Here is the article of the Republic a few days ago .. if you missed it take a look!
of Curzio Maltese "When I came to CEI in 1986, there were barely enough money to pay the salaries of four employees." Camillo Ruini does not exaggerate. In the mid-eighties, the Vatican's finances are an empty box and black. One year after the arrival of the CEI Ruini, only the Vatican passport save the president of the IOR, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, for crack arrest of Roberto Calvi of Banco Ambrosiano. The economic crisis is the reason why John Paul II in Rome called the young Bishop of Reggio Emilia, then known only to the news for having celebrated the marriage of Flavia Franzoni and Romano Prodi, but endowed with managerial talent. Few choices will prove to be more appropriate. In the "twenty years Ruini, the president and secretary from 86 to '91, the IEC has developed into an economic power, and media and politics. In parallel, the chairman of the bishops has assumed a central role in public debate within the Vatican and Italian, as never before with its predecessors, to become the great elector of Benedict XVI. The reasons for the rise of
Ruini related to intelligence, the iron will and extraordinary as an organizer of the character. But another key to read the parable is called "eight per thousand." A river of money begins to flow into the coffers of Cei the spring of 1990, when it comes to taking direct sull'Irpef regime, and now flows into the sea of \u200b\u200ba billion euro a year. Ruini is its undisputed dominus. Removed the automatic costs as the salaries of priests, is the chairman of the bishops' conference, through a few trusted associates, who had the last word on every single expense, the repair of a canonical construction of a mission in Africa for investment property and financial .
from eight per thousand, the most famous item, the investigation part of the Republic cost of the Catholic church for the Italians. The calculation is not simple, as well as unfashionable. Much less fashionable of angry diatribes on the cost of the policy. The "price of caste" is now calculated in four billion euro a year. "Half a financial" to "to feed the political class." "The equivalent of a bridge over the Straits of a Moses or a year."
the figure of the scandal, slammed on the cover of The World and other newspapers in the wake of the chastity of Rizzo and Stella and the cost of democracy and of Salvi Villone, we get by adding up the salaries of 150 thousand elected by the people, parliamentarians Europe's top adviser to the mountain communities, plus the fees of almost three hundred thousand consultants, the costs for the operation of ministries, the pensions of politicians, the electoral reimbursements, funding for the party newspaper, the blue car and other privileges, including refreshment stands and barber of Deputies.
for a level playing field should be adopted "the cost of the Church" the same open-mindedness. But one would arrive at the approximate Pharaonic figures, such trumpeted in pamphlets and in some sites anticlerical.
With more prudence and realism can be established that the Catholic Church in any case costs taxpayers as much as the Italian political class. Over four billion euro per year, including direct financing State and local governments and non-tax revenue. The first item consists of the eight billion euro per thousand, 650 million for the salaries of 22 000 time teachers of religion ("An old wreck concordat that would be eliminated" in the opinion of the Catholic writer Vittorio Messori) , another 700 million paid by State and local authorities for the conventions on education and healthcare. Then there is the voice of variable funding to important events, like Jubilee (3500 billion lire) at the last meeting of Loreto (2.5 million euro), for an annual average over the past decade, 250 million. These two billion 600 million of direct contributions to the Church should be added to a combination of tax advantages granted to Vatican, now at the center of an investigation by the EU "state aid". The list is huge, national and local levels. Always with caution can be estimated in a range between 400 to 700 million for failure to collect the ICI (estimated non-market "of the Association of Municipalities), 500 million in exemptions from IRAP, IRES and other charges, in other 600 million tax avoidance legalized the Catholic world of tourism, which runs every year for Italy and a flow of forty million visitors and pilgrims. The total exceeds four billion per year, thus a financial tool, a bridge over the Strait or Mose year, more than a few tens of millions.
The Catholic Church, not elected by the people and not subject to democratic constraints, coast Italians as the political system. Only the Italians, at least in this size. Not the French, Spaniards, Germans, Americans, like us who also pay the "cost of democracy", perhaps with better results.
It can be argued that the Italians are happier to give money to politicians to priests who do not, in fact much less complain about it. In part perhaps because they do not know. The mechanism of eight per thousand sull'Irpef, studied in the mid-eighties by an accountant at the time "left" as Giulio Tremonti, Craxi government consultant, assigned to the Catholic Church also donations not expressed on a percentage basis. 60 percent of taxpayers leave blank the "eight per thousand" but thanks to 35 percent indicating "Catholic Church" among the permitted choices (the others were, Waldensians, Adventists, Assemblies of God, Jews and Lutherans) , the CEI grabs nearly 90 percent of the total. A judicial monstrosity called the 84 already on the Sole 24 Ore historian Piero Bellini.
But even considering the mechanism of "facilitating" eight per thousand, is a widespread belief that money to the Church are well designed, with a broad "social return". Half a financial agreement, but helpful to repay the valuable work done by the priests in the area, the daily effort of the parishes plug the gap in welfare increasingly evident, not to mention the efforts in the Third World. All real arguments. But "how much" real?
Coping in the pocket to the Vatican is desperate enterprise. But to understand where does the money while the Italians will be allowed to quote the same suspicion as the source CEI and its annual budget for the eighth thousand. Five euro of taxpayers' money, the conference of bishops said of spending for operations of a charity in Italy and abroad (respectively 12 and 8 percent of the total). € The other four are self-financing. Taken 35 percent of the total to pay salaries to about 39 000 Italian priests, is half a billion euro each year that the CEI Summit distributes within the Church in its sole opinion, without any serious control, under general headings such as "needs of worship," "costs of catechesis, financial assets and real estate . Not to mention another paradox: if the "vote" eight per thousand was applied to half of the quorum, the Church would never see a euro.
Catholic culture, to an extent far greater than in cultures timid liberal and leftist, has been ongoing for years, a courageous, painful and censored debate on the "how" the Vatican hierarchy use the money eight per thousand "and to truncate quell dissent in the Church. "One of the best examples is the pamphlet" church lady "by Roberto Beretta, writer and journalist of the future, the bishops' newspaper. Under the heading" The other side of eight per thousand ", Beretta observes:" Who manages the money of eight per thousand won an enormous power, which also has important implications ecclesial and theological. "He continues:" As a bishop for example - knowing that she will have to use the CEI for the money to arrange a workshop or repair Cathedral - never raise his hand in a general meeting to challenge the positions of president? "." And in fact - the author claims - only that in Italy you can talk frankly are some of the bishops emeritus, that those now retired, who have nothing to lose ...".
A scroll through records of cultural conferences and the pages of "Church lady", completely rejected the Catholic and received from publishing religious bookstores, we understand that the criticism of the "direct" and use "ideological" eight per thousand of the universe is not at all believers. Of course, there are "retired bishops", by Carlo Maria Martini, now self-imposed exile in Jerusalem , Giuseppe Casale, former archbishop of Foggia, which describes the new course: "The bishops no longer speak, waiting for input from the top ... When they consult all the appointments of bishops, lay people, priests, Monsignor, and then do what they want, that is, anyone except the name that was specified. "The above-mentioned Vittorio Messori has complained on several occasions" the blimp "," centralism "and" the dominance achieved by the bureaucracy in the Church ". Alfredo Carlo Moro, a lawyer and brother of Aldo, in a recent government intervention has launched a painful accusation:" We see now a serious shortage of debate in the Church, an impressive and resounding silence of the meetings of the CEI is known only what the president said in the beginning, the theologians speak only when they are perfectly in line, otherwise remain silent. "
The church of twenty years ago, Camillo Ruini, one in which he began his ascent, he has no money to pay employees of the CEI, with finances shaken by scandal and drained by the support of Solidarity. Catholic culture feels ridiculed by the hegemony of the left, ignored by secular newspapers, expelled from the world of commercial TV hedonistic, even reduced to minority in Rai reformed. Yet it is a church still alive, even lively. To accommodate both pluralist in its bosom a thousand voices, the liberation theologians to the ultra-traditionalist followers of Archbishop Lefebrve. Able to recognize the mass movement, as Communion and Liberation, and "discover" the mafia, with the homilies of Cardinal Pappalardo, the work of Don Puglisi to Brancaccio, commitment Don Italy Calabria against the 'Ndrangheta.
After twenty years of care Ruini "the Church seemingly bursting with health. It is far more rich and powerful and played at the Palace, ruling the media agenda and affects the overall policy framework, by An in PRC, not just on one. In television appearances is second only to the clergy political class. They boast huge crowds at rallies Catholics, the multiplication of saints and shrines, the record audience of religious-themed fiction. The dissenting voices have disappeared. Yet churches and vestries are emptied, the crisis of vocations in two decades has reduced from 60 to 39 thousand priests, the religious sacraments like marriage and baptism are decreasing.
The clergy is the victim
dell'illusoria media equation "Visibility equals consent," as his twin separated, the political class. In real life, indeed the danger of terrible prophecy launched thirty years ago by a progressive theologian: "The Church is becoming for many the main obstacle to faith. They can no longer see it as nothing more than the human ambition of power, the little theater of men who, with their claim to administer the official Christianity, seem mostly to hinder the true spirit of Christianity. " That theologian named Joseph Ratzinger.
(Contributors Pontesilli Carlo and Maurizio Turkish)
