> “We were called alarmists, radicals, and so nothing got approved and everything went in a drawer.”
Reminds me of the parable of the dishonest steward in which the master commended him for acting prudently at the last minute; just because we are not of the world (and we know that it is passing away and have not made money an idol) does not excuse us from the need to be prudent in managing the resources given to us as stewards; rather it should spur us on in the light of the parable of the talents.
I'm confused about Germany being "previously a consistently high source of income", if their Peter's Pence contribution is ~3% (compared to America's 28%).
I know when I heard about the Peter's Pence collection during the announcements at Mass yesterday it was my low point of holiness for that particular Mass. And we've got 5 kids to wrangle at Mass, so my holiness level is already just about as low as possible. (Father Pastor did not mention the collection in his homily, either.)
I'd like to at least congratulate them for not using a Macro Rupnik art piece on the report's cover page. (Sorry, I'll go to Confession now.)
Having resided in Germany for almost 10 years, I believe the Peter's Pence contribution is separate from their Kirchensteuer (Church tax). A collection is taken up at every Sunday Mass (just like the US), but the attendees, if they put anything in the basket, typically put in 1 Euro or a few pennies. The funds received from the tax fund separate charitable organizations controlled by the German Bishops' Conference (and the ZDK).
Very similar to our local Bishop’s Appeal. People in the pews are willing to support their own Parish, but not the Diocese, especially when the Diocese is about to file for bankruptcy protection from the abuse claims it is facing
I support my diocese because I have an outstanding bishop. I haven't given to Peter's Pence since November 2018. If Rome wants to prevent the US Church from effectively dealing with sexual abuse by clerics and religious it is free to do so. But I prefer not to fund abuse enablers.
I have to say that I share your sentiments. I live in a diocese with a history of great bishops and I am confident in how the money is spent. If I knew less about Rome these days and what comes forth from Rome I might be better off. I am not so excited about sending any financial support to Rome. And I acknowledge that this may be very wrongheaded, however, I am being honest.
Plus our previous bishop was sent here from Boston because he complained about what Boston was doing with abusers, so we've had very few cases in this diocese. One strike and you were no longer incardinated here.
"In October last year, secretariat prefect Maximino Caballero Ledo noted that “If we were to cover this deficit [in curial operating expenses] only by cutting expenses, we would close 43 of the 53 entities that belong to the Roman Curia, and this is not possible.”"
I don't know how things work in the Vatican, but in most places, when an entire department or two gets closed down, the others are a bit more likely to take the need for cost-cutting seriously, and then you don't actually need to close so many.
It sounds like they've been mismanaging money for quite a while to get into this mess. When you abuse things, you eventually lose them. You can lose them voluntarily and less painfully, or involuntarily and more painfully.
Maybe I’ve just never paid much attention to the announcements about Peter’s Pence. But I always thought that Peter Pence was exclusively for charitable works and things of that nature as directed by the Vatican/Holy Father - not to help cover the Vatican operating budget for the year.
It's been presented like that (strong emphasis on charitable works, sounds basically like a CRS fundraiser) at every American parish I've been at - I assume intentionally; most non profits find it very, very hard to get donors willing to cover administrative costs. People want to pay for food and books for a school student, not electricity and printer ink for HR staff at the head office - likely the Vatican has the same difficulty.
I understand the reality of administrative costs, but the way Peter's Pence is being sold to parishioners amounts to a gigantic lie. It's fundamentally dishonest, when 90% of the money drains into the black hole of the Curia!
You're not wrong - that's how it's sold each year. And it does in fact sound like it's turned into more of a fund to help keep the Vatican afloat rather than being used to help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. I guess you could make an argument that funding the Vatican in general does indirectly contribute towards those ends, but that doesn't have the same ring to it as the current feel good campaign that they currently use to advertise the collection.
I can't help but tie this in with the articles about the USCCB cutbacks and get the sense that the facade of the Church's institutions are crumbling and will continue to do so until they arrive at a smaller size
Not only could they eliminate the unnecessary Communications Dept to save 38mm, but they could also sell Rupnik's art to generate income. Given the Vatican's strong defense of his art and desire to continue using it, this art must be in high demand and thus worth a lot of money.
Ed, have your sources offered concrete ideas on what to implement/consolidate/trim? You may have reported on that in detail before and I am forgetting.
I find it interesting that the USA is the biggest donor to Peter's Pence, yet we get called out by the Pope as the most difficult. I think that honor belongs to Germany.
I don't want praise, I appreciate criticism of the ills of America. But, a little gratitude for the fact the US contributes so much to keeping Rome operating would be nice.
One might also note that capitalism and free market economics is the reason that the West and the United States in particular are most wealthy and generous.
That said, if the old woman donating two coins is declared the blessed one …
How is the Synod on Synodality funded and how much does that October event cost? If the Vatican is in a budget crisis, why is it hosting large gatherings of the world's bishops and others. The venue for this must be expensive as well.
I don't give money to people who enable abusers. The fact that Rome's Department of Communications is among that number leads me to suggest that the cutting start there and that every single person in that and every other office who has had anything to do with using Rupnik's art be fired immediately. Likewise if anyone in any office is involved in supporting or covering up or facilitating sex abuse be fired for cause. Or if anyone in any office is stonewalling investigations of such activity they should be fired for cause. The Vatican may find once they have done those things that donations go up significantly.
The Vatican Radio is the main source of church news and reflections for most grannies and grandpas. Shutting it down now would be very harmful I am afraid.
Most of the elderly I know get their news on the television. I don't know anybody who relies on the radio for news or anything else. It's for long distance travel.
Hey, here's an idea. Maybe the Vatican reverts to the primacy of evangelization and the works of mercy, instead of bloated bureaucracy. Jesus never had an office...
If a cardinal wants to lay out a “platform” for pope, for himself or another, “we’ll do everything we can to crack down on sexual and financial abuse, and stop doing as much as we can about everything else” would be a good one. Maybe that sounds quixotic, but “no more draconian missives from the Congregation for Divine Worship” and “limited intervention in episcopal affairs on matters of doctrine or geopolitics” and “the Pope doesn’t have a communications team beyond upkeeping the Vatican website” is a package that could entice otherwise strange bedfellows.
I’m going to get my foreign policy nerd on for a second here: the entire diplomatic corp of the Holy See has the SMALLEST operating budget of any nation state that maintains diplomatic relations with over 190 states in some form or another (plus the UN). Think about the US state department. $41 million dollars is probably what they spend on letterhead paper per year to work with the same volume of nation states. You really see how much potential waste there is in secular nation-states when you compare the operating budget, the reach and diplomatic successes of the Holy See with any other foreign affairs department.
Cardinal Pell was absolutely onto something and he’s turned around two large Archdioceses in Australia financially (Melbourne and Sydney). He was more on the front foot with the sexual abuse crisis in the mid 1990s and able to fund compensation (imperfectly, but there was nothing else like Pell’s Melbourne response in either religious or secular organisations) for victims without financially collapsing the diocese.
// The figures suggest that, rather than building up and relying on stable assets to generate regular returns, or limiting its grant allocations in line with donations, Peter’s Pence is selling its stable patrimony to plug the Vatican’s budgetary black hole. //
This seems to suggest that the Vatican is giving out more in gifts ("grant allocations") than it is taking in. If that's true, it looks more foolish than generous.
I wish I were far better at understanding, organizing, and summarizing this article than I am. Generally with text that reports on scads of numbers in a slew of categories, it helps me if the text begins with a brief overview of the subject and ends with a brief summary of the principal points. More graphs might help. I assume what's being discussed here is simply all the money the organizational Church in Rome receives and all that it spends, but I'm not sure I've got that right. Sincere thanks to commenters who do see the big picture and can explain it to us.
> “We were called alarmists, radicals, and so nothing got approved and everything went in a drawer.”
Reminds me of the parable of the dishonest steward in which the master commended him for acting prudently at the last minute; just because we are not of the world (and we know that it is passing away and have not made money an idol) does not excuse us from the need to be prudent in managing the resources given to us as stewards; rather it should spur us on in the light of the parable of the talents.
I'm confused about Germany being "previously a consistently high source of income", if their Peter's Pence contribution is ~3% (compared to America's 28%).
I know when I heard about the Peter's Pence collection during the announcements at Mass yesterday it was my low point of holiness for that particular Mass. And we've got 5 kids to wrangle at Mass, so my holiness level is already just about as low as possible. (Father Pastor did not mention the collection in his homily, either.)
I'd like to at least congratulate them for not using a Macro Rupnik art piece on the report's cover page. (Sorry, I'll go to Confession now.)
Having resided in Germany for almost 10 years, I believe the Peter's Pence contribution is separate from their Kirchensteuer (Church tax). A collection is taken up at every Sunday Mass (just like the US), but the attendees, if they put anything in the basket, typically put in 1 Euro or a few pennies. The funds received from the tax fund separate charitable organizations controlled by the German Bishops' Conference (and the ZDK).
Very similar to our local Bishop’s Appeal. People in the pews are willing to support their own Parish, but not the Diocese, especially when the Diocese is about to file for bankruptcy protection from the abuse claims it is facing
I support my diocese because I have an outstanding bishop. I haven't given to Peter's Pence since November 2018. If Rome wants to prevent the US Church from effectively dealing with sexual abuse by clerics and religious it is free to do so. But I prefer not to fund abuse enablers.
I have to say that I share your sentiments. I live in a diocese with a history of great bishops and I am confident in how the money is spent. If I knew less about Rome these days and what comes forth from Rome I might be better off. I am not so excited about sending any financial support to Rome. And I acknowledge that this may be very wrongheaded, however, I am being honest.
Plus our previous bishop was sent here from Boston because he complained about what Boston was doing with abusers, so we've had very few cases in this diocese. One strike and you were no longer incardinated here.
"In October last year, secretariat prefect Maximino Caballero Ledo noted that “If we were to cover this deficit [in curial operating expenses] only by cutting expenses, we would close 43 of the 53 entities that belong to the Roman Curia, and this is not possible.”"
I don't know how things work in the Vatican, but in most places, when an entire department or two gets closed down, the others are a bit more likely to take the need for cost-cutting seriously, and then you don't actually need to close so many.
It sounds like they've been mismanaging money for quite a while to get into this mess. When you abuse things, you eventually lose them. You can lose them voluntarily and less painfully, or involuntarily and more painfully.
Maybe I’ve just never paid much attention to the announcements about Peter’s Pence. But I always thought that Peter Pence was exclusively for charitable works and things of that nature as directed by the Vatican/Holy Father - not to help cover the Vatican operating budget for the year.
It's been presented like that (strong emphasis on charitable works, sounds basically like a CRS fundraiser) at every American parish I've been at - I assume intentionally; most non profits find it very, very hard to get donors willing to cover administrative costs. People want to pay for food and books for a school student, not electricity and printer ink for HR staff at the head office - likely the Vatican has the same difficulty.
I understand the reality of administrative costs, but the way Peter's Pence is being sold to parishioners amounts to a gigantic lie. It's fundamentally dishonest, when 90% of the money drains into the black hole of the Curia!
A thousand hearts to your post, Garth! It's a scam of the first order.
Is this where I feel a wry sense of justification for not giving to Peter's Pence?
You're not wrong - that's how it's sold each year. And it does in fact sound like it's turned into more of a fund to help keep the Vatican afloat rather than being used to help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. I guess you could make an argument that funding the Vatican in general does indirectly contribute towards those ends, but that doesn't have the same ring to it as the current feel good campaign that they currently use to advertise the collection.
I can't help but tie this in with the articles about the USCCB cutbacks and get the sense that the facade of the Church's institutions are crumbling and will continue to do so until they arrive at a smaller size
Absolutely. Putting together all the tidbits of news around Church finances these last few years, there is very little silver lining.
Based solely on this article, I know of a department that could be cut, saving the Holy See 38,000,000 euro.
My thoughts exactly while reading the article.
Not only could they eliminate the unnecessary Communications Dept to save 38mm, but they could also sell Rupnik's art to generate income. Given the Vatican's strong defense of his art and desire to continue using it, this art must be in high demand and thus worth a lot of money.
There's a very easy, obvious way to increase donations to Peter's Pence: shut down more Latin masses. That'll do the trick!
(sarcasm)
Ed, have your sources offered concrete ideas on what to implement/consolidate/trim? You may have reported on that in detail before and I am forgetting.
And despite the old anti-Catholic canard about the wealth of the Vatican, it has a budget not much different than a good sized university.
I find it interesting that the USA is the biggest donor to Peter's Pence, yet we get called out by the Pope as the most difficult. I think that honor belongs to Germany.
I don't want praise, I appreciate criticism of the ills of America. But, a little gratitude for the fact the US contributes so much to keeping Rome operating would be nice.
One might also note that capitalism and free market economics is the reason that the West and the United States in particular are most wealthy and generous.
That said, if the old woman donating two coins is declared the blessed one …
How is the Synod on Synodality funded and how much does that October event cost? If the Vatican is in a budget crisis, why is it hosting large gatherings of the world's bishops and others. The venue for this must be expensive as well.
I don't give money to people who enable abusers. The fact that Rome's Department of Communications is among that number leads me to suggest that the cutting start there and that every single person in that and every other office who has had anything to do with using Rupnik's art be fired immediately. Likewise if anyone in any office is involved in supporting or covering up or facilitating sex abuse be fired for cause. Or if anyone in any office is stonewalling investigations of such activity they should be fired for cause. The Vatican may find once they have done those things that donations go up significantly.
The Vatican Radio is the main source of church news and reflections for most grannies and grandpas. Shutting it down now would be very harmful I am afraid.
Most of the elderly I know get their news on the television. I don't know anybody who relies on the radio for news or anything else. It's for long distance travel.
Hey, here's an idea. Maybe the Vatican reverts to the primacy of evangelization and the works of mercy, instead of bloated bureaucracy. Jesus never had an office...
Perhaps it's even time to dispense with Vatican City. Or drastically curtail its bureaucracy. Heresy?
If a cardinal wants to lay out a “platform” for pope, for himself or another, “we’ll do everything we can to crack down on sexual and financial abuse, and stop doing as much as we can about everything else” would be a good one. Maybe that sounds quixotic, but “no more draconian missives from the Congregation for Divine Worship” and “limited intervention in episcopal affairs on matters of doctrine or geopolitics” and “the Pope doesn’t have a communications team beyond upkeeping the Vatican website” is a package that could entice otherwise strange bedfellows.
Yes, the relatively high expenses on the communication department did ring a sour note.
I’m going to get my foreign policy nerd on for a second here: the entire diplomatic corp of the Holy See has the SMALLEST operating budget of any nation state that maintains diplomatic relations with over 190 states in some form or another (plus the UN). Think about the US state department. $41 million dollars is probably what they spend on letterhead paper per year to work with the same volume of nation states. You really see how much potential waste there is in secular nation-states when you compare the operating budget, the reach and diplomatic successes of the Holy See with any other foreign affairs department.
Cardinal Pell was absolutely onto something and he’s turned around two large Archdioceses in Australia financially (Melbourne and Sydney). He was more on the front foot with the sexual abuse crisis in the mid 1990s and able to fund compensation (imperfectly, but there was nothing else like Pell’s Melbourne response in either religious or secular organisations) for victims without financially collapsing the diocese.
// The figures suggest that, rather than building up and relying on stable assets to generate regular returns, or limiting its grant allocations in line with donations, Peter’s Pence is selling its stable patrimony to plug the Vatican’s budgetary black hole. //
This seems to suggest that the Vatican is giving out more in gifts ("grant allocations") than it is taking in. If that's true, it looks more foolish than generous.
I wish I were far better at understanding, organizing, and summarizing this article than I am. Generally with text that reports on scads of numbers in a slew of categories, it helps me if the text begins with a brief overview of the subject and ends with a brief summary of the principal points. More graphs might help. I assume what's being discussed here is simply all the money the organizational Church in Rome receives and all that it spends, but I'm not sure I've got that right. Sincere thanks to commenters who do see the big picture and can explain it to us.