The Hypocrisy Files: Is the Roman Catholic Church a Church or a Business?
All we know is that if it wants to keep its tax-exempt status, it had better start acting more like a church and less like a business. (Getting its nose out of politics would be a good start, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.)
A short piece from Religion News Service (via USA Today) titled “Vatican blames market decline for $20M deficit” (July 10, 2012) reads more like a business report than a state-of-the-church report. To wit:
The Vatican posted a record loss of $19 million in 2011, its worst deficit in more than a decade.Vatican officials blamed the loss on the “negative trend of global financial markets, which made it impossible to achieve the goals laid down in the budget,” in an announcement last Thursday.
The Holy See’s budget benefited from a $61 million contribution from the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican Bank. But this was offset by growing expenses, especially for personnel and for the Vatican media network, which includes Vatican Radio and the semiofficial newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Vatican media operations registered a loss of $22 million. …
Hit the link and read the entire article (again, it’s short) — but this time, replace every instance of “Vatican” and “The Holy See” with the name of some big for-profit company, like Microsoft or Viacom (and all other religious references with other corresponding secular concerns, such as Bank of America for “Vatican Bank”) and see how it reads.
See what we mean?
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