http://panoply.home.att.net/wealth.htm
I don't know...what do you think?
VATICAN CITY, JULY 8, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See's latest financial statement shows that the "Vatican's riches" are a legend, says a Church official.
"If we had so much money, we wouldn't need to put our hand out to ask for help," Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani said with a smile today at a press conference.
The president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See was presenting the Vatican's deficit numbers for the fiscal year 2003.
"And the Vatican's riches?" a journalist asked him.
"A legend -- the reality is far more prosaic," the cardinal replied.
He explained that in the last year, in an adverse international economic situation, the Holy See applied an austerity plan to contain the deficit as much as possible.
The cardinal presented in the Vatican press office the Consolidated Financial Statement of the Holy See for the Fiscal Year 2003, which shows a deficit of some $11.8 million.
This marked the third consecutive year of figures in the red, though the 2003 deficit is less than that of the previous year, about $16.6 million.
In 2003, the Holy See recorded income of $251 million and expenses of $263 million, a financial statement comparable to that of several dioceses in some developed countries.
Between 1993 and 2000 the Holy See closed its financial statements in the black, after John Paul II convoked the presidents of the bishops' conferences worldwide in 1991 to promote the implementation of Canon 1271 of the Code of Canon Law.
"By reason of the bond of unity and charity and according to the resources of their dioceses," the canon explains, "bishops are to assist in procuring those means which the Apostolic See needs, according to the conditions of the times, so that it is able to offer service properly to the universal Church."
