Corruption scandal shakes Vatican as internal letters leaked

reply to post by mike dangerously

Dear mike dangerously,

I don't think you have to worry about the good Archbishop. By being sent to the US as the Vatican's ambassador, he and the rest of the Church are being told "Vigano did good, don't mess with him." This was a big promotion for him. Believe me, there are many places to get rid of a Bishop that would mark him as a person on the outs. Ambassador to the US is one of the top five places in the Vatican diplomatic service.

As for the rest of the thread, it seems to have gotten a little out of hand. It's a shame that anything mentioning the Pope or the Church gets routed into the same old insulting comments over and over.

Oh well, "The gates of Hell shal not prevail . . ."

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Unvarnished

 

I'd like to come back to this thread, it sounds interesting. In the meantime, you may want to know that the budget for Vatican City is less than $400 Million a year.

That may be their yearly expenditure, but to suggest that this is the extent of their yearly income or any way representative of the assets in the Vatican and its banks, is disingenuous.

The Vatican Empire may be the richest on earth. Nobody has the authority to audit them independently, so their true assets may never be known.

reply to post by HattoriHanzou

Dear HattoriHanzou,

Thanks for your response, I'm a little mildly hurt by "disingenuous," I try to be frank and sincere, but I can understand that I might not be always seen that way.

Vatican finances are complicated and I agree with you that the Vatican's assets are huge. I don't happen to know how much of those assets are in priceless books, buildings and art, but those are assets entrusted to the Church to maintain. They're not going to sell the Sistine Chapel to McDonalds to raise funds.

One thing that might be confusing the issue is that the Church is a very "flat" organization. The Bishops run their own pieces of the Church with little interference. In rich countries they may use some of their local collection for building programs, but the Vatican does request donations to go to the poorer countries. How much does every church combined raise over the course of a year? I don't know.

I don't know how you go about "independently" auditing a foreign country, which is what Vatican city is. The US doesn't invite Portugal to audit it's accounts, I don't know why Vatican City should.

But you're right, they have a lot of assets. Probably a lot less now with the European financial crisis, but how much? I don't know. Good question.

With respect,
Charles1952

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by HattoriHanzou

 

Dear HattoriHanzou,

Thanks for your response, I'm a little mildly hurt by "disingenuous," I try to be frank and sincere, but I can understand that I might not be always seen that way.

Vatican finances are complicated and I agree with you that the Vatican's assets are huge. I don't happen to know how much of those assets are in priceless books, buildings and art, but those are assets entrusted to the Church to maintain. They're not going to sell the Sistine Chapel to McDonalds to raise funds.

One thing that might be confusing the issue is that the Church is a very "flat" organization. The Bishops run their own pieces of the Church with little interference. In rich countries they may use some of their local collection for building programs, but the Vatican does request donations to go to the poorer countries. How much does every church combined raise over the course of a year? I don't know.

I don't know how you go about "independently" auditing a foreign country, which is what Vatican city is. The US doesn't invite Portugal to audit it's accounts, I don't know why Vatican City should.

But you're right, they have a lot of assets. Probably a lot less now with the European financial crisis, but how much? I don't know. Good question.

With respect,
Charles1952

My only point was that the Vatican has an enormous amount of assets. Speaking of their yearly expenditure does not give the whole picture.

Your comment which I responded to seemed quite dismissive of the idea that the Vatican possessed great wealth.

reply to post by Char-Lee


Ah, man Char Lee that's a horrid shame about the envelopes with the dollar amount written on it and the rant. Sort of the same thing happened to my mom when I was a kid, only it was a Southern Baptist church doing it to us. I've been to all kinds of denominations, got disgusted, went atheist. Back full circle to faith, this time very solid, for years now, but independent. I'm going to convert to Catholicism at some point. After all I've been through with churches I'm not fazed by the Catholic scandals. Satan has got his dirty hooves into everything everywhere, where men's hearts are, he's tapping the foundations looking for cracks. I find the ideals and overall doctrine of Catholicism to be in tune with what I feel I've been missing out of religion all these years. I've found individual Catholic Churches that DO attend to the poor and radiate a lot of love and so on this one to one level between me and them, it's good.

The Catholic Church needs some housecleaning but so do individual souls. It's a never-ending battle to ferret out evil on the large scale and the individual scale. The Catholic Church has the transubstantiation thing going on in its celebration of the Eucharist. I never got that as a Protestant and to me it's been a keenly felt absence I'm looking forward to addressing.

Where human beings are concerned everything is an ideal at all times because we are flawed vessels while on this material plane. Prayer and faith are what help transform the ideals into reality and for me personally, celebrating the Eucharist are to facilitate the mini transubstantiation, so to speak, of the flawed human into the one God needs me to be.

I was reading all the stuff posted about the Traditionalist breaks from main Catholicism. As a Protestant, I think that's a mistake. Stay united and work together to make the Catholic Church alive and real and meaningful and unified on the one to one level of reaching, ministering to, and loving people in the community...the poor and
hopeless whomever they might be and whatever religion or beliefs they might have.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain

Well personally i only became catholic to marry my now ex so his family would be happy. I have always found the pretentious dressing in fancy robes and all the fluff to be silly.

Like you said to each his own. If you need the huggy wuggy people faking love or the ceremonies.

After much searching and years of study, I concluded we are all with a touch of divine energy, we don't need all the fake stuff that gives someone power over us and money.

We are NOT their Sons and Daughters and we are not their Sheep. So they are NOT our Father or our Pastor.

Originally posted by HattoriHanzou

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Unvarnished

 

I'd like to come back to this thread, it sounds interesting. In the meantime, you may want to know that the budget for Vatican City is less than $400 Million a year.

That may be their yearly expenditure, but to suggest that this is the extent of their yearly income or any way representative of the assets in the Vatican and its banks, is disingenuous.

The Vatican Empire may be the richest on earth. Nobody has the authority to audit them independently, so their true assets may never be known.

The Vatican may be stockholders/owners in many corporations as well.

They have been "in business" for a very long time.

I'm sure many assets remain hidden and maybe even off the books so to speak because of 2nd party managment, and possibly tax exemptions that would allow for non-reportings.

The Vatican bank has had some scandals also.

this story is pretty much true: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yeah I don't think a little business corruption is going to do much scandalwise to an organization that has overseen the inquisition, called for torture and burning at the stakes of dissidents and heretics.

And you can't not mention the elephant in the room in regards to corruption of the sexual abuse scandal. After asking a family member what their thoughts were as to why a mutual relative acted they way they did I discovered that person had went to a catholic school down in the Detroit area as a kid so I decided to look up priests in that area that were accused of misconduct. What I found sickened me with the sheer overwhelming vileness of it.
bishop-accountability.org...

If what possibly happened to my relative did happen it would explain so many things in regards to self destructive traits and attitudes and also alcohol abuse issues. I was just over whelmed by the sheer number of name on the list spread out over the whole state. I also checked a few other states and it was just completely across the board.

The catholic church is the Don King of the world at dodging charges of corruption and scandal, this won't do them any harm past tomorrow

This biggest crime of all is all of the historical documents that will never see the light of day. I wanna know whats so important it has to be kept locked away.

History has been held hostage far too long.

reply to post by Char-Lee


I don't need huggy wuggy for myself, I'm actually kind of I introverted and would prefer to keep to myself. But it's nice I did find a church, actually two of them, that seem to have a strong focus on community service and have good records for doing some real good for people I know. Sometimes it is hard to do certain things by yourself as I found out when I tried to help somebody a couple of years ago...long story, off topic. Oh well like you said to each their own.

This was an interesting topic with some informative offshoot commentary. Most big downfalls I've seen in churches seem to involve the two things that should not rule Christian life...money and sex. When we are not arguing over translations and interpretations of the written word, apparently we are hoarding, stealing, coveting, and boinking. What a strange species we are, we just can't seem to stay focused...except on hoarding, stealing, coveting and boinking.

reply to post by cconn487


I do agree. We live in an era of information. They ought to digitize at least some of the information they are sitting on and share. That goes for any religious organization that hogs information or stifles access to archaeological resources that are of worth to all of us as human beings.

Originally posted by SheeplFlavoredAgain
reply to post by Char-Lee

 

I don't need huggy wuggy for myself, I'm actually kind of I introverted and would prefer to keep to myself. But it's nice I did find a church, actually two of them, that seem to have a strong focus on community service and have good records for doing some real good for people I know. Sometimes it is hard to do certain things by yourself as I found out when I tried to help somebody a couple of years ago...long story, off topic. Oh well like you said to each their own.

This was an interesting topic with some informative offshoot commentary. Most big downfalls I've seen in churches seem to involve the two things that should not rule Christian life...money and sex. When we are not arguing over translations and interpretations of the written word, apparently we are hoarding, stealing, coveting, and boinking. What a strange species we are, we just can't seem to stay focused...except on hoarding, stealing, coveting and boinking.

Lol I totally agree on the human focus no matter what group you join someone will be after someones wife or whatever. Gossip and behind the back squabbles and cliques. I think most people i have ever know that belong to a church it is for the social aspect of it. I have learned to rather be isolated as I can't trust anyone anymore.