Pope

[Davey Crockett]

I always thought a pope was to lead stray sheep back to the flock . Now days I see him walking away from the flock with lost sheep.

 

[johnr]

they are also to be political free, its the reason they are tax free. That hasn't happened for decades.

 

[701FishSlayer]

I always thought a pope was to lead stray sheep back to the flock . Now days I see him walking away from the flock with lost sheep.

Maybe he's one of them people. The homo pope of 2023.

 

[Eatsleeptrap]

Pshhhht.....the Pope isn't any different than Jimmy Swaggart or James Bakker or David Koresh....

 

[Tommyboy]

they are also to be political free, its the reason they are tax free. That hasn't happened for decades.

The churches should be taxed just as much as the rest of us. Idiotic they aren't.

 

[Greenhorn]

I can’t say that his pontificate has been good, and he will need to answer to Almighty God for the confusion he has brought. I will continue to pray for him and his leadership and encourage fellow Christians to do the same.

That being said, there have been many bad popes in the Church’s history, many of whom had done far worse than Francis. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, as Christ said to the first pope.

 

[Fester]

I would say he will go down as one of the worst popes we have ever had.

 

[Pheasant 54]

Catholic Church is either the largest or 2nd largest land owner in the world , Billions in their couffers yet continually asking for more money and trust me they are not alone . My parents kept getting hit up for increases in their contributions ( Lutheran) until I found out how much they were giving , church now gets nothing . My best religion times ever were a small country church before money was the driving force behind them all

 

[Fester]

Catholic Church is either the largest or 2nd largest land owner in the world , Billions in their couffers yet continually asking for more money and trust me they are not alone . My parents kept getting hit up for increases in their contributions ( Lutheran) until I found out how much they were giving , church now gets nothing . My best religion times ever were a small country church before money was the driving force behind them all

My opinion...they pray on the elder. Some of what I have heard from grandparents is unbelievable. They think it's no big deal though.

 

[Jiffy]

Long boring story very short....

I was born, baptized and confirmed Catholic. I was married once before my current marriage and when my current wife and I wanted to get married in the Catholic church it was a complete s-show to try and pull off because of that.

Alas it basically came down to $$$. If I PAID X amount, God would be happy and the Catholic church would marry us. Of course this was just for the "clerical and administrative fees".

I walked out of that meeting and haven't stepped foot back in a Catholic church.

Not saying any other church is better or worse, and quite honestly I don't care to find out.

 

[eyexer]

The pope has become a non factor in the religious community

 

[BrokenBackJack]

Long boring story very short....

I was born, baptized and confirmed Catholic. I was married once before my current marriage and when my current wife and I wanted to get married in the Catholic church it was a complete s-show to try and pull off because of that.

Alas it basically came down to $$$. If I PAID X amount, God would be happy and the Catholic church would marry us. Of course this was just for the "clerical and administrative fees".

I walked out of that meeting and haven't stepped foot back in a Catholic church.

Not saying any other church is better or worse, and quite honestly I don't care to find out.

X 2.

 

[Prairie Doggin']

Long boring story very short....

I was born, baptized and confirmed Catholic. I was married once before my current marriage and when my current wife and I wanted to get married in the Catholic church it was a complete s-show to try and pull off because of that.

Alas it basically came down to $$$. If I PAID X amount, God would be happy and the Catholic church would marry us. Of course this was just for the "clerical and administrative fees".

I walked out of that meeting and haven't stepped foot back in a Catholic church.

Not saying any other church is better or worse, and quite honestly I don't care to find out.

You didn't buy an annulment??

I had some friends getting their kid baptized in the Catholic church, but didn't get married their because she was married before and didn't go through the annulment procedure. I pointed out the fact that in the church's eyes, the were living in sin and their child was a bastard, but they were unfazed.

 

[Kurtr]

Biggest organized crime syndicate in the world. Fleecing people of money since the dark ages

 

[Greenhorn]

Putting aside the thread derailment, I’ll say I don’t follow the logic of these posts. It’s bad for a church to ask for money? You’re angry your parents give a lot to their church and so you’re not going to give?
Have you ever seen your local church’s financial report? I can almost guarantee it is in the red, definitely not pocketing much. Approximately 7-10% of church members give regularly.

And give the church all the flack you want about your divorces, but it sounds like your anger is more toward Jesus than the church:
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Matthew 5:31-32


I’d be happy to meet up for a beer if you all want to have an actual discussion on these topics instead of pissing on the church on a fishing forum. Let me know.

 

[Jiffy]

Oh good lord...

I'm out.

 

[Maddog]

Vatican’s ‘trial of the century’ sees cardinal given five-and-a-half-year jail sentence​

By Christopher Lamb, CNN
8 minute read
Updated 4:56 AM EST, Mon December 18, 2023





[IMG alt="Mandatory Credit: Photo by Pool Vaticano/AGF/Shutterstock (13779581i)
Giovanni Angelo Becciu arrival in the Santa Sabina church in Rome for the Ash Wednesday mass, opening Lent, the forty-day period of abstinence and deprivation for Christians, before Holy Week and Easter, Rome 23 Feb 2023
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Arrival for Ash Wednesday mass, Rome, Italy - 22 Feb 2023"]https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images...-trial.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_833,w_1480,c_fill[/IMG]
Giovanni Angelo Becciu arrives at the Santa Sabina church in Rome for the Ash Wednesday Mass, on February 22, 2023
Pool Vaticano/AGF/Shutterstock
(CNN) — A multi-million-pound investment in a luxury property in London that went wrong, a once powerful Vatican cardinal secretly recording a conversation with the pope and a female security consultant accused of spending church funds on fashion brands.
No, this isn’t the plot of a new historical thriller but what has emerged from what’s been dubbed the Vatican’s “trial of the century,” which examined a litany of financial misconduct costing the Holy See millions of dollars.
The two-and-a-half-year trial in Vatican City’s criminal court has involved 10 defendants including, for the first time, a cardinal.
He is Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican, who held the position of “sostituto” (“substitute”) in the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, a papal chief of staff equivalent.
In this role, the 75-year-old Sardinian prelate had walk-in privileges to see the pope when he needed and was even tipped as a potential future pope.
He is now facing five and a half years in prison, after being convicted of several counts of embezzlement. Becciu is the first cardinal to be convicted and sentenced by a Vatican court.
The cardinal has repeatedly denied the charges against him and after the verdict his lawyer said he would appeal.
Before the trial began however, the pope removed his once close aide from his position as leader of the Vatican’s department for canonizing saints, along with his right to vote in a future conclave.
The trial has been a critical test for Pope Francis and his long running battle to bring transparency and accountability to the Vatican’s notoriously murky finances. Throughout his pontificate, the pope has sought to clean up the Vatican’s bank, establish a financial regulatory system and crack down on back-handers and conflicts of interest.
[IMG alt="Mandatory Credit: Photo by Maria Laura Antonelli/Shutterstock (13453373ba)
Pope Francis, Giovanni Angelo Becciu during the canonization mass of two new saints, Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and Artemide Zatti, celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican

9 Oct 2022
Pope Francis leads a mass for the canonization of blessed Giovanni Battista Scalabrini and Artemide Zatti, St. Peter's Square, the Vatican, Rome, Italy - 09 Oct 2022, Vatican City - 09 Oct 2022"]https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images...33-03-vatican-trial.jpg?q=w_1110,c_fill[/IMG]
Pope Francis, right, and Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, center, are seen during the canonization mass of two new saints in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, on October 9, 2022.
Maria Laura Antonelli/Shutterstock

The London investment​

At the heart of the trial was the Vatican’s purchase of a vast property in southwest London’s Chelsea neighborhood, originally built as a car showroom for the Harrods department store. The Holy See spent around $400 million on the deal over several years but ended up with losses of $150 million after eventually selling the asset. Vatican prosecutors argued that the church was swindled out of millions by paying too much for the property while a series of middlemen made huge sums and those in charge of the deal were negligent.
Initially, the Holy See invested $200 million in a fund run by Raffaele Mincione, a London-based Italian financier, who controlled a 45% stake in the Chelsea property. The initial investment was authorized when Cardinal Becciu was chief of staff. The other half of the building was owned by Mincione.


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The plan was to turn the building into apartments but the Vatican became dissatisfied with the investment which prosecutors argued left the church with heavy losses. The building, they say, had been overvalued by Mincione and the Secretariat of State was not informed of a £75 million ($96 million) mortgage on the property. Becciu’s successor, Edgar Peña Parra, decided to buy the building outright but had to pay a hefty fee to Mincione.
Then, another financier, Gianluigi Torzi, was bought in to help buy the property but he is accused of structuring the deal which left him in control of the building and the Vatican purchasing an “empty box”. Top Vatican officials said they were not properly informed about this and then had to pay Torzi millions to get out of the deal.
The Vatican announced the trial would commence in July 2021, with prosecutors depositing a 500-page indictment detailing the alleged crimes.
Both Torzi and Mincione were among the 10 defendants in the case. Most were convicted on some counts and acquitted on others. One, Monsignor Mauro Carlino, former secretary to Becciu, was acquitted on all counts.
Torzi stood trial for extortion, money laundering, fraud and embezzlement and was given a six-year sentence. Mincione was charged with embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and money laundering and given a five-and-a-half-year sentence.
Both denied the charges against them. Mincione has also launched a legal action against the Holy See in the London courts.
Mincione told CNN that the case against him “rests on nothing” and that the Vatican “has been unable to ever show it bought the property at an inflated price, or lost money.” He insisted the valuations of the property were supported by an independent report by financial services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and that the Vatican was “perfectly aware of the Deutsche Bank loan” on the building and of “alternative lower values.” Mincione also said the Vatican’s decision to acquire the property meant that planning permission on the building was “cut short.” He added that his action against the Holy See in London was designed to “clear my name” and that he was “100 per cent confident” he would win the case.
Although regulators ruled in 2021 that the Holy See had made progress with its financial reforms, they insisted it needed to bolster its efforts in prosecuting wrongdoing, including that of senior clerics.
Then came the news that the trial would go ahead.
For this to happen, Francis had to change the law to allow bishops and cardinals to stand trial in a Vatican tribunal. Previously they had been immune from prosecution.

The cardinal’s lady​

Becciu was in charge when the initial investment in the London property deal using church funds was approved. He was also charged with embezzling more than €125,000 ($136,000) of church funds in a Sardinian charity run by his brother, and authorizing €575,000 ($618,000) in payments from the Secretariat of State to Cecilia Marogna, a “security consultant” purportedly to help free a nun kidnapped in Africa. Vatican prosecutors argued this money was used for personal purposes by Marogna including over $54,000 spent on clothing, footwear and fashion accessories from high-end brands such as Prada, Gucci and Hermes.


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Marogna, who is in her 40s, has been dubbed the “cardinal’s lady” given her association with Becciu. During the trial court was shown images taken by Marogna inside the cardinal’s apartment and posted on social media with captions reading “feeling at home” and “my paradise.”
When Vatican police told Becciu that the money transferred to Marogna was not being used as intended, he asked them not to let anyone know “because it would bring serious harm to him and his family.” During an interrogation before the trial, one witness was asked by prosecutors whether Becciu and Marogna had an intimate relationship, which he denied. Both Becciu and Marogna have denied an improper relationship.
Marogna was handed a three-year-and-nine-month sentence after being convicted of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of euros authorised by Becciu.
Marogna has denied any wrongdoing, and told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that she spent the Vatican funds on fees for her and her collaborators, travel and other living expenses. She insisted that she had developed a “network of relationships in Africa and the Middle East” to help Vatican diplomats and missionaries.
Also during the trial the court heard a phone call Becciu had secretly recorded with the pope where he sought to confirm with the pontiff that Francis had authorized payments to free the kidnapped nun. According to a transcript, the pope said he “vaguely” remembered a discussion about payments but repeatedly asked Becciu explain what he wanted in writing.

Ongoing battle to reform​

The pope’s battle to reform Vatican finances has revealed the problem of placing clerics, with no professional financial training, in charge of large financial portfolios. As a result of the London property investigation, Francis ordered that the funds controlled by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State be managed by a different Vatican entity where an experienced accountant, Fabio Gasperini, oversees day-to-day operations. In 2019, it was estimated the Holy See’s Secretariat of State managed assets of roughly $1 billion.

 

[Kurtr]

Putting aside the thread derailment, I’ll say I don’t follow the logic of these posts. It’s bad for a church to ask for money? You’re angry your parents give a lot to their church and so you’re not going to give?
Have you ever seen your local church’s financial report? I can almost guarantee it is in the red, definitely not pocketing much. Approximately 7-10% of church members give regularly.

And give the church all the flack you want about your divorces, but it sounds like your anger is more toward Jesus than the church:
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’ But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Matthew 5:31-32


I’d be happy to meet up for a beer if you all want to have an actual discussion on these topics instead of pissing on the church on a fishing forum. Let me know.

And last year, the Vatican's former finance minister, Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, spoke with the Vatican News about the Holy See's financial statements for 2021, revealing that it had 3.9 billion euros in total assets. Adjusted for 2023 dollars, that's almost $5 billion

The Catholic Church's property across the globe spans nearly 277,000 square miles, which is just about the size of Texas, said Gerald Posner, author of “God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.

So they got 5 billion in the bank tax free own 277000 square miles tax free. Maybe its time they start helping the local church.

 

[Maddog]

"managed assets of roughly $1 billion"

 

[Maddog]

you should visit the Vatican

millions upon millions of dollars in art and gold on display

why?

Why not sell and help the poor . . .