Pope John Paul II died on Saturday night, leaving behind not only a spiritual but also material legacy. Many journalists have tried to find out how big the Catholic Church''s wealth is in the course of time.
It is thought to be fabulous, powerful and eternal. The wealth of the Church led by Pope John Paul II until the day before yesterday, however, is fragile and quasi-unknown. A journalist even said it was of over 100 million dollars (77bn euros). Annual revenues from assets are much lower, of 10 to 15bn dollars. The Catholic Church has to cover the expenses of the churches or of the schools it sponsors with this money.
A journalist from French''s L''Expansion was asking someone close to the Vatican about the Church''s money a while ago. The answer was: "At any rate, these affairs are quite complex. Vatican''s financial situation? No one truly knows about it. Not even the Pope." What is amazing is that such statements are true. After Paul VI, it was only in the ''60s that the Church''s chests were possible to set in order by creating an institution to manage them: the Holy See''s Prefecture for Economic Affairs. The development of the third world countries, poor by definition has had the biggest contribution to emptying Vatican''s treasure.
L''Expansion says Vatican''s annual revenues are in excess of 50 million euros. The budgetary resources are significant, and at least six of them are capital.
The first of them, which is as tourist-oriented as possible, is the administration of the Saint Peter''s Basilica, built in the XVIth century with proceeds from the sale of indulgency letters. Its revenues are derived from donations and fees charged for the use of the lift that transports tourists to the Michelangelo painted ceiling. The second budgetary resource is the budget of the Vatican state, which, although the smallest state in the world, makes a lot of money from sales of museum admission tickets (20% of the total receipts), of stamps, medals or souvenirs, and even from luxury goods stores, where sale of alcoholic beverages is rather limited, though. This budget pays for the power consumption or for building maintenance.
However, Vatican turned out to be incapable to pay for the restoration of the Sistine Chapel from this budget, leaving the Japanese to foot the bill. This budget also pays the wages to the 2,000 employees, who work about 36 hours a week and make almost as much as the minimum wage in France. It was the small wages precisely that caused the first strike of the Vatican employees ever, in 1983.
The third stream of revenue is the Curia, which practically means all clerical personnel, from bishops to cardinals. There are 3,000 of them and are better paid than the employees, some of them making as much as 2,300 euros.
Yet nobody pays taxes. This is why the Curia is experiencing a deficit. Revenues come from donations, which amounted to 43.7 million in 2002. A papal order forced dioceses and religious orders, some of which are very rich, to share some of their wealth with the Church and the poor. A total of 85 million euros were collected in 2002, most of which came from the South America. andreea.paun@zf.ro
Pentru alte știri, analize, articole și informații din business în timp real urmărește Ziarul Financiar pe WhatsApp Channels
