VATICAN CITY—Every year, Catholics around the world donate tens of millions of dollars to the pope. Bishops exhort the faithful to support the weak and suffering through the pope’s main charitable appeal, called Peter’s Pence.
What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than more than €50 million annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent directly on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds.
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Local church leaders echo the Vatican’s line when soliciting contributions. According to the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: “The purpose of the Peter’s Pence Collection is to provide the Holy Father with the financial means to respond to those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster and disease.”
But for at least the past five years, only about 10% of the money collected—more than €50 million was raised in 2018—has gone directly to the sort of charitable causes featured in advertising for the collection, according to people familiar with the matter. Donations can also support charitable causes indirectly if the Vatican invests them and makes a profit.
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The total assets of Peter’s Pence now total about €600 million, down from about €700 million early in the current pontificate, largely on account of unsuccessful investments, said the people familiar with the funds’ use.
Catholics around the world ought to say out loud repeatedly to the many clerics of the Church, including Bergoglio, the three words [2] made famous by the 2019 TIME Magazine Person Of The Year [3] Greta Thunberg: How dare you! How dare you!
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vatican-uses-donations-for-the-poor-to-plug-its-budget-deficit/ar-AAK1fzd?ocid=spartandhp
[2] https://youtu.be/TMrtLsQbaok?t=26
[3] https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/
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