Vatican budget emerges from the red

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The Vatican has announced its finances have returned to profit - after three consecutive years in the red.

Its report said the Holy See saw revenues of 245.2m euros (£222m; $356m) against expenses of 235.3m in 2010.

But annual donations from churches worldwide - known as Peter’s Pence - were down nearly $15m to $67.7.

The separately administered Vatican City State also made a 21m-euro profit due to strong ticket sales at the Vatican Museums.

The Vatican lost 4m euros in 2009 and was also in the red in 2008 and 2007.

Most of the Vatican’s outlay is to cover the activities of Pope Benedict XVI, and services such as Vatican Radio which is broadcast on five continents in 40 different languages.

The Vatican began publishing annual financial reports in 1981 when Pope John Paul II set out to challenge perceptions that the Vatican was rich.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14002700
 
What I’ve wanted to know for quite a while - and hopefully someone here can help clear things up - is whether the Church invests certain amount of its funds in investment vehicles (presumably bonds and blue-chip stocks). I’ve had the thought that if the Church saved X amount of money and invested in investments with a close-to guaranteed return, it could become self-sufficient.

And does the Vatican have it’s own economists that help with it’s asset allocation?
 
Your comment bothers me, yet it is biblically based. I cringed when you said that the Vatican ought to invest monies into blue-chips, thereby making it relatively self sufficient. I do not like the idea of potentially losing millions of dollars the faithful give to the church. However, I thought about what we are taught in the gospels–that it is better to invest money than to simply do nothing with it, that God gives us things to improve them (like human beings and marriage, to flourish and increase). Perhaps the mere wording of what you are suggesting is what bothers me; it sounds too close to Osteen, who preaches the properity gospel. The Vatican could and should invest the money the “earn.” However, I would say that stocks–blue-chip or otherwise–are incredibly risky and imprudent. Something like paper securities–CDs and treasury notes–make much more sense, since they are usually guaranteed unless the government becomes insolvent (see Greece).
 
I don’t like how they use the word “profit” … talk about bias!

The Vatican isn’t a for-profit business.

They should have said “budget surplus”.
 
You could also say “net income” or “return on expenses” … they all mean approximately the same thing. We in the west seem to boogeyman the word “profit”, as if entities shouldn’t be allowed to accrue greater revenue than expenses.
 
HerrZJA said:
You could also say “net income” or “return on expenses” … they all mean approximately the same thing. We in the west seem to boogeyman the word “profit”, as if entities shouldn’t be allowed to accrue greater revenue than expenses.
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I don’t see what the big deal is. I studied Not-for-Profit Management. and the phrase “No Margin, No Mission” came across often. If anything, the term should be used as the Vatican will re-apply those funds to advancing the mission of the Church, thus providing a positive meaning of the term.

Profit is never good or bad (morally speaking), it is only the application thereof.

BTW: Doesn’t the Vatican have an endowment? Shouldn’t at least SOME of the Vaticans funds be coming from investments already? The article below (fairly old) seems to suggest it.
money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1987/12/21/70001/index.htm
 
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