What do you think the net worth of the Catholic church might be?

[Specop 007]

If I tried to convince you that if you give me land, precious metals/jewels/art, money and that the more you give the greater your chance of getting to a fairytale afterlife you'd tell me I'm nuts and that I'm a swindler. Yet, that is exactly what the catholic church tells people.

Really? Where is this church that they are standing up saying you can buy your way into Heaven? Thats interesting.

 

[Aikouka]

They are just as disinterested in having their lack of beliefs questioned and will just make up things to support their arguments.

Someone was going to correct you on it; I thought I'd do it nicely.

Also, if I recall, tithing is in the Bible, and it says you should tithe 10% regardless of how affordable it is because "God will provide."

 

[Kadarin]

Checking Wikipedia, it turns out Martin Luther had a problem with the excessive wealth of the Catholic Church, even back in the early 1500s. He even started the Reformation over it:

In 1516–17, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and papal commissioner for indulgences, was sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to sell indulgences to raise money to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Roman Catholic theology stated that faith alone, whether fiduciary or dogmatic, cannot justify man; and that only such faith as is active in charity and good works (fides caritate formata) can justify man. The benefits of good works could be obtained by donating money to the church.

On 31 October 1517, Luther wrote to his bishop, Albert of Mainz, protesting the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences," which came to be known as The Ninety-Five Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church, but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire." Hillerbrand writes that there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several of the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?"

 

[Patranus]

Has to be in the trillions.

 

[lupi]

Unlimited given the land/buildings/artifacts under their control.

 

[nageov3t]

excluding Church real-estate and priceless art holdings, I wouldn't expect there to be a ton of excess cash floating through the church.

my understanding was that, financially at least, the dioceses are pretty well self-contained, and that it's not like they're funneling money back to Rome.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

considering they likely possess many priceless religious relics, id say you cant really value the organization accurately.

 

[abaez]

Have to agree. You can place a value on some things they have like real estate, but for others? How do you put a price/value on the Sistine Chapel or the Pieta? There is just no way you could ever value that.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=54617 Good reading there.

 

[know of fence]

Have to agree. You can place a value on some things they have like real estate, but for others? How do you put a price/value on the Sistine Chapel or the Pieta? There is just no way you could ever value that.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=54617 Good reading there.

Arguably the resale value of art doesn't really matter in the long run, as it is most likely to end up in public ownership. From then on it's a case of how many visitors it can attract and how much fame it can generate, thus increasing real estate value.

Clearly today those "priceless" riches are used to convince people, that something that big, old and shiny can't belong to just a bunch of habitually lying and often predatory hypocrites.

Historical riches are "practical arguments" a means to impress, that help sell and sustain the RCC brand of superstition. They could be translated by careful assessment into membership sign-ups and renewals.

 

[xaeniac]

I dunno.. they might make it seem "optional", but I don't think it's as optional as it might seem. A lot of my relatives are catholic, and one of them tried to get married within the catholic church one time and they pretty much wouldn't let him because he hadn't been a perfect "tither".

This is not the norm. and I have never heard of such a thing.

 

[xaeniac]

If I tried to convince you that if you give me land, precious metals/jewels/art, money and that the more you give the greater your chance of getting to a fairytale afterlife you'd tell me I'm nuts and that I'm a swindler. Yet, that is exactly what the catholic church tells people.

Lies! Show me where this is what the Church claims.

 

[Locut0s]

The land value of all their properties alone makes them prohibitively wealthy. Add in investments, donations and tax exempt status and yeah... they are fucking wealthy. No idea what kind of actual number to put on the figure though.