Vatican had more than a billion euros off books before financial clean-up

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

World | Thu Jul 16, 2015 8:52am EDT

Vatican had more than a billion euros off books before financial clean-up

VATICAN CITY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

Vatican departments had more than a billion euros that were not declared on an overall balance sheet before new accounting standards kicked in last year, a financial statement showed on Thursday.

The man appointed to clean up Vatican finances said last December that departments had "tucked away" million of euros and followed "long-established patterns" in jealously managing their affairs without reporting to any central accounting office.

Thursday's statement showed that such funds totaled about 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), the first time the Vatican has quantified the unreported funds discovered after Cardinal George Pell took up the newly created post of economy minister.

Pope Francis picked Pell, an outsider from the English-speaking world, to oversee the Vatican's often muddled finances after decades of control by Italians.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/16/us-vatican-finances-idUSKCN0PQ1CH20150716

[cbayer]

1. Looks like Pell is doing exactly what he was hired to do.

Good to see this.

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. Yeah, he's a terrific guy.

Like that time he tried to intimidate sex abuse victims seeking restitution.

But hey. He turned over all the love seats in the Vatican Archives and a billion Euros fell out. So let's praise him for the good things he's done, amirite?

[trotsky]

2. A Cardinal Cleans Up the Vatican Bank, Not His Record With Pedophiles

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/26/the-vatican-bank-s-cleanup-and-cover-up.html

They're gonna need the cash to reimburse their victims... oh wait, that's right, they just move the money out of a diocese, declare that one bankrupt, and move on.

Others can cheer this bullshit if they want. I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.

[skepticscott]

3. And lets not fool ourselves

That the Vatican and the elites there don't have substantial other assets that aren't on any balance sheet. The RCC has a long way to go to convince people that it will ever come completely clean about anything.

[trotsky]

6. Oh good grief, you know this has got to be just a drop in the bucket.

But the fan club will lap it up as further "proof" that Pope Frank is the most awesomest pope, nay, HUMAN BEING, evah!

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Corrupt financially, abusive to children and yet they posture as moral authorities.

Vile beyond all compare, they present this evidence of corruption as if it was evidence of excellence. Hypocrites in ritual service to themselves.

[trotsky]

5. This is how great PR works.

There is no evidence to suggest that these massive stores of money were being used inappropriately, but it's a great feel-good story that can add fodder to the meme that Pope Frank is a reformer, a great guy, he drives an old Renault, he hugs deformed people, he's JUST WUNNNERFUL!

Yeah he hates TEH GAYZ and hasn't changed (and doesn't show any intention of changing) his church's horrible teachings about love, sexuality, or marriage, but he's such a wonderful breath of fresh air you guys! Quit picking on him!

[Igel]

8. It's a good thing.

Perhaps not a "moral" good, per Catholic or non-Catholic views of morality, but a good thing.

Better that an organization be an organization than a bunch of different power centers. Imagine how we'd feel if somebody we didn't like were hired by Obama to clean up US gov finances and found an extra $200 billion squirreled away in agency bank accounts just to let the various department heads do ... well, whatever they wanted to.

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Nobody else has executive power; he's it, unless he delegates it. That means he has to have knowledge not just of who's employed, but what they're doing and what they're doing it with. (Or those he's delegated the authority to.)

[trotsky]

9. Oh it's totally wonderful and we need to jump and cheer!!!

And just forget that he and his church are destroying people and trying to control the lives of others.

Koresh, this is what it's come to? We are supposed to be ecstatic that the RCC is finally starting to clean up its books like private groups and governments have had to do for decades, if not centuries?

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[Act_of_Reparation]

11. Forget "moral", it's not even objectively good.

Look, if President Obama started turning over furniture in the Lincoln Bedroom and found a billion dollars, that shit would go straight to the treasury. It would become the property of the citizens of the United States of America. It would be used in ways (presumably) that measurably benefit Americans. I would say that is good.

So what if the Pope finds a billion dollars? Where is the measurable benefit? Why should I think it's good?

Or better yet: how much of that money is going to pay victims of sexual abuse... and how much of it is going to go to defending its priests against allegations thereof?

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. And let us not forget what enormous prick Cardinal Pell is.

He should be rotting in a jail cell, not collecting change off the Vatican sidewalks.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. The Greatest Bullshit Story Ever Told.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. endless corruption going back for century after century.

[skepticscott]

13. Another thing that the Catholic Church

Last edited Sat Aug 1, 2015, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)

has shown unrivaled mastery of. That and producing apologists.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Well there is Wonder Pope.