the Vatican is both a city and a state (both within the city of Rome), it runs in the same manner as governments, with a need to account for all its wealth, but it also operates like a worldwide corporation. Author Karl Keating recently noted that the Vatican’s annual budget was about the size of that of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The funds went partly for the upkeep of the Vatican itself and partly for the Church’s missionary and other work around the world.
“I suppose we could ask why the Vatican has trouble balancing its rather small annual budget,” Keating wrote. “The wealth of the Church is almost entirely in church buildings, hospitals, schools, and missions, plus artworks. You could sell off the artworks, but the proceeds wouldn’t feed the poor of the world for even a day.
“If the Vatican sold all its artworks, they would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars—but only once. Then they would be gone, and that money wouldn’t go very far…. The popes are custodians, not owners. They have a responsibility to preserve its artistic treasures for posterity, not to sell them off to private collections.”
It has been calculated that “it costs about $250 million a year to operate the Vatican. The money comes from…contributions from bishops’ conferences, dioceses, religious orders, individual lay donors, and ‘other entities.’ For 2004, that total came to $89 million. Of this amount, roughly $27.2 million came from individual dioceses under the terms of canon 1271 of the Code of Canon Law, which obligated dioceses to contribute to the financial support of the Holy See. This means that the 2,883 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the world gave an average of $10,000 each in 2004…. Wealthy archdioceses gave much more, a lot of smaller dioceses gave little or nothing.”
The Vatican also garners “earnings on real estate, which refers principally to roughly 30 buildings and 1,700 apartments owned by the Holy See in Rome, which produced revenue of $64.5 million in 2004. Earnings [also come] from investments and other financial activities, with the Vatican’s portfolio divided into 80 percent bonds and 20 percent stocks. In 2004, the Vatican’s financial statement did not provide a comprehensive total,” but experts said the “earnings must have been in the range of $100 million. The statement noted that this was an improvement of $21.5 million, attributed to an improved situation in the world financial markets in 2004.”
“[A 2004] statement from the Vatican indicated that contributions to Peter’s Pence, a fund to support papal charities that are not part of the regular Vatican budget, totaled $52 million,…a decline of 7.4 percent.”
The best-selling author and Chicago priest, Father Andrew Greeley, wrote, “There was perhaps a time when the Church was truly rich (and that is another story), but the Reformation and the French Revolution ended that. Catholicism is property poor. What, for example, is the replacement value of St. Peter’s [Basilica] in the Vatican? Who would buy it? How much income does it produce a year? In fact, the votive candle offerings—its only source of income—barely pay for maintenance. And what would someone do with it if they purchased it, especially once they discovered it was a loss leader? Build condos over it? What would one do with the Vatican museum? Maybe the Italian government could buy it as a station on the unfinished Roman metro line. The Vatican’s endowment is less than that of a mid-level American Catholic university. It necessarily lives a hand-to-mouth financial existence. It puts on a great show with its splendors and its ceremonies, but the wealth that paid for its splendors vanished long ago and it can barely pay for the ceremonies.”
“The Vatican’s assets [have always been] a well-kept secret but one which is the topic of much speculation. Estimates range from $1.5 billion to $15 billion and more. They include works of art and buildings, which for the most part cannot be sold. Large parts of the Vatican’s assets are in securities and gold reserves. Additional assets are in rental revenues, the sale of coins, stamps and souvenirs.” Like palaces, royal residences, historic stately homes and manors in Great Britain, the Vatican has become a tourist attraction and money raiser.
Financial experts note that despite its wealth, the Vatican’s budget has shown a deficit of several million dollars since 2001, but its debt is secured by assets. The largest include the Vatican’s properties in and around Rome, the papacy’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, office buildings, palaces and cathedrals. Vatican City, with fortress walls dating back to the sixteenth century, gained independent status in 1929 after the conclusion of “Lateran Pacts” with Italy. On February 11 of that year, Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini created the Vatican in its current dimensions and secured additional sovereignty rights and buildings.
According to Ivan Ruggiero, the Holy See’s chief accountant, Vatican real estate is worth about $1.21 billion, not including its priceless art treasures. “The value of the real estate holding was calculated without taking into account its real value on the market,” said Ruggiero. “And of course, the vast artistic holding of the Holy See was not taken into account, since it is a priceless and non-commercial holding. (Because of it being ‘priceless,’ the value of the art treasures has been listed as ‘One Euro.’)” St. Peter’s Basilica is categorized “beyond market values.”
In July 2008, the Associated Press reported that the Vatican ran a deficit in 2007, which the Holy See attributed to “the weak dollar in the generous collection baskets from the U.S. faithful,” and steep costs of running the Vatican’s media (a newspaper and radio station). “The Vatican issued financial figures showing a nearly $13.5 million deficit. It cited the sharp drop in the exchange rate for the U.S. dollar. The Vatican in Rome pays many of its expenses in euros, a currency that had soared in value against the U.S. dollar. The financial report, released by the Holy See’s press office, listed 2007 revenue of $371.97 million against expenses of $386.27 million.
“The Vatican said its financial investments were hurt ‘principally by the sharp and rather marked inversion in exchange rates, above all for the U.S. dollar.’ The Vatican said rents and other income from its vast real estate holdings helped its finances. The Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel, a top tourist attraction, also helped the Holy See’s finances.”
“The Vatican’s annual Peter’s Pence collection worldwide found that the U.S. faithful were the most generous in absolute terms of the amount donated, more than $18.7 million.”
“No nation of Catholics gives more than Americans. A cardinals’ advisory committee on Holy See finances released a report in 2008 that showed the U.S. was the top contributor nation ($19 million, or 29% of the total) to the Holy See’s charitable spending in 2007, and came in second (after Germany) in contributions to the support of the Holy See itself.”
In 2007, the Vatican decided to “give financial rewards to employees who were doing a good job.” “It said it would take into account employee ‘dedication, professionalism, productivity and correctitude’ when awarding a pay rise…. More than 4,000 people, from cardinals to cleaners,” were employed by the Holy See in the Vatican. “Base pay across a broad spectrum of jobs reportedly ranged from 1,100 euros ($1,634) to 2,200 euros ($3,268) a month.” A recent account gave the number of employees at 2,659, of which 744 were diocesan priests, 351 men and women in religious orders, and 1,564 laity.
When Pope John XIII was asked how many people worked in the Vatican, he quipped, “About half.”
CHAPTER 4
Naughty Priests
When a Texas lawyer was digging in Vatican archives in 2003 in the pursuit of cases on behalf of American victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, he found a document titled De Modo Provedendi di Causis Crimine Soliciciones (On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime of Solicitation). Bearing the signature and seal of Pope John XXIII, it was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and distributed to senior clerics all over the world with an order that it was to be kept secret.
The
