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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.
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Will the new emphasis on selling indulgences end with the next Pope and having been revived the Benedict This is per-Reformation thinking that had been revoked during the Counter-Reformation efforts of the Church. Under Benedict the church has retrogressed, not progressed. The biggest contributor is the US yet there are far more Italian cardinals than and where else. And certainly not in areas where the Flock is growing rapidly.
Only 400 new priests were ordained last year.
They need a manager not a theologian or the organization will collapse of it's own weight.
Do you really think we Americans have any right to complain about how another country spends money? We are the richest nation on earth and still borrow over a trillion dollars a year. Do you know how many Somalian children that could feed? Do you know how much irrigation that could buy in Africa? Can you even comprehend how many schools or life saving drugs could be bought in the third world just using ONE of our ANNUAL deficits? Perhaps it is time to get some nuns to answer the phones in the White House.
Throw them all in prison for global conspiracy to commit and cover-up pedophilia for the past X number of decades. And liquidate it. That might go a long way towards "fighting poverty." What a con game these old men have managed to keep going for hundreds of years.
Funny how all the Rightwingers were silent as Bush spent money like a drunken sailor,but I forgot he talked to God. So God must have told him to spend like a drunken sailor.
Watch for some coverup to emerge once as a new pope emerges. Probably a huge pedophile ring in the vatican.
“Fiddling on the Roof”
Cardinal A:
“Well, somebody has to arrange the matches,
Young people can't decide these things themselves.”
Cardinal B:
“He might bring someone wonderful----“
Cardinal A:
“Someone interesting----“
Cardinal B:
“And young----“
Cardinal B:
“Or even younger---“
(Singing) Ratzburger, Ratzburger,
Make us a match,
Find us a find,
catch us a catch
Ratzburger, Ratzburger,
Look through your book,
And make us a perfect match
Cardinals:
Ratzburger, Ratzburger,
We'll bring the masks,
You bring the grooms,
Slender and pale.
Bring us the ones we’re longing to be,
The envy of all we see.
Aren't you sassy!
Oh - and shouldn't it be "Diddling on the Roof"?
All of that "Eye of a needle thing" is irrelevant when you look at the history of Religion and the fact that Money is the root of all religion.
The Bible lays it out for all to see in the Hebrew Old Testament that the Holy Roman Empire/Church adopted as their own. when you see the joel Olsetens of the world and remember that his is a second generation business, you will know how lucrative the business of fear and faith is.
I am old enough to remember all of the Protestant TV preachers from the 70s and 80s where every sort of scam was being perpetrated on weak minded and elderly people. I once knew a woman, elderly and widowed, who gave all of the worldly holdings to a church tv preacher as she reduced herself to poverty.
I asked her why she would do that and her response was that she "could not answer for the acts of the criminal preacher, but she lived by faith." Preachers depend on this type of blind faith. The Catholic history of how the decadent popes would threaten to send people's immortal soul to hell if they opposed him. When a religion allows a person to say he is God on Earth, who is the Heretic? At this point the representative of God in Heaven becomes the God of Hell, Satan on Earth.
Money is power, this everyone knows. The more Money, the more power until the ultimate power begets corruption in order to maintain the level of power. Everyone wants it, but only a few have it. As we look at the Middle East where the greatest wealth in the world is controlled by a few "Royal" families and the poor fight and kill to survive on the streets, we see a place where idea like communist are ripe for growth. But the Holy Roman Church has a long and rich history of dealing with its enemies. The all tend to just disappear.
This concept is true and has always been true throughout history. Marie Antoinette said"Let Them Eat Cake", and eventually she was placed on the menu. "This is life" as the French say.
Lazarus
Eight Billion? And there's so much hunger in the world. I'm sure Jesus would approve.
/s
Please only 8 billion who is lying - count the money and jewels in the Vatican Vaults they are probably worth more like 80 billion if not 800 billion.
I wonder if the Pope also has a window to ventilate his bathroom, and if you can tell if he's pooping by how long the bathroom light has been on.
They are worth a lot on paper but naturally it is mostly in the form of 'art treasures' featuring nude men by gay artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo, and as such it is not nearly as much liquidity of currency.
Therefore, they resort to cash-saving measures such as getting nuns to answer the phone (in a non-sexy raspy voice of course).
Jesus Christ established true, pure Christianity before he returned to heaven. Today, centuries later, there is the world empire of false religion, referred to in Revelation as "Babylon the Great", the "great city". At Revelation 18:16,17 it is stated: "...Too bad, too bad--the great city, clothed with fine linen...and richly adorned with gold ornament and precious stone and pearl, because in one hour such great riches have been devastated!" Soon the institutions of false religion throughout the world will be attacked by governmental forces and completely destroyed. After that has occurred, the war of Armageddon will begin, bringing the entire man-made world system to an end. Although Christianity has been adulterated, there are true followers of Jesus Christ on the earth today, obeying the commands he gave.
Thank you for telling us the "facts'.
Now tell us all about the other "facts" in the Bible, like the guy who lived inside a whale, and the other guy who built a big boat and got a male and female of EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL ON THE PLANET, on the boat, then delivered them back to their home continent when it was over.
Seriously. Get over yourself.
The last paragraph in the article has the gall to call the Church a "non-profit"? Give me a break.
If Jesus Christ came back today, I wonder if the Catholic church and even other Christian organizations are what he had envisioned. What is interesting is that the Catholic Church wants to open it's books now that they are experiencing losses. I don't think they will go very far back to show all the profits that were made and how they made these profits in the last 100 years. I know they have detailed information since they are known to be great record keepers. A last thought. With all the pomp and circumstance many churches portray they never come close to making an impact like Jesus did giving a sermon under a tree...
The Catholics need to modernize their fund raising. Check out the phony protestants on cable.
All you need is a hanky dipped in pepper spray to make you cry on cue. The hillbillies will drown you in money.
It's okay to call a nun, but you just can't get into the "habit" !!!!
Not too bad.
What's the big deal about the nuns answering the phones? They serve in a needed capacity. This is right and good, much like any other church volunteer.
But were they stripper nuns? Was the Italian president involved?
We have enough problems in the U S without trying to constantly play World Police and shoving our ideals down other people's throats. That is part of the reason why they, and so many others, hate the U S to begin with. No more American blood spilled for Internationalism. Secularism, and a very-easily corruptable, globalist democracy...
"..and the Nuns answer the phone..." Yeah, that's what they've always done: menial tasks, dirty jobs with subservient obedience... That's were women belong, according to the Catholic Church, and the Vatican. Equal rights? Pfffffff!!! The Bible says women have no soul, remember????
Unless you are Aretha Franklin - She has soul!
It's incredible how these superstitions have persisted into the modern age, isn't it?
With all of our scientific knowledge, billions still cling to these myths handed down from parent to child. Obviously, Muslims have just as much "faith" as Christians, but no more than the followers of David Koresh.
It's all nonsense based on astrology.
Wonder if they arrange for young male "escorts" for the Priests?
I reckon 8 billion is a very gross under-estimate.
No one has a sense of humor here.
This is a criminal organization. The church built on the sale of indulgences. Spreads lies in Africa that causes the suffering and death of millions. The systematic rape of children.
They need to be held accountable.
The church's money is in euros, maybe the european austerity will bring the church down just as it has successfully felled many countries in europe.
Do you really want the Catholics to fail? Seriously? Think about that for a moment... what if a Billion Catholics suddenly decided to simply retire? What would be left? What would take over? Would it be better?
ANY TIME there is money, power, or control at stake you can bet that people with evil intentions will attempt to get a piece. It happened before and will happen again. These days they are more focused on being lawyers, in the past it was other professions... like being a priest.
No mortal man can hold the title of "The Holy Father"... The Pope's postion is, the Ox of Gold ..