The One
11th March 2011, 12:40
Pope Benedict XVI as become the chief executive of a vast and valuable empire. The Catholic Church in America alone would rank right in the middle of the Fortune 500 list of companies, competing with the likes of drug giant Schering-Plough and home builder Pulte Homes.
The Catholic Church has numerous assets, including a vast amount of real estate. It owns more land globally than any other organization on the planet, but trophy properties like Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City produce little income, cost a considerable amount of money to maintain and will certainly not be flipped for a profit. And don’t expect the church’s opulent basilicas, its museum-quality art collection or jewelry to hit the market either. They may amount to priceless ancient treasures, but the church values most of its artwork and valuables at just 1 euro, so they will never be sold.
Those assets are not liquid and they can’t be put to use for the Catholic Church in the way they could be for, say, a corporation, said Gabriel Kahn, Rome Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.What’s more, most companies have the luxury of selling off unprofitable divisions, but not the Catholic Church. And unlike ordinary corporations, the church’s main revenue source comes from parishioner contributions notes Joseph Harris, who analyzes Catholic Church trends.Total donations made at a parish level in 2003 were $8 billion
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.,
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
So my question is this who is really in charge.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cuttingedge.org%2Fpages%2Fseminar2%2Fseal8.htm&ei=yRZ6TfPzBqiShAeNhZn3Bg&usg=AFQjCNHgMZvyaNXS4iGFDsBFTMd9-3ykgw
The Catholic Church has numerous assets, including a vast amount of real estate. It owns more land globally than any other organization on the planet, but trophy properties like Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City produce little income, cost a considerable amount of money to maintain and will certainly not be flipped for a profit. And don’t expect the church’s opulent basilicas, its museum-quality art collection or jewelry to hit the market either. They may amount to priceless ancient treasures, but the church values most of its artwork and valuables at just 1 euro, so they will never be sold.
Those assets are not liquid and they can’t be put to use for the Catholic Church in the way they could be for, say, a corporation, said Gabriel Kahn, Rome Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.What’s more, most companies have the luxury of selling off unprofitable divisions, but not the Catholic Church. And unlike ordinary corporations, the church’s main revenue source comes from parishioner contributions notes Joseph Harris, who analyzes Catholic Church trends.Total donations made at a parish level in 2003 were $8 billion
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.,
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
So my question is this who is really in charge.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cuttingedge.org%2Fpages%2Fseminar2%2Fseal8.htm&ei=yRZ6TfPzBqiShAeNhZn3Bg&usg=AFQjCNHgMZvyaNXS4iGFDsBFTMd9-3ykgw