E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Polizia Di Stato / AFP - Getty Images, file
An aerial view of St Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. Despite the vast assets of the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See made a loss of $18.4 million loss in 2011.
VATICAN CITY -- As the Catholic church prepares to choose its second leader in a decade, the world’s eyes are once again focused on the complex and secretive ways of the Vatican.
In mid-March, 117 cardinals will be locked inside its walls until they decide who should next attempt to govern one of humankind’s most enduring, yet bewildering, institutions.
Their new pope must not only provide spiritual leadership to followers in more than 180 countries around the globe, but also reconcile deep divisions within the two-and-a-half square miles of the Vatican itself, on the left bank of Rome’s Tiber river.
In his homily at Mass late Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of “sins against the unity of the Church,” hinting at the office politics of an organization worth at least $8 billion but which features a switchboard operated by nuns.
Each day, some of the Vatican City’s 1,900 lay workers leave the cacophony of traffic-choked Rome and step across the white lines that mark the state boundaries. Inside, they assist up to 2,800 global employees of the Holy See – including cardinals and archbishops – to the sound of choirs and the leading of prayers.
“It’s only a normal workplace if having a Raphael fresco on the office wall is normal,” said George Weigel, NBC News Vatican analyst and author of "Witness to Hope," the best-selling biography of Pope John Paul II.
More than 5 million tourists see inside the Vatican’s grounds and museums every year – almost as many as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art – but the power lies away from the cameras.
One of the possible candidates for the papal role, Canadian Archbishop John Michael Miller, gave an insight into this very private world.
Alessandra Tarantino / AP
The lights shines from Pope Benedict XVI's apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Tuesday.
“When the main elevator of the Apostolic Palace stops at the third floor, you have two choices: turning to the left, for the pope's private apartment, or to the right, for the offices of the Secretariat of the State,” he wrote in a 1997 article for ‘The Catholic Answer’. “Every day about 200 men and women - bishops, priests, religious and laity- turn to the right. They walk along magnificently frescoed corridors to their modest offices, where they discretely collaborate in the pope's ministry to the Church and the world.”
Although the wealth of the church has been on display throughout history, its financial details are not. Paolo Cipriani - director of The Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), often referred to as the ‘Vatican Bank’ - last year pledged to “lift the veil of secrecy” surrounding the organization. The institute manages $8 billion of the church’s worldwide wealth and investments as well as 33,000 accounts for clergy and parishes, held in euros.
An open day last June was the first occasion in which journalists had been allowed inside its headquarters, inside a medieval defensive tower that once housed the Vatican prisons, newspaper La Stampa reported.
'A pretty lean organization'
It is an environment at once opulent and modest. Despite the vast assets of the Church, the Holy See made a loss of $18.4 million loss in 2011. Its $308 million income from IOR revenues - and supporters including its biggest single donor, the United States – fell short of the $326.4 million cost of running its global missions and operations such as Vatican Radio.
A separate budget for the Vatican City state, which deals with the administration of the church’s "home" in Rome made a $12.4 million profit in 2011, with most of its $113 million coming from tourists at its museums.
“This Dan Brown notion that the church is oozing millions of euros is just not true,” Weigel said. “These incredible buildings are not liquid assets. Most of the money that comes into the church goes straight back out again.
In a moving Ash Wednesday mass attended by thousands, Pope Benedict gave his final public mass and is now preparing to meet with the pastors of Rome's parishes. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.
“It is not even the biggest employer locally. Given the number of lay Catholics worldwide – 1.2 billion – the Vatican is a pretty lean organization. Of course, lean does not necessarily mean efficient.”
Confidential documents, stolen by the pope’s former butler and published in 2011 in a scandal known as "Vatileaks," revealed the haphazard and sometimes bizarre nature of the church finances. As well as tens of millions of dollars in small, personal donations from around the world, an Italian chat show host gave 10,000 euros with a note seeking a meeting with Pope Benedict.
The papers also revealed the efforts of Archbishop Carlo Mario Vigano to slash grossly inflated costs such as the $700,000 life-sized nativity scene in the center of St. Peter’s Square, according to a Newsweek feature on the scandal.
Insiders insist there is little sign of modern extravagance inside the Vatican, but the working world is very different to a similarly-sized corporation.
“Some of the technology – the computers, for example – may seem a little backward from a U.S. perspective,” said Father Robert Gahl, associate professor of ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. “There is an esprit de corps which is very motivating. It is a highly professional atmosphere.”
When asked how many people work in the Vatican, 20th century Pope John XXIII is reported to have replied: “About half."
Gahl said there was a grain of truth in the comment. “Like in any organization, there are some people who are there for the tremendous job security,” he said. “But there are also priests who devote a lot of their lives to their work.”
Alastair Jamieson / NBC News
Vatican City even boasts its own postal service.
Even the more secular aspects of the Vatican, the city state, are complex thanks to its geography. Squeezed into a triangular site in central Rome, the smallest country in the world has grown well outside its original footprint and much of its buildings and offices – including its own hospital – lie outside its boundaries but are granted the same judicial separation from the rest of Italy.
Much of the administration of the Vatican City, which issues its own passports and license plates and has its own postal service – reportedly much more efficient than its Italian counterpart – is carried out by lay workers who must agree to the church’s moral instruction.
“I don’t think they have to be Catholic but I would image that, this being Italy and because of the nature of the job, most people who apply are Catholic,” Gahl said. “I would also think that, when you interview somebody for a job at any non-profit you are likely to choose somebody who shares the same ideals and objectives as the organization.”
One of the first tasks of the new pope will be to try and rein in the Roman Curia - the Byzantine hierarchy of the Holy See, which includes various dicasteries, pontifical councils and secretariats - as well as modernize its practices.
“There is a feeling that Benedict never really got to grips with it at all,” said Weigel. “I think some changes are going to essential for the new pope.”
A dissident Austrian priest, Rev. Helmut Schueller, has spoken out against the ritual of the cardinals' conclave - at which voting papers in the ballot for the new pope are burned to create white smoke - and called for greater openness in the process of selecting a new leader.
"If things were going well, the conclave fathers would at least be going out to the Church grassroots and calling meetings to really hear what the faithful expect," he told Reuters on Wednesday.
However, running the Vatican will require more than just fresh management skills.
“The pope is not so much the head of a corporation, more the CEO of a large non-profit – and that means bringing clarity in direction and teaching,” said Gahl. “Cardinals do not usually subscribe to Harvard Business Review.”
Javier Barbancho / AFP - Getty Images
Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Look back at his life from childhood through his papacy.
Related:
Pope hit head on trip to Mexico; Vatican denies link to resignation
Pope's abdication could thwart Berlusconi's political comeback
Vatican history of 'cover-ups and disarray' will challenge new pope
Leave a Comment:
..."and the pope owns 51% of General Motors...and the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us..." George Harrison
The Vatican (and other organized religious institutions) is all about power, not religion. Everything they do contradicts what Jesus was supposed to have said and done. If Jesus actually existed (instead of being the latest god born of a virgin on Dec 25...check out myths of Attis, Mithra, Osiris for a start), he would oppose everthing the Vatican stands for.
The bible was heavily expurgated at the Council of Nicaea, including removal of the Gospel of Mary and other Gospels like Thomas that actually were spiritual. You can't have anything suggesting females are worthy, after all! The mistranslations are notorious (the word for camel and rope are really close in Aramaic). The bible in its current incarnation is full of genocide, infanticide, domestic violence, murder and other unpleasant ideas. Also, apparently Egyptian men are hung like donkeys and have emissions like horses (Ezekiel). This is the guidepost for the Church.
The USA gives hundreds of millions of dollars to the Vatican? This is absolute nuts. Someone should ut a stop to this waste of taxpayer dollars. They are not a strategic foreign partner of the USA.
Oh my goodness, Nuns answering phones at the Vatican! The horror! I smell an agenda brewing. What do you want, libcentral? Unionized nuns? Maybe they should pay the nuns enough to raise families on part time jobs? Stoopid libtards.
Nowhere in the article does it say or imply "those poor nuns". I think the idea was that the traditional stereotype of nuns doesn't include this type of activity. People think of nuns as working in an orphanage or a convent, not as office workers.
Where did you get the "those poor nuns" quote? The idea I get from the story is that nuns are working for little or no pay in a company worth 8 billion dollars. Of course, the Vatican is not a company, but a country. A country worth a paltry 8 billion cannot afford to pay nuns a prevailing wage. I still smell an agenda. Obaa-baa-ma. Stoopid libtard sheep.
Not a quote - but obviously the intended tone of your post. You see an agenda because it's all you look for on these pages. There are medications that can help with your paranoia.
The article clearly dispels the "8 billion dollars" BS that people have been repeating - and shows the million dollar LOSSES for 2011.
Do you mean the "8 billion dollar BS" that lib-central put in its headline? THAT 8 billion dollar BS? At least we finally got a libtard to admit that stories here at lib-central are BS. PMSNBC is the reality show of the news industry. Obaa-baa-ma. Stoopid libtard sheep. Wake up, sheep. The drones are coming.
Which libtard admitted that?
As I (not a liberal) have stated before, MSNBC is pretty much the left-wing foil to Fox. They are both propaganda machines for their respective audiences. (Although Huffington is probably more so.)
All I was saying is that this specific story doesn't seem as slanted as most are - or as anti-whatever as you seem to think it is. Did you even read it? Or just get all twisted up by the headline? [I'm sure Fox actually posts something interesting and worthwhile once in a while too.]
BTW - not all liberals are as bad as you think. Jesus was as liberal as they come.
The $8 Billion is just a tip of the iceberg - with all of the antiquities that are within the Vatican, more like $Priceless. Just think what that kind of dough could do for all Catholics around the world.
So you would have them dismantle the (physical) church and sell off assets one-by-one? The $8 billion isn't stacks of euros in a big vault - most of it's churches, cemeteries, artifacts, land, and other non-liquid assets, spread out all over the world.
So who cares if they are worth 8 billion. Compared to larger corporations that's a drop in the bucket. In a Business story on this same website it states that Warren Buffet is buying Heinz Ketchup for 23 billion.
Yes, but that's payment to John Kerry for services rendered. It doesn't count. Obaa-baa-ma.
I love how everyone knows the Catholic Church better change or risk "losing". What a hoot. The Catholic Church needs to stick to their morals and if you don't like it then don't become or stay Catholic. And maybe the Nuns enjoy being operators at the switchboard. And why are the Nuns the headline with this article only has one sentence about the nuns.
You will not know the truth until you die. Your are dead forever. You only live a very short time. Why take the chance. Just live a good clean life and stop being haters.
Yep. Stand their ground just like the Republicans. If you bend to every breeze, you are nothing. We are nothing without convictions and moral standards.
Look at the grossly opulent images in this MSNBC.com slideshow of the pope.
Fantastically expensive buildings and rooms and costumes and jewels and marches and events and processions.
Why do we glorify and prostate ourselves at the feet these people and these institutions (these men)?
The faithful are the ones to be glorified. Not the institution and the leaders who take the money of the faithful, amass great riches, set themselves above anything but their own man-created law, and protect child molesters.
What the heck is going on here and why the heck do we tolerate it?
Why?
Who's "we"? Are you a catholic? If not, why do you care?
The two insurance firms in the USA that insure Protestant Churches say they pay off pedophilia claims against their insured churches in numbers about the same as those the Catholic Church does. Why the media doesn't report the Protestant transgressions as well as those of the Boy Scouts, YMCA, public schools and such is a mystery. This reporter is just a piece of Eurotrash catering to the nut-case anti-Catholics. Look up what the Catholic Church does around the globe with its charities, its charitable orders such as the 6000 nuns in India following the example of Mother Teresa, and its other works. Shame on NBC for this article. Shame!
The babes of this corrupt institution have to do something, they cannot have sex with the priests or cardinals ( who only want to butt fuxx little boys or girls). The Pope should stand for Protector Of Perverts Everywhere).
With all of this money the priests could hire some hot looking hookers instead of molesting little children.
Regardless of the Catholic church's good works, there remains the underlying current of pedophile priests allowed to molest children for decades undeterred. The pope could have said and done something about it, and we now know he knew about it, but he did nothing. The Cardinals could have done something about it, and we know they knew, but they didn't. The most major thing the pope did was to have his own butler arrested and tried in a kangaroo court for trying to expose improprieties in the Vatican, then pardoning him afterwards. The pope could have declined to prosecute his butler, but it wouldn't have been very newsworthy. There is a lot of strange stuff going on in the Vatican that we don't know about.
You libs hate Catholics , Jews and the United States but you sure LOVE you some Muslims !
And "non-libs" espouse the principals of "personal responsibility" - but people like you continue to paint every other group with a broad brush. Why do you see everyone on the planet as a lib, catholic, jew, muslim, whatever - instead of judging them by their individual actions?
There are good and bad people in all of those groups. I don't like pedophile priests - it doesn't mean that I should hate all catholics. I don't like evangelical atheists that come on here and call everyone (but themselves) stupid - but I don't think all atheists are self-righteous tools.
Have you read the posts from the atheists in this chat , they know the answers to EVERYTHING ...
I have:
So they're worth $8 billion because nuns do answer phones! Who cares? This article is nothing short of being hateful.
Does anyone believe that the total value of the vatican is only $8 billion? Are there ANY pictures of Ratzinger where he is looking directly at the camera?
It's good to see that some women still work. Good like finding that here in the US.
Anyone who doesn't think religion is the biggest scam perpetrated on humanity is just fooling themselves.
If Christ were on Earth today, He'd be tearing into the self-righteous hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church. Since about the 4th century, the church began to stray from the truths found in the New Testament. That's the very reason Martin Luther, a former Augustinian Catholic priest, took issue with the church of his day. It had become so full of corruption and moral decay (even the pope was chasing women), that a disgusted Luther posted his protests on the church door at Wittenburg, Germany. Today, the church is so far from the truths in the New Testament, that it has become another meaningless, empty, man-made religion that would cause the Trinity to throw up. Think about it, Christ was born in a manger, never had a home during His public ministry, and didn't own anything other than the clothes on His back. He was a humble servant, who came to same mankind from their sins. Contrast that with all the silly, pompous, and over-priced vestments that bishops, cardinals and the pope parade around in. It's so tragic and disgusting! Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!
"Most of the money that comes into the church goes straight back out again." - Really? That place is a palace of materialism.
Speaking of the Dan Brown - Here comes the G O D particle created with faith and science just like the Devoli wanted it without conflict.
The 12 page document at this link is my attempt to bridge the gap between science and faith and combine them together to prove that humanity is a divine entity in the Universe because we can measure and extrapolate the Universe in a divine fashion.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?707l9mh73n5tusp
We have events.
It hides beneath the rose.
I don't know of any Catholic that thinks sick priests and nuns, or their sick bosses for that matter, should not be defrocked and jailed, but to suggest that the Church and its followers are what's wrong with this world is absurd. There are many, many more good Catholic priests, nuns, and lay people doing good in this world and not only for the Catholics. If you're looking for a scapegoat for the mess you've made of your life, take a long look at the ignorant, narrow-minded fool at your keyboard.
Defending pedophile priests cost money! Plus the new pope will need a new popemobile!
8 billion dollars can sure help a lot of sick and destitute people! I bet jesus would not horde 8 billion dollars!
Some of you got it. I am not a Catholic. While I believe some of Catholic teachings are too backward for me, there are also wonderful things Catholic church teaches that others can learn from. Whether you are religious or not, atheist or not, one can always learn from other cultures, religions and communities. Nothing wrong with that. I think some Catholic cathedrals are magnificent, some of their rituals are beautiful and their commitment to social service is sincere and comes with humility (when it is not aggressive, preachy or converting).
In the world of community work some of the nicest, kindest and most hard working social workers were Catholics.
If you keep focusing on the perverse, though that does need to be flushed out, then that is all you see. I see programs like Democracy Now constantly focusing on child abuse in the church. What about other religious institutions? Some of these commentators are constantly bringing their own personal issues into their reporting and projecting it on to others. Be objective...and be fair and compassionate also.
I am not that religious and I do agree with some of the atheists' and agnostics' critiques of religion (as a distraction, as false hope, unscientific, superstitious, patriarchal and too capitalistic). But there are good things too in many religions that we can still value and embrace.
I am not a Christian but I love this phrase from the bible (poignant and beautiful).
KNOCK AND THE DOOR WILL OPEN
SEEK AND YOU WILL FIND
ASK AND YOU WILL BE GIVEN
THE KEY TO THIS WORLD OF MINE
What a lovely thing to remember, no matter of what faith or faithless, when looking up at the sky and seeing that big big world beyond...and letting your petty worries go.
I wish the new selection/election, and the new Pope, well!
I also hope they will commit to social service and social justice in emerging economies more...not just Catholic countries.
Best wishes to all!
I guess the Vatican is really different than the Obama Administration. Obama is bankrupting his country while the Vatican has budget that keeps that country fiscally sound. Yup, the US has the most incompetent leader in the entire world.
Not much on the Catholic Faith. It's a neat place to visit while in Rome. Was their in 1970. Seen the things different countries gave the Vatican. In the corner a little tiny eagle was from the US. It pleased me that the US Govt. didn't spend that much on our tax payers money for the Vatican. My wife had to put a sweater over her legs on allowing to enter. It was in the days of the mini-skirts. Don't know their dress code today.
This is a racket with pretty robes. Self serving institution with reach in 180 countries to accumulate more wealth. More boy trouble ahead. Why do you need robed molesters to be your conduit to the spirit?
And Dell Computers is worth 14 billion and yet they offshore techs who get paid probably what nuns get paid. And nuns get better medical care.
Who says so?
India has universal health care.
Italy also has univeral health care, but I don't about the Vatican.
I'm guessing they won't pay for the morning after pill.