Catholic Church on the brink of financial disaster

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi has just published the book "The Last Judgment" (Giudizio Universal). With a content far from religious, but with the introduction of a whole heap of documents that have not been seen before, testifying to the deterioration of the financial situation of the Holy See. Nuzzi argues that the Vatican is about to collapse due to a catastrophic lack of money.

Church denies everything

The financial troubles are so serious that the Vatican was faced with the need to part with the “family values”. In 2018, for example, it was decided to sell the papal parcel of land in Santa Maria de Galeria - 424 hectares of land on the outskirts of Rome, considered a real gem in the real estate world. The land, however, has not yet been sold, but there is no information for what reason: either the buyers have not been found, or the price is too high, or the Holy See has changed its mind.

The name of Gianluigi Nuzzi in Italy is associated with the concept of "church scandal" - the journalist constantly "digs" under the Vatican, priests and everything connected with them. The author of “The Last Judgment” had previously written several more scandalous books about the Church, which the Vatican initially condemned, but over time, with the facts stated in them, he agreed. For example, in 2016, Nuzzi presented a collection of letters testifying to the "excessive expenses of the higher clergy", which "leaked" to the journalist from the majordome of Benedict XVI.

Vatican financial circles deny the risk of impending bankruptcy, but are forced to admit the need for a "cost review." “To say that the Vatican is in danger of bankruptcy is not true,” Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga told the Italian press last Tuesday. This priest is part of a group of six cardinals who advise Pope Francis on economic reforms.

“There are no signs of either collapse or default here. You just need to check the costs. And that's it! And that's what we do. I can prove it with numbers,”stressed Bishop Nunzio Galantino, President of the Property Administration of the Apostolic See (APSA), in an interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire.

Nuzzi's book shows that APSA “for the first time in the history of the Church” closed 2018 with a loss of 43.9 million euros. Galantino, in turn, said that "everything developed as usual, and 2018 closed with a profit of more than 22 million euros." Then he added the phrase, which looked odd against the background of the cheerful positive balance sheet: “The negative accounting figures are solely due to the extraordinary intervention aimed at saving the work of the Catholic hospital.” Which one - did not specify. And why, if money was allocated to "save the functioning", this is not considered an expense.

The flock is no longer divided

The biggest surprise in the financial activities of the Holy See was the sharp decline in donations from individuals. From Italy in this category of income came 21.05% less than a year ago, from Germany - 32%, from Spain - 11%. The most powerful decrease in the collection of donations was recorded in Belgium - by 94%. In general, the decrease in the amount of donations from individuals was 63%.

Have Catholics stopped believing in God or decided that it is not necessary to support him financially?

When believers behave in this way, dioceses and various foundations have to shoulder the main financial burden on themselves. This is where the dog is buried: compensating for the losses in donations from citizens, dioceses get an excellent chance to divert a small trickle from the large financial flow to the Vatican into the personal accounts of those who command these dioceses and those who cover them "from the center."

Nuzzi says that after the economic reform of 2018 promoted by the Pope, parallel accounting appeared in the records of APSA - the main financial entity of the Vatican, “with the secret accounts of cardinals and alleged“necessary witnesses”from among politicians and businessmen close to the Holy See who“they will say what is needed. " According to the journalist, the Pope asked to close the suspicious accounts, but the inspectors would have made him understand that "the double bottom of the Vatican is almost impossible to liquidate."

Nuzzi claims that five cardinals (among whom he names the Spaniard Eduardo Martinez Somalo, 92 years old, holding several positions in the Vatican Curia) have millionaire accounts with the APSA. This explains the extremely harsh reaction of the highest echelon of the church authorities to the new book of the Italian journalist.

Rich bankrupts

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has about 1.25 billion followers worldwide. In one of the previously published books of Nuzzi "Vatican LLC" the financial characteristics of the RCC are given:

- About 520 million euros are placed in securities and shares.

- Reserves in gold - in the amount of 19 million euros and in cash - 340.6 million euros.

- In Italy alone, RCC owns at least 50 thousand real estate objects.

- The Congregation for the Evangelization of Nations alone, one of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia dedicated to evangelism and missionary work, owns properties and land worth 53 million euros. In 2007, the revenue to the Vatican treasury from rent, leasing and agricultural activities amounted to 56 million euros.

According to the budget report, the Catholic Church in France, England and Switzerland owns properties and land valued at 424 million euros. Today this amount, according to the author of the journalistic investigation, should be much more.

With such wealth - and a candidate for bankruptcy? As they say, nothing is impossible for the church.

Nuzzi writes of "mismanagement of business" and the need to "make a painful choice between a noble image and the primitive but lucrative speculation that keeps the institution financially afloat."

Combining the “ineptitude” of doing business with the desire and capabilities of certain circles to grab a piece of the common pie (disguising it as “ineptitude” in today's situation is not a problem), bankruptcy becomes a very real prospect. But the churchmen blame everything primarily for the departure of peoples from the faith, provoking a drop in the amount of funds donated by the population.