who are extremely disappointed when I lay out the reality. Sometimes a form of denial sets in. “But,” they insist, “you haven’t actually seen the Vatican’s books, have you?” You can’t say for sure the Vatican doesn’t have a horde of gold stashed away somewhere, or a secret stock portfolio worth billions?" No, I can’t. I also can’t prove there’s no invisible monster under your bed. What I can say is that if the Vatican is sitting on a secret stash of riches, there’s little evidence of it in the way the institution functions. While there are a few black Mercedes limousines to ferry VIPs to and fro, and some cardinals do have fairly nice apartments, for the most part Vatican personnel do not live especially large. Most offices are sparsely furnished and rather low-tech, living quarters are plain, and the salaries for most officials are striking low by First World standards.’
Among Italians, however, Vatican jobs are highly coveted, because they bring access to the Vatican supermarket, clothing store, electronics store, the gas station, the products are all untaxed and therefore significantly cheaper than anywhere else in Rome. The Vatican also offers access to quality health care and a well stocked pharmacy. In addition, the salaries are not taxed, and the Vatican has a generous pension system and severance plan. . .
[Regarding the Roman Curia] Today; 2,659 people work for the Roman Curia, of whom 744 are diocesan priests, bishops, archbishops, or cardinals, while there are 351 men and women religious and 1,564 laity. Also on the books are 892 retired employees drawing a pension. . . the majority of the lay employees are engaged in work that is essentially secretarial.
[Myths about the Vatican] The first bit of news, which will be surprising to many readers, is that there is no such thing as “the Vatican.” At least, there is no “the Vatican” in the sense that most English-speaking journalists, commentators, and activists use the phrase. One finds such phrases as, “The Vatican wants,” or “The Vatican announced today,” or “The Vatican is afraid that. . .” In reality, such formulae are built on an image of the Vatican that is more mythic than real. . .
The Vatican is not an organism, it is a bureaucracy. It is staffed by human beings, each of his whom has his or her own wants, fears, intentions, visions, hopes, and dreams. . . Spend some time around the Holy See, and it will become clear that in some ways, though certainly not all it reflects the diversity of the wider Catholic world. . .
[Vatican Wealth] To put it bluntly, the Vatican is not rich. It has an annual operating budget of $260 million, which would not place it on any top list of major social institutions. To draw a comparison in the nonprofit sector, Harvard University has an annual operating budget of a little over $1.3 billion, which means it could run the equivalent of five Vaticans every year. That is to say nothing of the corporate world. The Microsoft Corporation in 2002 spent $4.7 billion on research and development alone, meaning that its R&D budget could fund the Vatican eighteen times over and still take clients out to lunch. That number, by the way, represents a mere 16 percent of Microsoft’s annual sales of $293 billion. The point should be clear: on the scale of the world’s mammoth enterprises, the Vatican doesn’t rate. Its budget would qualify it as a mid-sized American Catholic college. It’s bigger than Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles (annual budget of $150 million) . . . but substantially less than the University of Notre Dame ($500 million). . .
But is the Vatican sitting on a large pile of wealth that doesn’t show up in its annual budget? The total patrimony of the Holy See, meaning its property holdings (including some thirty buildings and seventeen hundred apartments in Rome), its investments, its stock portfolios and capital funds, and whatever it has stored up in a piggy bank for a rainy day, comes to roughly $770 million. This is substantial, but once again one has to apply a sense of scale. What the Holy See calls patrimony is roughly what American universities mean by an endowment – in other words, funds and other assets designated to support the institution if operating funds fall short. The University of Notre dame has an endowment of $3.5 billion, a total 4.5 times as great as the Vatican’s. Once again, when it comes to Vatican wealth, there is less “there” than most people believe.
. . . But what of some eighteen thousand artistic treasures in the Holy See? No one’s ever done an accounting of their potential cash value, but certainly it would run into the billions. Yet the artworks are nowhere included in official Vatican figures. From the Holy See’s point of view they are part of the artistic heritage of the world, and may never be sold or borrowed against. In 1986, facing a $56 million budget deficit, the Vatican put out a statement saying the artifacts owned by the Roman Catholic Church constitute a treasure “for all humanity” and cannot be sold.
. . . Any number of times I have sat down with intrepid journalists and researchers mesmerized by tales of Vatican wealth, who are extremely disappointed when I lay out the reality. Sometimes a form of denial sets in. “But,” they insist, “you haven’t actually seen the Vatican’s books, have you?” You can’t say for sure the Vatican doesn’t have a horde of gold stashed away somewhere, or a secret stock portfolio worth billions?" No, I can’t. I also can’t prove there’s no invisible monster under your bed. What I can say is that if the Vatican is sitting on a secret stash of riches, there’s little evidence of it in the way the institution functions. While there are a few black Mercedes limousines to ferry VIPs to and fro, and some cardinals do have fairly nice apartments, for the most part Vatican personnel do not live especially large. Most offices are sparsely furnished and rather low-tech, living quarters are plain, and the salaries for most officials are striking low by First World standards.’
- Excerpts from John Allen’s book, ‘All the Pope’s Men’
