Cash-strapped Italy Eyes Vatican

[stevenjbuk]

It's amazing because about 2 weeks before the story hit the news a brother and I were talking about just such a thing. How the Italian government may look towards the Vatican and their wealth during this time of economic crisis.

[Snow]

Look what is happening in Belgium

http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/26916-clergy-sex-victims-file-international-criminal-court-complaint-case-charges-vatican-officials-with-crimes-against-humanity.html

Vera

[rayzoray]

Fantastic information Helen "Thank You" for your diligence.

Ray (Liverpool)

[retroHelen]

The Italian online Petition to get the Vatican to pay taxes has now reached 146 000. The Greek 2 petitions stand at 100 000 for one and 29 000 for the other regarding their Orthodox Church paying tax. There have been previous attempts by lobbied government bodies in Spain, Italy and Isreal to take the Vatican to the European court to claim taxes on at least their non-religious buildings on their land e.g. Sports arenas and Hotels claiming it is unfair competion to other struggling similar businesses in this economic climate when they have to pay property taxes etc and see these profit-making organisations paying very little just because they are on church land.

We can also add Isreal to the list of countries where tax exemption has been questioned - but here it's even harsher and the Isreali government, rather than the common people are demanding the tax of all churches, whereas they had tried to get just the Vatican to pay up previously.

http://www.mirrorspectator.com/2011/04/21/holy-land-churches-protest-new-israeli-taxes/

The British government has a site for people to start petitions for a year and these 'Tax and disestablish the church' ones have just started so I will keep an eye on them:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/9406

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/search?q=tax++the+church

This should be interesting as The Church Of England in the English Parliament has 26 seats for Bishops in the Upper House, the House Of Lord's, which has a second vote after the House of Commons on most new legislation in the country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual This has always been controversial no less among the large Muslim and Jewish communities here, so the previous government tried to balance the representation by granting peerages or making Lords of other faith's religious leaders , so they could sit in the House of Lord's too. Most of the public would actually prefer a fully elected second house rather than this 'privilege' system anyway, but this tends to be only taken up during a Labour party term in government rather than a Conservative (or with coalition) term in government.

[Dages]

No more water... Babylon is going down

[retroHelen]

Switzerland disestablished their churches 50 years ago, but people and businesses can voluntarily pay a church tax with their income taxes. Due to the world financial crisis this voluntary arrangement has lately caused great loss of revenue for Swiss churches.One large company has just withdrawn it's enormous contribution to the churches of the canton/region Neuchatel. The churches there are lamenting the loss of over a million Swiss Francs a year .

What great contributor was this? ... an International tobacco company Philip Morris International (Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Benson & Hedges) and an Email to this week’s Tribune de Genève newspaper letters page comments:“I am shocked by the ethics of these churches. How can churches that promote life accept money from an industry that sells deadly products? Before accepting such money that discredits them they should reflect a bit more on their morals,” he wrote.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Neuchatel_church_tax_goes_up_in_smoke.html?cid=28940930

[retroHelen]

It's amazing because about 2 weeks before the story hit the news a brother and I were talking about just such a thing. How the Italian government may look towards the Vatican and their wealth during this time of economic crisis.

Yahoo on how much the Catholic church costs Italian taxpayers and how much they lose from exemption of taxes in Italy:http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110829053320AAVbS3h

Independent News and comment below:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hardpressed-italians-call-for-church-to-lose-83643bn-tax-benefit-2342648.html

http://secular-europe-campaign.org/2011/09/italy-march-in-rome-on-the-17th-september/

This march happened simultaneously in Rome and London, but the Media reporting got them bit confused with protests against financial cuts in general.

[Dages]

Can you hear the Harlot screaming ? the beast is about to attack its prey

[GrumpysWife]

Can you hear the Harlot screaming ? the beast is about to attack its prey

Too bad we couldn't make a movie about that.

Maybe too much violence.

[Dages]

Yes, the description in the Revelation is clear...

[retroHelen]

Now the governments of many countries need to save money in the light of International recession looming and more banks failing, some are questioning whether they need to have a paid ambassador sent to represent them at Holy See of the Vatican:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/aug/05/vatican-ambassadors-holy-see

With Greece threatening to default again on it's country's loan/debt repayments, newspapers are revealing the extent of the wealth of the Greek Church causing more disgruntled hard-pressed Greek people to demand they share more of the tax burden of the economic crises in the country:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/04/greece-orthodox-church-economic-crisis

Part of Babylon the Great's Waters are receding fast.

[trottigy]

Imagine how quick this economy would turn around if they started taxing the churches - ZOOM!

It seems like an upswing is in sight. Will we stay focused on the Real work or the Secular work when that happens?

[Bro.David Drake DeLaurento]

Tis sooooo true!!! For centuries the Christendom has been hording the lands, the jewels and money. Its about time its owners have it back. My my how Jehovah is manipulating the governments to the monkey of its back. The monkey being Babylon....

[retroHelen]

The saving of money by cash-strapped governments disillusioned with the RC church's behavior, as I said in my last post on this thread - It has started!! The Irish are saving money by shutting their embassy for the Holy See in Ireland, which has stunned the Vatican. Dublin government's comment about it "It yields no economic return":

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/11/04/vatican-is-stunned-by-irish-decision-to-shut-its-embassy-to-holy-see/

Korean mega-churches have abused their tax exemption and are being called into question for embezzlement of millions of dollars/Korean won currency.

http://www.economist.com/node/21532340

[retroHelen]

Catholic Church chiefs in Italy have said they may start to pay tax on property they own - in a bid to help the country balance its books.

The figure could top £700 million per year, and the announcement comes as new Prime Minister Mario Monti revealed a £30 billion austerity budget.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072783/Mario-Monti-asks-Italys-Catholic-church-sacrifice-700m-year-property-tax.html#ixzz1gLoT3WyQ

The facebook petition now stands at 167,000 http://www.facebook.com/VATICANOPAGATU?sk=wall

[retroHelen]

Tis sooooo true!!! For centuries the Christendom has been hording the lands' date=' the jewels and money. Its about time its owners have it back. My my how Jehovah is manipulating the governments to the monkey of its back. The monkey being Babylon....[/quote'] Posters are now being put up in cities in Italy revealing how much investigative journalists, backed by secularist groups have discovered that could be what is contributed to the Vatican via collections and incomes from it's various businesses. The poster reads: Italy could accomplish miracles with 6 billion Euro per year:

The church is openly agreeing to the calls for tax , but this is misleading the critics because it can continue to be exempt for taxes on hotels and other commercial buildings as they have created/constructed shrines in them, so that they can then claim the loophole that the buildings have 'a religious purpose' built into them.

[retroHelen]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/15/occupy-vatican-protesters-evicted-police

Anti-Capitalist Protesters thought they could do the same outside the Vatican in it's vast square/piazza like protesters are still doing outside St Paul's in London. No chance at the Vatican though as Police cracked down on it and had them forcibly removed. They wanted the Vatican to get on paying it's fair share of taxes they feel it owes to ease Italy's financial burdens.

[retroHelen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17072211 Monti sets out new tax rules for Vatican.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/world/europe/italy-sets-tax-on-church-property.html

The only concern is this quotation from this article: http://www.euronews.net/2012/02/17/italy-government-ends-vatican-tax-exemptions/ which may affect our organisation as well:

"However, other politicians were concerned with making sure the Vatican has not been singled out unfairly. One of them was PDL party leader Angelino Alfano.“If the Government has found general rules which are valid for all non profit organisations and don’t just punish the Church, we will evaluate them in a positive way,” Alfano said."

However, at present the tax seems to be only applied to non-religious property on land owned by the religion - which our organisation may not have over there. The Vatican are to negotiate with the government over how they will account for tax for the non-religious buildings that the church has put shrines or chapels in to try to keep them exempt, as the government is aware of this ploy, as the finance minister says in his TV interview below.

Here is a TV news video of these reports:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/227113.html

over 190,000 have ticked the like/agree box on the petition at the Italian Vaticanopagotu facebook site now.

We will have to see if the Greek Government follows suit in their financial straits and starts the same with the Greek Orthodox church whose 1000s of Clergy wages are paid by the State like Civil Servants.

As seen earlier in this thread we watch the fulfillment of the words from this old publication of ours regarding the destruction of Babylon the Great:

"Man's Salvation out of World Distress at Hand". chapter 14 paragraphs 8-14:

...Revelation 17:16. This signifies that what marriages of Religion and State, Church and State, have existed till then, will be dissolved.... What national or State churches still exist will be disestablished. Tax exemption for religious organizations will be discontinued.... The tremendous material wealth of the religious institutions, ..., will be expropriated by the political governments in their dire financial straits.

[retroHelen]

Now that Italy's President has insisted that the Vatican pay taxes on certain of it's properties in these straitened times and make it's accounts more transparent, Spain seems to be wanting to do the same now that they have the highest number of unemployed in the European zone and in even more dire financial problems:

"owners of one building in Aspe, Alicante, Spain have never paid property tax. Nor have they ever paid tax on the apartments that house two of their employees. But that may be about to change. Last week, the city’s government voted to partially rescind the exemption that the Catholic Church, landlord of those three properties and another eight more in town, has long enjoyed. And thanks to the crisis that threatens to upend Spain‘s economy, it’s not the only place demanding change.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/06/07/amid-economic-crisis-spain-ponders-taxing-catholic-church-property/#ixzz22NfCdwK2

[Joe Schmoe]

Interesting thought just popped into mind.

So they tax religion finally, maybe even toss in some legislation divorcing church from state.

Imagine a speech along the lines of: 'We've finally put religion in it's proper place, no longer can they have such influence on our politics or economic affairs. We finally have TRUE peace and securi...(EXPLOSION of Armageddon)'.

Then again, it may not happen like this at all...There's been talk of peace and security off and on for decades. All we know is that we're waiting for Babylon The Great to get it's death blow.

[Bubba]

Hello Helen,

The Catholic church is in a whole lot of trouble. This attach emphasizes that fact.--Jer

Document to Cathloc Church.doc

[retroHelen]

Hello Helen,

The Catholic church is in a whole lot of trouble. This attach emphasizes that fact.--Jer

DocumenttoCathlocChurch.doc

You may find it interesting -we discussed the document and the protests eminating from it here in May:

http://www.jwtalk.net/forum/read.php?49,103108

[Bubba]

Thanx for the info. I'm new so didn't know what had been discussed. A few bros. & I regularly discuss current topics and try to recognize how they fit in with the course of events and Bible prophecy. We pretty much deduced the same as you. The 'Beast' will take her down, however, the fact that she is getting for what she is will certainly help make it a slam dunk! The financial situation in Europe will elicit no sympathy, that's for sure. Same with her disgusting moral condition. The Catholic church is not the entire Harlot but she is definetly the most reprehensible part of it. We were thinking that her downfall coinsiding with the take over of the Beast could well bring on the cry of 'Peace and Security' if that is the form it is to take. What say Ye?--Jer