Vatican Money

[jerome_ky]

Is the Vatican rich? A Protestant I know made the comment that the Pope must make a lot of money. I looked it up and Pope Benedict will receive less than $40K/year on his retirement. In The Ratzinger Report, he made the point that people think the Vatican is swimming in gold, but the truth is it is very frugal, and people who work there work for a pittance. What is a good source on the story on Church money? It’s a big sticking point for non-Catholics that we should be evangelizing so I’d like to have an authoritative source to refer to.

 

[ChibiViolet]

They are rich, but they really do mean well, no matter what else they do.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Vatican City is not rich relative to nation states. It operates an economy of about $300 million a year. The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee operates an economy of about $600 million a year. The University of Wisconsin at Madison, the flagship campus of the UW system, operates a yearly economy of over $1 billion I believe.

So, no, Vatican City is not rich relative Harvard University and certainly not next to the cities of Chicago or Boston or Seattle. Basic 100 level economic courses would help one deduce this. Land, labor, and capital are essential components to creating wealthy for any business, city, or nation-state.

Land can come in the form of woods or stones used to create floors or cabinets as well. It’s just not territorial size. Labor comes in the form of people. Capital comes in the form of buildings, tools, machinery, trucks et cetera.

The beautiful buildings in Vatican City are very old buildings and erected during a time (at great cost too) when things were built to last centuries. Not like our modular homes today and punch through drywall. So, the Church can not be blamed for building quality structures especially during a period when that was a norm.

Vatican City also lists the value of St. Peters, to my knowledge, at $1.00. It regards it as priceless and the Vatican does not take out loans against it’s world heritage buildings in Vatican City. The Holy See (the government of Vatican City) also assumes the responsibility of protecting and maintaining these great works of art for not just the whole Church globally, but for the sake of Italian heritage and history, and also for humanity as whole. Kind of like the pyramids of Egypt.

The impressive uniforms or costumes of the Cardinals and Popes and Swiss guards gives an impression of wealth too. But my Dress Blues in the U.S. Marine Corps looked impressive as well I thought. That did not make me as an E-4 or other low ranking enlisted Marines rich.

I also have a sterling silver U.S. Marine Corps ring I might add. I paid over $200 for it but I’m ranked as “poor” in the United States. Therefore, a gold ring or a piece of jewelry made of precious metal does not necessarily mean a person is rich. Look at all the low-income Americans in the U.S. South and East Coast running around with gold in their mouths (plated on their teeth).

As for incomes inside Vatican City, yes, you have clergy with Ph.D.'s earning roughly U.S. $16,000.00 a year. And the lay labor force inside Vatican City are unionized (and extraordinarily difficult to fire) and receive modest pay but with generous benefits to my understanding. They can shop at the Vatican grocery store and buy medication at the Vatican pharmacy which is possibly the best on earth, stockpiling medicine not approved of by the FDA in the United States.

A number of the Vatican clergy live in spacious Vatican and/or Roman apartments and condos that would fetch a pretty penny in New York City or Chicago. But so what? Who said you had to live in a shantytown or cardboard box to be moral? What do the above average large homes in the United States men then given much of the world lives in far smaller dwellings? Plus, the price of a luxury apartment in the London or New York is not intrinsic. Those same luxury apartments would cost you far less in the City of Milwaukee.

I was just recently looking at how cheap apartments are in Phoenix compared to Milwaukee. I could get the equivalent standard of my 1 bedroom apartment (~550 sq ft) in the City of Phoenix for roughly $400 a month. I pay $579 a month. I could get the equivalent standard of a two bedroom (~800 sq ft or >) in Phoenix for about $525 or $559.

So there is no intrinsic price to a property.

But no… the clergy in Vatican City do not live in this:

youtube.com/watch?v=CyMgv5eJ4j8

Or this:

sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-1281-20293740/31-blue-heron-irvine-ca-92603

Or this:

sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-1952-4000032335/a-one-of-a-kind-glamourous-property-in-milan-milano-mi-20121

Or this:

sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-697-4000034420/exceptional-property-in-cannes-californie-cannes-pr-06400

 

[JMJ_coder]

I don’t know where people get the idea that the Vatican is wealthy…but they aren’t. And virtually all monies that the Vatican does handle are directed entirely to the spiritual and physical well-being of the entire human race.

 

[Suslar]

Some people think the Church is rich because of the items in the Vatican Museum - and even in St. Peter’s itself. My brother says, “you should sell some of that and give the money to the poor.”

So I asked him, “Exactly who do you think would buy priceless artifacts?”
It’s not like any amount of money could buy the Pieta for instance

 

[Ad_Orientem]

I don’t know about authoritative sources, but David MacDonald has written an article geared toward Fundamentalist / evangelical / Bible Christians, titled Isn’t the Church rich? I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it, but it’s pretty good.

 

[KathleenGee]

Another spin out there…the pope, the bishops, the priests, we lay people…none of us own the Vatican or any church property.

The Church belongs to Jesus Christ.

 

[TimeEntrance]

I don’t know where people get the idea that the Vatican is wealthy…but they aren’t. And virtually all monies that the Vatican does handle are directed entirely to the spiritual and physical well-being of the entire human race.

The Vatican bank may hold a lot of money and assets. But so what. I’m also not sure that Vatican needs to be very transparent with the balance sheet of the Vatican’s bank. The Vatican is a sovereign territory with many enemies.

But what irks me are critics of the Vatican’s attractive wealth and finances that simultaneously cheer on the super-rich and are apologists for capitalism. If it is morally wrong for the Vatican to have wealth and large, attractive buildings, then its immoral for Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States to have those things as well. Not to mention individual citizens within those nations.

All U.S. President retire with an attractive compensation package for life. With perks like the U.S. tax payers footing the bill in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for the personal phone calls of ex-Presidents. Another perks pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for the ex-Presidents to have personal staff.

Pope Benedict’s retirement package is very modest for a man in his 80’s that has led a global organization of over 1 billion people. A CEO of General Electric would be compensated far, far more generously.

Benedict is getting $3,000 a month for retirement pay. Dignified. Especially given I’m sure his housing will be paid for and he’ll have a staff large or small. But this is not grand retirement compensation compared to the rich and powerful around the world.

List of world billionaires: forbes.com/billionaires/

Let’s take George Soros ranked #30 on the billionaire list. At roughly $19 billion let’s look at what $1 billion dollars divided over 40 years for payouts to myself (I’m age 41) would look like before taxes.

**$1 billion:

Payment each year: $25,000,000.

Payment each month: $2,083,333.**

So, Benedict is making relatively chump change per month. It’s less obvious for most of us as the very rich often live in isolated communities of the rich separated distances from those in the large city. L.A., NYC, and Chicago being more rare exceptions within the USA.

Consider Paradise Valley in Arizona. The property taxes alone on some of these properties are more than some Americans earn in a year working their jobs.

Paradise Valley, AZ.: sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/paradise-valley-az-usa

 

[_Abyssinia]

The Vatican has issued its income and expenses for the 2010 fiscal year. In short, the Vatican took in €245,195,561.00 ($356,281,000.00) as income and spent €235,347,437.00 ($341,972,000.00)- a surplus of €9,848,124.00/$14,309,800.00

I always get a good laugh when people talk about the ‘waste’ at the Vatican. Many people make it out to seem that the Pope swims in money like Scrooge McDuck. In honesty, the Vatican operates with very little money, especially considering all that the Vatican does (restoration of priceless art, feeding the hungry, wages for lay employees, education, aid to the poor, etc.) The Vatican operates, arguably, the largest organization in the world, and yet it has a relatively low budget. You might want to check my math, but let’s compare:

The University of Georgia has a budget of $1 billion (difference of $658,028,000).

The State of Florida in 2010-11 had a state budget of $70.5 billion (difference of $70,264,652,563).

The City of Atlanta in FY2011 has a total budget of $559,523,746 (difference of $217,551,746).

The Southern Baptist Association has a budget of about $600,000,000 (difference of $243,719,000)

Swimming in money? No, I think not.

shipofsaintpeter.com/2011/07/vatican-finances-compared.html

The myth of Vatican wealth. “At the Vatican, everything is for sale, in the popular mind,” Allen said. In reality, the Vatican’s annual operating budget is about $260 million. Allen contrasted that to Harvard University, which has an annual operating budget of $1.3 billion.

“ (Harvard) could run five Vaticans every year and still have pocket change left over for an endowed chair,” Allen said, equating the Vatican’s patrimony - all the assets it could sell - to that of a medium-sized Catholic university. Its total patrimony is $770 million. The University of Notre Dame’s endowment is four and a half times greater, he said.

Allen noted that while people often assume a significant monetary value attached to the artwork the Vatican holds, it is not for sale.

“ The Holy See’s point of view is that the artwork is part of the patrimony of humanity,” Allen said. It is listed as having a cash value of one euro.

catholiccitizens.org/platform/platformview.asp?c=14358

 

[KathleenGee]

The Catholic Church helps, provides healthcare, social services, and education more than any country in the world.

These claims are unsubstantiated because they are not connected to the great humanitarian service the Church does to the world.

My son decided to go across town to enter a newly formed academic high school located within so many miles from gangs. It became difficult for him his junior year. He was mugged going to school, and he travelled close to 30 miles round trip. He almost dropped out. He was my youngest.

So I told him I let him go there because he had a happy sense about the school, he could be himself there and all the kids really loved him. He stayed, got top gpa when he returned and practically all the kids went to 4 year colleges and universities, and he had such a sense of accomplishment. He got a job at a local hospital when he was 16 through the school, and is working his way through college.

He is now entering honors program and going to a local university that has a mature campus and finishes next year.

Most of the kids were Afro American Baptists and we had diplomas given out at their school, also to build hope and accomplishment in the community there. I don’t see others being as successful with inner city kids as I do Catholic educators.

But yes, it is a known fact that likewise, the Church gives the most money in means that help people to help themselves, rather than throw dollars out the window.

The art and other riches there were donated by lay people in praise of Christ in gloryifying Him.

 

[Jaysuitical]

You should ask your Protestant friend about how the English nobility got so rich after confiscating the monasteries & churches; or why the princes of Germany actually supported Luther; or why Protestants have success in Latin America.

What’s at work here is bad conscience about the riches of Protestant pastors, who live extremely well with extremely nice clothes and transportation – take a look at the “Billy Graham of Latin America”, Luis Palau – and are treated as divine oracles as they tell their congregations and listeners that God wants them to be rich, no matter what Jesus told the rich young ruler about selling all his possessions.

I know that some apologists at Catholic Answers are uneasy about pointing out the unpleasant aspects of Protestantism in order to make them less defensive, but one of the fundamental drives in Protestantism has always been material advancement, accompanied by social elevation.

My closest Protestant friend, a former pastor, is acutely aware of this; he left the ministry because he was tired of the hypocrisy that he always met, no matter what congregation he was serving. He has no great love of Catholicism as such, but he says he always admired the vast diversity in social standing and income that he saw in the Church, in the particular Catholic churches that he sometimes attended.

 

[KathleenGee]

The Catholic priests have among the lowest monthly stipend…I thought I read it was about $200 a month may be 10 to 15 years ago. Yes, there are those who are financially independent…but they are relatively detached from money…I would say it would be more lavishness and honors and pride and compromise with the world that we worry about and pray against.

 

[TimeEntrance]

The Catholic priests have among the lowest monthly stipend…I thought I read it was about $200 a month may be 10 to 15 years ago. Yes, there are those who are financially independent…but they are relatively detached from money…I would say it would be more lavishness and honors and pride and compromise with the world that we worry about and pray against.

I asked a secular Catholic priest how much they get paid. He said, “They pay us good.” And he stated he gets about $50,000 a year. They pay taxes on their income of course.

He stated religious order priests–like the Jesuits–do not have to pay taxes on their income, and they share the money among each other within their order, so, one might be given a credit card for temporary use, by the order.

 

[jesuspsr]

The Catholic Church helps, provides healthcare, social services, and education more than any country in the world.

These claims are unsubstantiated because they are not connected to the great humanitarian service the Church does to the world.

My son decided to go across town to enter a newly formed academic high school located within so many miles from gangs. It became difficult for him his junior year. He was mugged going to school, and he travelled close to 30 miles round trip. He almost dropped out. He was my youngest.

So I told him I let him go there because he had a happy sense about the school, he could be himself there and all the kids really loved him. He stayed, got top gpa when he returned and practically all the kids went to 4 year colleges and universities, and he had such a sense of accomplishment. He got a job at a local hospital when he was 16 through the school, and is working his way through college.

He is now entering honors program and going to a local university that has a mature campus and finishes next year.

Most of the kids were Afro American Baptists and we had diplomas given out at their school, also to build hope and accomplishment in the community there. I don’t see others being as successful with inner city kids as I do Catholic educators.

But yes, it is a known fact that likewise, the Church gives the most money in means that help people to help themselves, rather than throw dollars out the window.

The art and other riches there were donated by lay people in praise of Christ in gloryifying Him.

Kudos to your son, Kathleen

God bless

jesus g

 

[JMJ_coder]

I asked a secular Catholic priest how much they get paid. He said, “They pay us good.” And he stated he gets about $50,000 a year. They pay taxes on their income of course.

He stated religious order priests–like the Jesuits–do not have to pay taxes on their income, and they share the money among each other within their order, so, one might be given a credit card for temporary use, by the order.

I think the pay of diocesan priests varies from diocese to diocese. I think $50k per year would be on the high side and that $20-30k per year is more of an average.

Members of a religious community that take vows of poverty, even if they make a salary (e.g., by teaching at a university), should give all monies and gifts earned and received to the community.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thanks for clarifying about diocesan priests. I worked with priests of religious orders.

But I heard the $50k amount stated by my former pastor in response to someone who wanted married clergy…this amount to be paid to a priest with a wife and kids.

 

[KathleenGee]

Thank you, Jesus g…

Only the Catholic Church, because of its universalizing and humanizing presence of Jesus, is it able to go anywhere through the Holy Spirit, and extend Christ’s redemption and regeneration among all kinds of people.

And likewise, it is important for us to remember Christ is the reason we are Catholic and He is always calling us into greater communion with Him and with each other. As John Paul II said, we let go of most of our own particular cultures and hold on to only the best of them, to be united with each other for Christ’s sake.

When we have the Eucharist within us, some of the offshoots of His life, is our growing reflection on goodness, truth, and beauty of His creation, and the artwork at the Vatican is the creative expression of Christ within us.

Of course, the world cannot see Him as the source of truth, power, beauty and goodness in the world at the Vatican. Without Christ, the Vatican and its clerics are no different than the world’s works and power.

 

[SamH]

I think the pay of diocesan priests varies from diocese to diocese. I think $50k per year would be on the high side and that $20-30k per year is more of an average.

Members of a religious community that take vows of poverty, even if they make a salary (e.g., by teaching at a university), should give all monies and gifts earned and received to the community.

Agreed - ours is only paid $32,000 a year and he runs 4 parishes.

 

[manualman]

It’s human nature that we spend money on that which we value.

Once upon a time, catholics lived in mud huts with thatch roofs and spent their money building St. Peter’s and they largely didn’t complain about it. Today, catholics live in McMansions with AC, satellite TV, internet, luxuries galore and complain about how “rich” the church is.

It just goes to show you what people value in life. People put their money into what they value.

 

[KathleenGee]

So true…and the remedy is poverty.

We have Holy Father Francis…the spirit of the world has entered into the Church.