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The wealth of the Christian church
The filthy stinking rich Vatican
Let me give you a few interesting quotes from the book The Vatican Billions (1983) by Avro Manhattan:
"Jesus, the founder of Christianity, was the poorest of the poor. Roman Catholicism, which claims to be His church, is the richest of the rich, the wealthiest institution on earth. (...)
How come, that such an institution, ruling in the name of this same itinerant preacher, whose want was such that he had not even a pillow upon which to rest his head, is now so top-heavy with riches that she can rival - indeed, that she can put to shame - the combined might of the most redoubtable financial trusts, of the most potent industrial super-giants, and of the most prosperous global corporation of the world?"
"The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone."
"In a statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at Six Hundred and Thirty-five Million ($635,891,004), which is 9.9 times its liabilities. This leaves a net worth of Five Hundred and Seventy-one million dollars ($571,704,953). It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church, once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston."
"Some idea of the real estate and other forms of wealth controlled by the Catholic church may be gathered by the remark of a member of the New York Catholic Conference, namely 'that his church probably ranks second only to the United States Government in total annual purchase.' Another statement, made by a nationally syndicated Catholic priest, perhaps is even more telling. 'The Catholic church,' he said, 'must be the biggest corporation in the United States. We have a branch office in every neighborhood. Our assets and real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members must be second only to the tax rolls of the United States Government.'"
"The Catholic church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Vatican, independently of each successive pope, has been increasingly orientated towards the U.S. The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican's financial deals in the U.S. alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time."
"The Vatican's treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican, which in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of the five wealthiest giant corporations of the country. When to that is added all the real estate, property, stocks and shares abroad, then the staggering accumulation of the wealth of the Catholic church becomes so formidable as to defy any rational assessment."
"The Catholic church is the biggest financial power, wealth accumulator and property owner in existence. She is a greater possessor of material riches than any other single institution, corporation, bank, giant trust, government or state of the whole globe. The pope, as the visible ruler of this immense amassment of wealth, is consequently the richest individual of the twentieth century. No one can realistically assess how much he is worth in terms of billions of dollars."
This does make you wonder, doesn't it?!
I want to bring to your attention the fact that this information was published over 20 years ago, and the figures are probably even more startling today.
You can also read more on the historic background of the Vatican and its wealth accumulation The Vatican Billions (Chapter 1-11) by Avro Manhattan.
I also recommend The Church and the Wealth in Amercia (1931) by Theodore Dreiser.
Call me a cynic, but to me the Church sure looks like a corporate criminal.
Talking about wealthy people. Found this list of current Billionaires: Rich-Bastards.Com
Of course I would include millionaires in the 'Club of the Stinking Rich' as well.
Luckily wealth doesn't have to be messured in dollars.
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Protest (and related) Updates
The Bertelsmann Corporation, mostly know internationally for its music label BMG, has its own lobby group, the CHE (Centre for Higher Education Development), to promote 'neoliberal' reforms within the education sector. It calls itself independent and gets most of its financial support from Bertelsmann. What a joke! So anyway, this lobby group actually phrased that new law, which is suppose to make every uni student pay at least 700Euros per semester. Look out for more on this in my next entry! Für weitere Infos kannst du dir diesen Flyer von einer AK in Gießen herunterladen! An alle in Hamburg und Umgebung: Am Freitag (14.07.06) findet eine Verantstalltung zu Bertelsmann und die Hochschulreform in Hamburg statt! Für weitere Infos click hier.
The economy gets further subsidies (link in German). 5 Billion Euros for this year. But industries are not happy. They want more. The government argues that only by lowering taxes for big corporates more investments can be expected in Germany. (Hmm... do any other governments in this world happen to argue like this?!) $ucker$!
05/07/06 The Hessian Ministry for Science and Arts (in Wiesbaden) was stormed and occupied by 75 students for at least 2hrs. A press conference was hold inside, during which the students presented their alternative plans on how universities can be finianced through reforms within the current taxation system. Everything went peacefully and the students even cleaned up the place afterwards.
06/07/06 The AStA (a students representative org., elected by the students themself each year) of the Technological Uni Darmstadt has sued the conservative party (CDU) for wanting to introduce a new law which requires each student to pay at least 500Euros each semester to attend uni. This law would break the Hessian constitution according to article 59, which states that access to unis should be free of charge.
06/07/06 More than 300 students stormed the castle in Tübingen (state of Baden Württemberg) and still keep it occupied now (09/07/06). You guys have my full support! A wonderful initiative!
(on the occupied castle in Tübingen)
06/07/06 More than 5000 protesters gathered in Frankfurt (a.M.) for a demo coming from all over Germany. 5000 are not many indeed. But towards the end of the semester many students have exams coming up. In Greece they were 150 000 students protesting. We certainly still have a lot to learn. Anyway, during the whole demo more than 320 students were arrested (they had to wait inside a police van in the braising sun for hours - take off all their clothes at the police station - (most) were forced to wait inside cages until next morning - some were driven to other cities, since they didn't have enough cells available in Frankfurt). The Autobahn (Highway) was blocked by students for approx. an hour. Für einen Augenzeugenbericht click hier.
Many more protests are planned for the upcoming week across Hessen: 11/07/06 Demo in Gießen; 12/07/06 Demo in Wiesbaden; 13/07/06 Demo in Marburg; 14/07/06 Demo in Frankenberg
Zeit die Stadt zu plakatieren für die nächste Demo.
~peace&solidarity~
