
Vatican Uses Donations for the Poor to Plug Its Budget Deficit - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vatican-uses-donations-for-the-poor-to-plug-its-budget-deficit-11576075764
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CptFribble
I was raised a Baptist, but from my experience all churches of any size work
this way, and this news will not be surprising to any church-goers.

Typically the pastor of even a small church lives mainly or at least mostly on
the tithes given each week. It's common for churches to own a house that the
pastor or priest lives in at no charge. All Christians I know either
Protestant or Catholic know this and accept it as how the church works, you're
tithing to God's work whether that's feeding the poor or repairing the church
roof or buying the pastor's groceries.

I don't know as many Catholics, but from what I gather many of them see the
Vatican and the bureaucracy as just part and parcel of the whole thing.

I've only met one pastor who had a full-time job in addition to pastoring, at
a small church I attended in a major city for a few years, and technically he
was a missionary sent to the city to plant that church. Now he has two jobs
plus pastoring though, so he might just be a workaholic.

~~~
utopian3
My churches (two previous were Baptist) publish their budgets. My current
church has only 16% going to admin costs (building, maintenance, and salary I
believe) while everything else went to mission work (we run . Everyone here
volunteers their time though, which helps bring costs down. I don’t recall
previous budgets, but I think they were closer to 50/50\. I guess my current
one is unusual, but 10% of 50 mil (according to this article) is surprising to
me. That’s the lowest bar I’ve seen

~~~
danShumway
It depends heavily on the church.

I'd agree that church volunteers really do bring costs down though -- and
congregational volunteering is just really healthy in general. It encourages
members to exercise more agency, to think about service in concrete ways, and
to spend more time fellowshipping with each other.

I had a pipe dream that I was going to get some of my local churches to
collaborate more on developing/sharing OS software and technical support with
each other, particularly around admin, member registries, etc... But I've had
difficulty getting it off the ground. Most church members I know aren't
technical, so there's just a very large education gap that has to be addressed
first.

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geerlingguy
As a Catholic who has, at times, been involved in both local and regional
Church organizations, this isn't a big surprise.

But a lot of the discussion and reaction assumes Peter's Pence (the annual
call for donations from which this money comes) is intermixed with the typical
'tithe' or other charity works for all local Catholic churches, when it's not.

In local Catholic churches (parishes) there is always a standard collection,
for the local parish only. The money goes to the local facilities, the school
(if they have one), the pastor's residence, and if there's leftovers it can be
used for special projects (e.g. new boiler, that sort of thing), and also for
local charity.

Then there are often 'second collections' for specific needs... there are
local charities, missionary charities, etc. (none of which are even loosely
affiliated with the Vatican, and most of which have no affiliation even with
the local/regional Church organizations).

And finally there are three or four 'hierarchical' collections or appeals, one
or two for the regional church, Peter's Pence, and maybe one or two special
collections for a one-off need.

So as a Catholic who does manage donations carefully, and also doesn't
particularly enjoy money being used for things other than what it's supposed
to be used for (the US Conference of Catholic Bishops say Peter's Pence is to
"respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural
disaster, and disease."), I don't currently donate to this particular cause.

The problem is, a lot of other Catholics (and this isn't an exclusively
Catholic phenomenon) have a bit of a blind trust that all the organizations
asking for their money are managing their donations well.

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danShumway
Coming from a religious (non-Catholic) background it seems obvious to me that
tithes pay the salaries of people working for the church.

I don't think that people who are surprised by this are ignorant or that they
should know better. Probably they just have a different background. But "non-
Catholics misunderstand how Catholic church works" isn't exactly breaking
news.

Unless there is a notable portion of the Catholic church that didn't already
understand this? That would surprise me, but it's possible I'm out of touch.

As a Protestant I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to arguments that the size,
age, and formal nature of the Catholic church might lead to otherwise
innocuous funding structures being more problematic in practice. But if you
want to make that kind of argument, I think that would need to be part of a
much longer, more nuanced conversation, and it likely isn't going to fit into
a single-page article.

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danielhanlon
How odd to make out that this is irregular... it’s called Peter’s Pence as in
collecting for the chair of St. Peter, i.e. the Pope. It’s the one collection
that’s specifically for that, as opposed to countless other Catholic
charities.

~~~
geerlingguy
The USCCB website identifies Peter's Pence as helping the Pope "respond to
those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster, and
disease." (See [http://www.usccb.org/catholic-giving/opportunities-for-
givin...](http://www.usccb.org/catholic-giving/opportunities-for-
giving/peters-pence/)).

~~~
danielhanlon
Thanks, that’s interesting. Would that, in your experience, also tally with
what the faithful think they’re contributing to? I live in the UK and
anecdotally would say that here it’s traditionally understood to be a
collection for the Pope to be used as he sees fit.

~~~
geerlingguy
In the USA, that is the general perception, as that's how it's also stated on
the little envelopes we get in the pew and the blurb pastors put in their
bulletins.

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joegyoung
Doesn't apart of their budget go towards providing for the poor? Did the
donators assume the money goes directly in hands of needy? Or was the act
inferred to them?

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zepearl
(couldn't read the article - firewalled)

Concerning Switzerland (other countries are probably similar, e.g. Germany)
(from
[https://awa.zh.ch/internet/volkswirtschaftsdirektion/awa/en/...](https://awa.zh.ch/internet/volkswirtschaftsdirektion/awa/en/standortfoerderung/lebensraum/_jcr_content/contentPar/downloadlist/downloaditems/2191_1503661875697.spooler.download.1503661503347.pdf/zuerichabisz_e.pdf)
):

 _When registering in the municipality of residence, you will be asked about
your religious denomination. In the Canton of Zurich, members of the
Evangelical-Reformed (Protestant), the Roman-Catholic and the Christian-
Catholic Church are required to pay church taxes. Church tax is levied along
with the income tax and tax on assets. It amounts to between 8 and 16 percent
of the cantonal base tax (“einfache Staatsteuer”) for members of the Catholic
Church, between 7 and 15 percent for members of the Evangelical-Reformed
(Protestant) Church and 14 percent for members of the Christian-Catholic
Church._

As I already pay that, and as it's not a small amount, I was hoping that at
least what I donate directly whenever I'm in the Church (the small box into
which people put their donations - don't know how it's called), was used
exclusively for the poor and not for something else?

~~~
jacquesm
The whole 'kirchensteur' thing has me pissed of to the nth degree. What other
private entity has managed to get the government to do their subscriptions
collection for them based on the amount the person earned? It's beyond
ridiculous.

Churches should _pay_ taxes, not use the government to levy their tithe as
though it is a tax.

In Germany and a bunch of other EU countries this phenomenon exists as well:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax)

The sooner this is abolished the better.

~~~
lopmotr
What's really wrong with that? The government already has the systems in place
to collect tax so it sounds more efficient than trying to do it privately. In
my country the tax system is also used to collect student loan repayments even
though it's not tax, but it probably saves on administrative costs that way.
Sure, student loans are also the government, not a private organization, but
maybe it could be opened up to businesses as a way to collect recurring or
income related payments! Imagine the accuracy of price discrimination you
could achieve with access to that.

~~~
jacquesm
Separation of church and state is a thing.

~~~
iudqnolq
In some countries

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chewz
Some other charities ain't that top heavy as Catholic Church but on the other
hand they do not last 2 thousand years.

~~~
catalogia
It's a shame none of us will ever find out if the RCC will last another two
thousand.

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logfromblammo
If you want to feel good about dropping cash into the collection plate, never
try to figure out the status of the Vatican's sovereign wealth fund, or assess
the value of cultural artifacts kept in its private collections.

It's all taking from Paul to pay Peter.

~~~
jacquesm
They are a real estate company.

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distant_hat
if they are running a deficit, maybe they can legitimately consider themselves
poor? :)

~~~
wavefunction
As is always pointed out here wealth and income are two different things.
Catholic dioceses are independent financial entities but even the nation-level
parts of the Catholic church are fabulously wealthy with real-estate and art
work and other assets of significant value.

The Catholic Church of Germany is worth an estimated $25,000,000,000. The
Catholic Church of Australia is estimated to be worth around $20,000,000,000.
Opus Dei which is a weird Catholic-supremacist group is worth $2,000,000,000
alone. The wealth of the Vatican is unknown and likely far far higher.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizations#Religious_organizations)

~~~
javagram
To be clear this measure of wealth is based mostly on real estate and artwork,
correct?

The Vatican itself runs a deficit every year and the budget is relatively
small -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vatican_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vatican_City)
\- as the article notes, it is plugged with donations from Catholics across
the world via Peter’s pence.

As a catholic I’d rather not have my church sell off all our priceless
artworks and churches to private collectors and landlords...

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jacquesm
That's been going on for hundreds of years, is this surprising to anybody?

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wavefunction
They should distribute all those fantastic works of art and scholarship
they've got locked up. Sell them to public institutions that will preserve
them and show them to the general public.

I guess that's a bridge too far. It's more important to steal from the poor...

~~~
javagram
What exactly are the “works of art and scholarship” you think they lock up?
The Vatican library and archives are open to scholars from across the world.
And you can visit the churches like the Sistine Chapel to see the artwork -
millions of tourists and pilgrims do so every year!

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sideshowb
Maybe they should bring back indulgences

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JoeAltmaier
If true, its a despicable system and deserves universal condemnation.

In fact, it deserves legal action. What other charity is 10% efficient, and
gets away with it?

~~~
ConcernedCoder
For the record, I do NOT disagree with your sentiment, but because you asked:
[https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=&bay...](https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=&bay=search.results&EIN=&cgid=&cuid=&location=2&state=&city=&overallrtg=0&size=&scopeid=)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Aren't many of those rated 0 because they don't report?

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freen
“You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you
start a religion.” - L. Ron Hubbard

