3 ms·

Passing the hat has been the church's business model for thousands of years.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Sure, for your community. But this is the central organization wanting community money to manage their fabulous collection of priceless texts. They could sell one of them to pay for the whole operation. Its ludicrous.
- bane 12y ago
  Then they'd be 1 short of their collection of fabulous texts. It would no longer be a complete collection.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Ha ha. They have bought/stolen thousands. They also do NOT own thousands. One text changing from the first category to the 2nd doesn't threaten their collection.
- bennettfeely 12y ago
  It's a museum. Should museums sell off their collections to pay to keep running?
ithought 12y ago
I think the Vatican was crowdfunded in the same way the British Royal Family was. Theft, war, deception, destruction; then some analogous leaseback deal to legitimize everything. I'm not sure the Vatican's revenue but I suppose a lot comes from the Vatican Bank and returns on their massive assets. Most of their charitable work comes from $2+ billion from the US Govt. If you've seen Vatileaks on PBS, you know how frighteningly corrupt it is. The Pope's personal butler was a whistleblower, went to the media and then was arrested for possession of "classified" material. Sentenced to 18 months in prison but he instead served it in the Vatican. Then the Pope pardoned him.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I'm not sure the Vatican's revenue but I suppose a lot comes from the Vatican Bank and returns on their massive assets. The "Vatican Bank" (strictly, the Institute for the Works of Religion) has pretty miniscule assets by the scale of financial institutions, and returns in the high tens of millions annually. > Most of their charitable work comes from $2+ billion from the US Govt. Most of the funding for Catholic Charities, a US Catholic organization structured rather specifically to be able to accept government funding to private social charities given the particular regulatory regime in the US regarding church/state relations, comes from the US government, but that organization is not the whole of the charitable work of the Catholic Church in the US, much less the world.
  - ithought 12y ago
    The bank has about $6.3 billion in assets and in 2012 had a net profit of $117.4 million. They finally made their financial records public in 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/whats-vatican-banks-balance-sheet-145800169.html http://news.yahoo.com/whats-vatican-banks-balance-sheet-1458... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/business/international/vatican-bank-publishes-its-first-annual-report.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/business/international/vat... Catholic Charities is definitely the biggest source of charitable work in the US and the majority of their budget comes from the US Government. 62% in 2010. There's also CRS (international), hospitals, Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (international) etc. all of which are much smaller.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Catholic Charities is definitely the biggest source of charitable work in the US and the majority of their budget comes from the US Government. A majority of a plurality is not a majority.

Sure, for your community. But this is the central organization wanting community money to manage their fabulous collection of priceless texts. They could sell one of them to pay for the whole operation. Its ludicrous.

bane 12y ago
Then they'd be 1 short of their collection of fabulous texts. It would no longer be a complete collection.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Ha ha. They have bought/stolen thousands. They also do NOT own thousands. One text changing from the first category to the 2nd doesn't threaten their collection.
bennettfeely 12y ago
It's a museum. Should museums sell off their collections to pay to keep running?

ithought 12y ago

I think the Vatican was crowdfunded in the same way the British Royal Family was. Theft, war, deception, destruction; then some analogous leaseback deal to legitimize everything. I'm not sure the Vatican's revenue but I suppose a lot comes from the Vatican Bank and returns on their massive assets. Most of their charitable work comes from $2+ billion from the US Govt. If you've seen Vatileaks on PBS, you know how frighteningly corrupt it is. The Pope's personal butler was a whistleblower, went to the media and then was arrested for possession of "classified" material. Sentenced to 18 months in prison but he instead served it in the Vatican. Then the Pope pardoned him.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> I'm not sure the Vatican's revenue but I suppose a lot comes from the Vatican Bank and returns on their massive assets. The "Vatican Bank" (strictly, the Institute for the Works of Religion) has pretty miniscule assets by the scale of financial institutions, and returns in the high tens of millions annually. > Most of their charitable work comes from $2+ billion from the US Govt. Most of the funding for Catholic Charities, a US Catholic organization structured rather specifically to be able to accept government funding to private social charities given the particular regulatory regime in the US regarding church/state relations, comes from the US government, but that organization is not the whole of the charitable work of the Catholic Church in the US, much less the world.
- ithought 12y ago
  The bank has about $6.3 billion in assets and in 2012 had a net profit of $117.4 million. They finally made their financial records public in 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/whats-vatican-banks-balance-sheet-145800169.html http://news.yahoo.com/whats-vatican-banks-balance-sheet-1458... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/business/international/vatican-bank-publishes-its-first-annual-report.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/business/international/vat... Catholic Charities is definitely the biggest source of charitable work in the US and the majority of their budget comes from the US Government. 62% in 2010. There's also CRS (international), hospitals, Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (international) etc. all of which are much smaller.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Catholic Charities is definitely the biggest source of charitable work in the US and the majority of their budget comes from the US Government. A majority of a plurality is not a majority.