Except they have billions in stolen art and could liquidate it at any point. If not trillions, actually.
Nobody knows exactly what Vatican has but Porphyry Basin in the Vatican Museum is estimated to be worth 2$ billion alone (it was commissioned by Emperor Nero).
Vatican could literally end the world hunger with their treasure hoard.
Their art collection is so massive, containing such crazy rare items, many cannot have a price tag as they are literally priceless. It’s impossible to calculate its value due to the extreme rarity, or because anything like it to compare it’s value to is also in the Vatican collection.
When they sell 1 priceless art item, they can sustain themselves for a year. They have hundreds of thousands of those items, if not millions.
Saying the Vatican goes bankrupt sounds like “Elon Musk struggles to pay for his groceries”.
Sounds to me their massive stream of money is declining and they want to scare people into giving them more money.
Though if the idea that high value art is actually a money laundering/moving scheme is true, this might not be the case. The idea is that no one or few people actually want to spend millions on art but pretend they do as a front to spend millions on something else.
They could probably save some money by reducing the “cover up pedophile priests” item in their budget.
The collection of the Vatican doesn’t consist of weird modern art paintings but of historical important pieces. Private art collections of Roman emperors, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rodin, etc. Not some fake money laundering value because some Chinese tech CEO spent way too much money on it but true historic value backed by scientific research and historic manuscripts, which hold value on their own. Any museum would sell children’s organs to be able to get their hands on a single piece. I’ve been to the Vatican myself, I’ve seen one single wing of many, completely filled with the most impressive art pieces, stacked together like they don’t have enough room to store everything properly. The British museum is innocent compared to the amount of stolen priceless art pieces the Vatican has.
And they they are on the brink of bankruptcy, because “people aren’t giving them enough money anymore”… “Because of the current pope”. I guess for the first time we have a pope doing something right.
A corporation which thrives on one source of income alone: gifts. And now the infinite money stream is declining. What was it, Christians say when bad shit happens… Ah yes, I remember, “God works in mysterious ways”. Or translated for people who do not believe in imaginary friends and fairytales: shut up and deal with it.
Vatican could literally end the world hunger with their treasure hoard.
No they couldn’t. They’d end up making a bunch of warlords into billionaires while the regular people would go on starving. The only way to end world hunger is grassroots economic development and education (especially for women). You can’t do that by dumping billions of dollars into those countries. The problem is very tricky and the work is long and arduous.
It’s not getting to the people who need it because [CHOMP] it’s being intercepted by warlords!
he is right though. Don’t know why making fun of him was required to make an ass of yourself.
Right? yanks are something else lmao
as opposed to what?
Normal people. Germans/brits/dutchies and their colonies have a tendancy to be on the wrong side of history
Why would they want to end world hunger? What could motivate them to do so?
Hmm…
I’m going to need a really, /really/ small violin.
Sell your fucking chair, you clown.
Pope Francis got rid of that already, some 10 years ago.
I haven’t seen him on that chair since, but I’m sure it’s somewhere collecting dust.
Not sitting on it =/= getting rid of it
Sad. It would look so stylish in my living room
Thoughts and prayers!
Maybe they can save some money by protecting fewer pedos?
I’d suggest trying to have fewer pedos in the first place.
Aww geez, our 1500 year old grift isn’t working as well as it used to, sad!
Isn’t it more like around 2025 year old?
Just pray. If your God is the creator of the universe, it’s pretty likely he can handle the situation once you let him know.
Dont forget the thoughts.
Can all the nations they stole artifacts and trinkets from get them back when they declare bankruptcy? /s
Why is there a sarcasm? It’s a legit question.
It’s probably asked sarcastically because they know it would never happen.
Correct!
Gods plan
"Man who lives in a golden palace complains about money troubles. "
Sounds like any billionaire when tax collectors visit.
Good, because if they expect bills this means they are finally being held responsible for something
If only we could all live in our own personal “country”.
I am an agnostic so my opinion might not be worth anything to Christians (or Catholics specifically), but I don’t really see the point in organized church structures. If you believe in God, support his ideals, why do you need to go to church anyway, or at least why would you want your local church support some big hierarchy (often with controversial opinions or actions) for your money?
Same reason people go to comicons or music concerts or protests. People just want to be with others who believe in and like the same things as they do. It’s a pretty simple and basic human behavior.
It’s been a long while since I was involved in a church, but my recollection of the Bible isn’t able to reference anything that implies there is a need for the hierarchy associated with the Catholic Church, or similar. It kind of says you can have a personal relationship with God, and I don’t recall anything about Mary being special in any way aside from giving birth to the so called Messiah.
Because part of the rules of any cult is to isolate yourself with other cult members. Christianity is no different.
“Faith without works is dead.”
What little concessions they made to progressives was far too little too late while former popes sided with child abusers and rapists.
The joke is that Francis was still too far left for the big money Opus Dei Catholics in The United States and Europe.
They weren’t friendly enough to the rapists. That’s why the donations are drying up
Or maybe it’s because people can’t afford to donate money when they can barely afford rent and groceries
The Catholic Church isn’t getting the bulk of its money from lay voters. Their influence is rooted in the large, wealthy communities of the old money aristocracy and newer money financial sectors. Big donations have historically granted members an elevated role in the civilian side of the church. And churches are highly influential in promoting business relationships and political careers.
Of late, the American branch of the Catholic Church - historically a huge contributor to the Vatican directly and to foreign missions internationally - has cultivated a very far-right orientation within its political wing. You can see that in the conversion of current VP-elect JD Vance to Catholicism back in 2019. This, along with far-right catholic politicians like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Jim Risch having increasing influence over US foreign policy. And the elevation of a slew of Catholic SCOTUS judges - Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett - five of the last eight seated over twenty years.
These political leaders and the big financial interests that back them (US Bancorp, Bank of America, and Fidelity Investments most notably) are all historical Catholic Church mega-donors. The Catholic Church runs some of the biggest charities in the US (and the world). And diversion of funds from “Peter’s Pence” (donations directly to the Vatican) to regional church organizations administered by Americans with loyalty to their right-wing local parties, is what’s cutting into the available funds.
Report: Catholic charitable giving (and the church) are moving to the Southwest, July 2023
Last year, just under half of all Fidelity Charitable donors (48 percent) directed grants to religious houses of worship, the report found, down two points from three years earlier. A closer examination of the report reveals which nonprofits receive support, and Catholic organizations, which include dioceses as well as human services organizations with church ties, continue to rank among the top beneficiaries of support in many U.S. cities.
…
According to the National Philanthropic Trust, nearly $46 billion was dispersed from donor-advised funds in the United States in 2021. That is a massive increase from just nine years earlier, when about $8.5 billion was given to charities from these funds.
The Catholic organizations - particularly in the US - are not running out of cash. The Vatican is running out of cash.
Probably because they didn’t get to vote in the pope. eyeroll
Martin Luther has entered the chat
