THE VATICAN´S PURSE: FINANCES AND OUR LOOSE ENDS

Source: CNNMoney.

By Gundhramns Hammer
February 20, 2014
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The Vatican finances have always arouse the curiosity and speculation of many a historian and also captured the people´s imagination. It is believed that the Church owns a vast economical empire throughout the world.

If we look at St. Peter´s purse from the point of view of its historical possessions, there is no doubt that the Church´s wealth is immense.  

For example, St. Peter's Basilica and its art treasures are beyond price.

But cashwise, the Vatican is "nearly broke", according to Tully (2013). 

Tulley (2013) states that "last year the Holy See, the administrative center of the Church and the spiritual capital of its members, took in $57.3 million from sources as diverse as fees for ceremonies; income from publications, newspaper ads, and the sale of videocassettes; and surprisingly modest investment earnings of $18 million. With investments of some $500 million, the Vatican commands fewer financial resources than many U.S. universities".

According to the latest IOR Annual Report, the Vatican´s annual income for the year 2012 was US$100 millions which is not enough to cover its bureaucratic apparatus. 

So, the Church has to scrape from here and there including St. Peter´s Pence, the money coming from the mass of followers, to make ends meet.

This economic strapping plus the recent scandals of money laundering and sex abuse have the Vatican dancing waltz.

As a result, the new Pope, Francis I, has decided to sweep his Church. 

On the banking front, Francis I wants the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR, Istituto per le Opere di Religione) to be a transparent institution. And measures against money laundering have been taken to keep the mafia out of the house.

Read the following documents to get an idea of what´s going on regarding these issues:

• IOR Annual Report 2012. Click HERE.
• The Holy See (including the Vatican City State). Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism. Click HERE. 

Because of this, Francis I has been warned that the ´Ndrangheta, one of the most powerful criminal organisations in Italy, might attempt to send him to Heaven, according to some sources. 

As some Rome´s people in the markets say, the "Indiano Pope had better watch out his cup of coffee".


Our loose ends must be tied 

Since humans have a weakness for power and flesh, keeping the Vatican´s vast empire clean is not going to be an easy task. 

The Pope has a lot of ends to tend and some knots might become loose if they go unchecked and as a result the dirt could appear floating on the surface.

For example, not long ago (2009), Ernesto Rivera y Giannina Segnini, from the newspaper La Nación (Costa Rica), discovered that in the Catholic Church´s bank accounts there was an illegal intermediate offshore financing net dedicated to catching money from people outside their domains with the sole purpose to obtain gross earnings from loans and stock operations.

Some flocks need more attention than others as well. 

In Panama, for instance, where there are thousands of people "chewing up cables" (i.e.,going hungry), we have seen nuns not only driving around flashy and expensive cars but also depositing huge amounts of cash (St. Peter´s pence?) in the banks of some cities (e.g., Penonome, Province of Cocle). 

On the hanky panky section, the Catholic Church is suffering a pedophilia pandemic which must be stopped.

But given that Catholic priests do not wear chastity belts (Fig. 1), some shepherds might get too carried away and give in to the pleasures of forbidden flesh. 

Figure 1. Chastity belt for men. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

And this is exactly what happened to a priest who got a 16 year old girl pregnant in Penonome (Province of Cocle), Panama, a while back.

A couple of years ago, a priest was caught red handed having sex with a woman of his parish. This case occurred in Trujillo, Peru (Video 1). The local press made a lot of noise about it. 

                                Video 1. Priest involved in forbidden sex.


Another case of pedophilia which brought a lot of press attention took place in Chile recently. The pederast Spanish priest had a slew of videos of child pornography (Video 2). This man should have been tarfeathered and shipped to the Moon!

                              Video 2. Monsignor not acting as a signor.




All of this has hurt the Church image. These are loose ends that must be clean, tied and corrected.

Some experts indicate that this discrediting is done on purpose by a hidden hand in its crusade against the Christian Church. 

We must keep in mind that the problem is not with the Christian precepts and principles but with the people within this religious institution: The priests who are given the job of leading the flock on the right path to find the Creator fail to do so and fall in the hands of the satan instead.

Perhaps another loose end to be taken in consideration is the nasty business of bullfighting (Video 3).

                                     Video 3. The cruelty of bullfighting.


The Catholic Church should take a stand and pronounce against this animal massacre as Pope Pius V did according to the Papal Bull De Salute Gregi Dominici in 1567, and more so in an age when there is right now a wave of enlightenment sweeping and engulfing Earth. 

There should be no more room for torturing and killing innocent animals for the pleasure of sadomasochists at the ring or anywhere. 

Such cruel "sport" cleverly disguised as "cultural heritage" should be abolished once and for all.

Why should the Church get involved with bullfighting? 

Because there is some incongruousness in the Catholic Church´s leaders. 

We can see this clearly when  Monsignor Ubaldo Santana, Archbishop of Maracaibo (Venezuela), is valiantly against the bullfighting mafia whereas Fr. Joaquín E. Sánchez García, J.S., Chancellor of the Pontificial Xavierian University (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) of Colombia (UJC) and former chaplain of the Plaza de toros de La Santamaría (The Santamaria Bullring) in Bogota, is fond of this cruel fiesta and has been repeatedly seen assisting to bullfights. 

Father Sánchez García has confessed to Caracol Radio in Bogota, Colombia, that "the most beautiful times of his life were when he was chaplain of the bullring". 

As an excuse this Jesuit repeats, like a scratched RCA Victrola´s disc, the downtrodden path that "if there were no bullfights there would not be Lidia bulls at all". 

If you are one of those vampires whose life depends on bulls´ blood legally or illegally, for there are some experts who indicate that bullfighting is being used to commit money laundering via internet bets or through phantom firms set up in tax havens or you are an incipient or hidden psychopath, you will agree to the UJC Chancellor´s cliche. 

But it you have developed your compassion and empathy to the fullest, deep down in your amigdala gland or heart, there is no way you will buy that.

Besides, are priests and other members of the Catholic Church not supposed to be very loving, compassionate and empathic people? Or are these noble feelings only reserved to be given to humans?

Perhaps if Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) were with us here on Earth today, he would not hesitate to tell us that humans and nonhumans are to be loved alike. 

And he did, did he not? Well, at this is what the legends about this Christian saint tell us.

More likely Saint Francis was "not a vegetarian" neither a "Deep Ecologist", as Thompson (2012) has explained in his new book about the life of this saint. 

And we would not be surprised that at times St. Francis probably also had a few temper tantrums with his dumb friars.

Anyway, inasmuch as many people are now caught under the slavery of the meat lobby which is being now wisely questioned and with the thousands of people are dropping dead like flies with rotten colons infested with cancer due to too much meats in their diets, in a world of finite resources, many scientists are now telling us that the future of mankind - if humans want to survive - is in veganism. We concur.

For the time being, forget about colonies on Mars or on a Earthlike planet somewhere in Andromeda Galaxy to "save humanity". There are more important issues to solve on Earth right now.

Nevertheless, the United States, India and China are on an space ego-race, planning on sending men or women to Mars in the near future and provided that they would send only 12 people, more likely only one would returned home - Earth, if lucky. 

Once back on Earth, the lucky astronaut would not be able to stand on his or her feet because the weightlessness of the long journey in outer space would have turned his muscles to pulp. 

The rest of the crew would have been killed by the cosmic and solar radiation or from an internal fight in a crazy fit from being enclosed in a tin box for too long of a time in outer space.

Of course, scientists are working on solving these problems. But at the same time, they are picking up their loaded paycheque gathered from the taxpayers´ sweat and the corporations behind these projects are definitely making a kill. 

Perhaps the time is ripe for all of us Homo "sapiens" earhtlings including the Church folks to take our only exit out of this messy overconsumption highway we are on at top speed: Veganism. 

Along other changes we all must implement, of course: Becoming compassionate and respectful with all forms of life on Earth, controlling our stupid squandering, quit looting the oceans, stop killing marine mammals, quit warmongering, etc., etc.

And for Christ´s sake, let us be coherent. 

We too often fill up our mouths talking of love but at the same time we ship our kids to war, and worldwide people are dying of starvation and millions of animals are being tortured and killed at slaughterhouses every single day, round the clock, year round (Video 4). 

                                  Video 4. Cruelty at the slaughterhouse.

After all, is it not also a big incongruousness to be talking of love whilst you are eating your nonhuman brethren in fancy prepared dishes such as the famous Easter roast lamb or the roast turkey for Thanksgiving?

These ends and many other ends can be ended if the ends are tied together to end what needs to end when the ends are bought finally together as an end to put everything together. And since together we are, we might as well learn to bring any ends together with the end of caring and maintaining in healthy condition the Biosphere, for if we do not bring our ends together and work together towards this end we will soon find our end as a species on Earth. 

The labyrinthodonts are patiently waiting for us to join them in the fossil pit.

And now before we wrap it up, we will leave our readers with a St. Francis of Assisi´s phrase: 

“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.”

And right now, we need more deeds than cheap talk and hogwash summits when it comes to "saving" the Earth.

We humans must clean our own mess.

Are you working on this? We are doing our damn best.

May the Highest bless all of you human and nonhuman out there!

References

Camacho S. (2005). Biografía no autorizada del Vaticano: nazismo, finanzas secretas, diplomacia oculta y crímenes de la Santa Sede. Ediciones Martínez Roca, S.A., Madrid, España. 334 p.  

Celada E. (2006). Los secretos de la cocina del Vaticano. Editorial Planeta, S.A., Barcelona, España. 300 p.

International Court of Justice for Animal Rights (2008). Verdict in the case of bullfighting in Spain, France, and Portugal. United Animal Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. 5 p.

Lele A. (2014). Mission Mars: India´s Quest for the Red Planet. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany. 125 p. 

Okey T. (Trans. Rev.) (1899). The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi. Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., London, UK. 277 p. 

Sale P. (2011). Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist´s View of the Crisis We face. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA. 339 p. 

Seedhouse E. (2010). The New Space Race: China vs. the United States. Springer/Praxis Publishing Ltd., Chichester, UK. 250 p.

Thompson A. (2012). Francis of Assisi: A New Biography. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, USA. 140 p.

Tully S. (2013). The Vatican´s Finances. CNNMoney, Fortune. 8 p.