Catholic Church: A church for the poor or a wealthy corporation?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/a-church-for-the-poor-or-a-wealthy-corporation/a-18754128

The richest Catholic diocese in Germany had a surplus of four billion euros at the end of 2014. Critics say this much wealth is not credible for the Church of Pope Francis, while others stress it is used for good causes.

A church for the poor or a wealthy corporation?
Carla Bleiker
01.10.2015

Pope Francis has said that he champions a more austere Catholic Church. "How I would like a church that is poor and for the poor," he told journalists after his election to the papacy in 2013. But now that several dioceses in Germany have made their finances public, it's hard not to wonder how the wealth they possess fits in with Francis' wish for austerity.

So far, the list is topped by the diocese of Paderborn in western Germany. According to their financial report for 2014, published this week, the diocese has total assets of more than four billion euros; 279 million euros of that is tangible assets, most of it in property. Most of it, 3.6 billion euros, is financial assets such as fixed-interest securities.

Whether the Church owns buildings or stocks, four billion euros is an incredibly high number. What does the Paderborn diocese do with so much wealth?

High costs

"These means facilitate our daily pastoral care work and support Caritas aid expenditures, thus benefitting 1.6 million Catholics - but also those outside the Church - in our diocese," vicar Alfons Hardt said in a statement.

[MisterP]

1. more on Caritas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caritas_International
it's global-level, pretty Liberation-Theology, and is always the ones getting shot at (whether a la the MSF hospital today, or targeted by death squads)