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Growing up Catholic, I was impressed by the material wealth of my ancestral church. Going to mass, I paid more attention to the splendor of Catholic architecture and art around me, and virtually none to the rites being performed. Even when I became non-religious, I still sometimes attend mass just to gawk at the physical beauty of some of these churches.
How rich is the Catholic Church? I've always wondered. By church wealth, I mean the combined worth of the assets of the entire hierarchy from the Vatican on down to the local parishes around the world, including its various religious orders. This must be a staggering amount. Certain orders in the US alone own hundreds of hospitals and universities which generate billions of dollars in annual revenue, not to mention the value of the real estate these properties sit on.
Can't find anything in Google that reliably answers the question. Pro-Catholic links try to minimize the Church's wealth while anti-Catholic ones try to maximize it.
understand that the catholic church has been around for nearly 2000 years, and it has been accumulating wealth since that time through its various benefactors. as ovcatto said it would take an army of accountants to determine just exactly what the net worth of the church is, an educated guess would be somewhere in the low trillions at least, perhaps even as much as 50 trillion based on the properties owned around the world, and the treasures kept within.
This is a very difficult question to answer. On the Internet I mainly found religiously biased attacks and they all seam to have different agendas. Plus the finances of the Vatican are very complex, My numbers come from different sources. Additionally the Catholic Church is multi national and that makes adding it all up very difficult. So I don't promise all my numbers will be right but their close as I can come. How ever I had alto of enjoyment researching it and learned allot. I found out that "The Holy See" is the financially name for the Vatican and it ran in deficit from 1970 up until 1993,
Assets
1,483 billion lire in assets about. 479 lbillion lire in stocks and bonds, 29 billion lire in gold, and 470 billion lire in fixed assets investments and real estate. 269 billion lire are in deposits and accounts of Vatican entities, 750 billion lire in net assets, 410 billion lire in cash
Spending
96 billion lire for employees' severance indemnities and 262 billion lire in pensions and present employees 419 million lire in liabilities
I'm not sure but a lot of it goes to help people. Hospitals, clinics, schools. We have "The Lord's Diner" in our city and they feed homeless, etc. people everyday. No cost to them. This summer has been an overflow for them. I have volunteered at it and many people of all faiths come to help and give money, etc to keep it open and full of food for the poor. They turn no one away.
I am sure that allot of the charity work in the U.S if not all is tax deductible. That would not include the impoverished nations companies and fielding of missions. I also don't have tax debt.
I am confident in the Assets being 473420b lire but I question the spending. It has to be more then 777b lira. That's just not enough cash flow for a "business" to operate.
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