Dumb ?. Where does the Vatican get all it's money?

[sixstrings75]

OK.

Sounds like a dumb question.

Seriously, where does the Vatican get all this gold, cash, resources etc.?


Does a Roman Catholic church have to give some of their tithed cash to the Vatican?

Anyone know how this works?

PS - ex-catholic here - left the church when I was REALLY young - thank gawd...

[Tesha]

1. All official Roman Catholic Churches are just part of the same organization...

...that is part multinational corporation and part fake country.

So all the Vatican's money has come from Catholic donors
across the centuries (with some investment gains over time).
In other words, mostly from the poor, directly or indirectly.

Tesha

[sui generis]

2. there are still big chunks of Europe where land cannot be "bought"

but only leased. My aunt lives on one such parcel - although she "owns" her house, she does not own the land it sits on, and there is even an active reversion clause. The Vatican also invests through private equity.

That and the Vatican sucks money out of local church coffers - meaning those pesos Mama Soliz gave last Sunday instead of using for food went in part into the Vatican coffers, even if indirectly by offsetting direct expense.

[melm00se]

3. "Riches" of the Chruch

Some, if not most, are from long ago (like some of the art in the Vatican were donated centuries ago).

The donations made at the parish level are treated like this:

- the bulk of the donations are kept at the parish level for operating costs/expenses, capital programs and outreach/ministry expenses
- a cut is passed up to the diocese level
- any excess is then passed up to the diocese to help out weaker parishes in the diocese/archdiocese.

the process is then duplicated at the diocese, archdiocese all the way up to the Vatican

[meegbear]

4. Collections are heard during Masses ...

and people give money.

My church gave to parishiners boxes of envelopes with each Sunday and special masses (Christmas, etc) dated on them. You could use those to give money. I would think the Vatican would get a cut (for lack of better words.)

Back in the day (as in WAY BACK), you were required to give 10% of your money/grown food, etc to the church. Add some "bribes" for favors, political and religious, do this for a few centuries and the moolah just piles up.

[DeSwiss]

5. Victims.

They've been stealing it for centuries. There's no telling what size fortune in stolen artifacts, gold and silver that lie in the basements of the Vatican. The Inquisition(s) were a major source of revenue that they developed by simply making an accusation of sin or heresy. It was a great ploy that I'm sure the Church wish they still had in their arsenal. They used it to silence the Church's detractors, and they went after the well-off as well as the poor, they confiscated all their property. No one was safe, save most of the nobility whom the Church supported primarily in order to retain their power. And to sell dispensations to so that the rich could sin all they wanted on earth because they'd bought themselves a seat in heaven already. And family members of their victims often were forced to denounce their own in order to keep a semblance of what they had -- or starve. They could be held as aiders and abettors to heretical teachings of beliefs otherwise, if they didn't.

- So where does their money come from, you ask? Where all sociopaths (whether individual or organizational) get their money from. Their victims.....

[beam me up scottie]

8. +1

[eleny]

6. Here are some details from Yahoo Answers

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061201175736AAx89Vt

[mnhtnbb]

7. We were in Peru last year. The gold and silver that adorned

the Inca temples was confiscated by the Catholic Church when the Spaniards invaded
and took over the country. The Inca temples were knocked down to their foundations
and the Catholic Church used local labor to build churches on the foundations of the destroyed
Inca temples.

[defendandprotect]

11. RCC and capitalism work the same way . . .

[madrchsod]

9. from blood of the unknown number of slaves that mined...

gold,silver ,and other metals during the churches conquest of central and south american countries....

[defendandprotect]

10. How much is the Vatican worth? Decades ago heard $50 Billion . . .

which was about what the Queen had ... ?

Usually the way it works is volume: Rich Church/Poor Members

Meanwhile, US taxpayer is now also subsidizing the RCC's "faith based" organizations --

thanks to George Bush's intervention to save the Church -- and Obama is continuing and

increasing those subsidies to RCC. RCC has most of the organizations.


Also, conveniently, this money came along when they really needed it to pay their pedophile

lawsuits!

[Odin2005]

12. Dumb people that still donate money to them.