Vatican in the black
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Vatican in the black

Every summer around this time, the Vatican releases its annual financial statement for the previous fiscal year, showing how much in the red or in the black it is. (The red and the black? Hmmm.)

This year, despite the massive costs of a papal funeral and the installation of a new pope (I hate “installation;” makes him sound like an air conditioner), they still come out in the black. From Catholic World News:

At a July 12 presentation of budget figures for the Vatican, Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani pointed to a positive balance of €9.7 million ($12.4 million) for the Holy See. It was the second consecutive year of surplus for the Vatican budget, and the strongest budget balance in the past 8 years.

The Vatican city-state also showed a substantial surplus, of €29.6 million. And for the first time the Vatican revealed the cost of the extraordinary events surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II (bio - news) and the election of Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news): the total costs of the papal transition ran to €7 million.

The positive balance for the Holy See’s budget was due mostly to healthy financial markets and the rise in value of the euro. The Vatican’s financial transactions produced a healthy surplus of €43.3 million—an enormous improvement over last year’s €6.1 million profit. Real-estate transactions produced a surplus of €22.2 million, close to last year’s €24.9 million figure.

Nice to see that the Vatican has some good financial advisors helping with investments and money management. It’s also interesting overall to see such financial accountability since some people claim that there isn’t any.

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