Pope Francis nationalizes all assets and property owned by the Vatican

https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-vatican-city-scandals-business-religion-f755b007a3599fb906e9b6fbdfa54a01

by geox • 3 years ago

49 26 3 years ago

dr_faustus• 3 years ago

The 600 billion figure is almost certainly false. The estimates vary by a lot but most figures are in the ball park of 30 billion.

nadermx• 3 years ago

How so?

runamok• 3 years ago

Yeah, that blew my mind. I mean the Vatican is essentially a country but where does that money come from?

e_i_pi_24• 3 years ago

Church-goers pay money to their local church in tithes (generally suggested as 10% of pre-tax wages), local churches pay to their regional church, regional churches pay to the Vatican, it's a bit of a pyramid scheme but people feel like they get value from it

cjbenedikt• 3 years ago

Just one example: https://web.archive.org/web/20220829164500/https://amp2.hand...

fakedang2• 3 years ago

I'm actually surprised it's not higher. The Vatican Church owns valuable land in a lot of countries around the world. I was expecting at least a few trillion.

Not to mention, the artwork, the banks they own as LPs, the schools and hospitals they manage as non profit entities...

looping__lui2• 3 years ago

I don’t think stuff abroad is owned by the Vatican unless it is a deliberate investment. I might be wrong, but my perception was rather that “the catholic church is operating like a franchise in which each country does as they please”. The Catholic Church in Germany is insanely rich for example. I doubt they share anything with anybody…

In Germany, they get paid for the schools and hospitals (95% or so of operating expenses are covered by the government/etc in return for zero say; e.g., for a 5% share in expenses for operating a school they get to make 100% of the rules). It’s even more crazy with hospitals where they can essentially deny to provide services they don’t want to offer for “ethical reasons” or not hire “non-Catholics”. Again: this is 95% paid by the public…

Someone• 3 years ago

FTA: “Francis previously stripped the Vatican’s secretariat of state of its 600 billion-euro ($635 billion) portfolio”

“Previously” implies that’s not what happened today. I read that as 600 billion-euro being part of “all assets and property owned by Vatican departments and affiliated institutions”, but not all of it.

If so, it is higher.

User232• 3 years ago

I'm not a canonist, but to a first approximation at least I believe the following to be accurate. I welcome any correction from anyone more knowledgable.

There's no such entity as "The Vatican Church." It's not like the Church of Scientology or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in that respect. This is largely because of its ancient origins and its outlasting quite a few secular legal systems. Instead there are a number of institutions that all play a role in the mission of the Church. The Vatican does not own valuable land in countries around the world and it doesn't own every Catholic School, University, or whatever else either.

The Vatican City is an internationally recognized sovereign city-state on the Italian peninsula. Legally it's much the same as any other state and the Pope serves as Head of State and Head of Government. However, there is one major exception involving diplomatic relations. It is where much of the governing apparatus of the universal Church is physically located. A Diocese is a kind of territorial division of the Church. The Diocese of Rome's territory includes Vatican City as well as Rome. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, so it's his diocese. The Holy See is the Church's international government and legal person and the Pope is its leader. So countries don't have diplomatic relations with Vatican City or the Diocese of Rome, but rather with the Holy See. In fact the Vatican City state was created in 1929 by treaty between the Holy See and Italy. I'm not entirely certain, but it sounds like this motu proprio deals specifically with the Vatican City's assets and not those of the Diocese of Rome or the Holy See. So assets of the Diocese of Rome outside of Vatican City like the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran and the various other churches and schools and hospitals and what have you in the larger Diocese of Rome wouldn't appear to be involved. If we're conflating the Holy See with the Vatican, which is often done, then the Vatican owns some prime real estate and its contents in central Italy plus some financial assets.

Furthermore, Bishops are not franchisees. While the Pope does exercise a kind of special authority over the Bishops, they are largely independent, especially so financially. So for example the Archdiocese of New York owns Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The Archdiocese is a distinct entity with its own assets and liabilities, as well as governance.

While I suppose theoretically the Pope could change Canon Law to give himself the some kind of eminent domain power to seize Saint Patrick's or any other diocesan property and then sell it, the very notion is preposterous. It's much like saying that the US Constitution could be amended to allow slavery again. Sure it's theoretically possible, but it won't ever happen.

tl;dr: The Church, the Holy See, the Diocese of Rome, and the Vatican City are all separate entities that all happen to be headed by the Pope. However "the Vatican" is also commonly used as a metonym for the Holy See. Usually this doesn't matter, but here it's confusing, to me at least.

leros• 3 years ago

It's also a really old organization that has had a lot of time to accumulate wealth.

gattilorenz5• 3 years ago

Source?

pyuser583• 3 years ago

Will this make fundraising more difficult? For example, if the Vatican wants to raise funds for a specific cause - art restoration or musical education - can they offer guarantees the money won’t be diverted?

Pope Francis nationalizes all assets and property owned by the Vatican

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