The Vatican on the Brink of Bankruptcy: The Missing Piece

During at least its first millennium, Christianity—with the notable exception of Clement of Alexandria—held that greed is tightly coupled to profit-seeking and wealth. Amid the increased trade, and profits, during the Commercial Revolution in the Middle Age in Europe, Aquinas began the trend severing the coupling to allow for greedless moderate profits, and thus wealth. Also in Medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church allowed monasteries to have collective wealth (including land) without being subject to having to go through the eye of a needle to enter the Kingdom of God.[1] With it supply of gold and real estate, the Vatican could be considered rich in the twenty-first century. When the exemption for collective wealth justifies those holdings from the stain of greed is one question; here I look at reports in 2024 that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy, and why, for at least in one media report, one major reason is curiously left out even though that reason may have been making all the difference, and may even be considered just, whether in terms of divine or human justice.

Pope Francis admitted that the Vatican was in trouble financially. “The current system is unable to guarantee in the medium-term compliance with pension obligations for future generations.”[2] According to the Daily Express in late 2024, the Vatican’s “unprecedented financial crisis as of late . . . was caused by a decline in donations.”[3] In 2023, “the Vatican reported an operating deficit of $87 million,” and a larger deficit was the case in 2024 as of mid-December.[4] The question is why.

The Vatican had been “embroiled in debt after the European recession in 2012 and once again during the [coronavirus] pandemic in 2021.”[5] Also, the price of gold decreased in the early 2020s. Some conservative Catholics blamed Pope Francis’ “progressive” policies as “causing a decrease in donation.”[6] But on conservatives’ hot-button issues of abortion and homosexuality, the pope had reaffirmed the Church’s magisterium (i.e., teaching) that both are sins, and opposing climate change was not an unpopular position globally by 2024. As for emphasizing the poor, Jesus in the Gospel narratives does as much, so the pope was by no means an outlier in that respect. In fact, it could be counter-argued that the conservative, theologically excluding policies of the preceding pope, Joe Ratzinger, had caused church attendance, and thus donations, to decline. A church that views itself as more like a hospital than a club of saints will, everything else equal, enjoy larger attendance.

Entirely omitted, however, is the decreased attendance due to the Roman Catholic priests who had been molesting and even raping children for decades without being defrocked—Joe Ratzinger being among the many sordid bishops who reassigned rather than defrocked pedophile priests for the good of the reputation of the universal Church. The lack of accountability within the Vatican, such as in the ceremonial role in the Vatican being given to Cardinal Law by Pope John Paul II, who would be canonized as a saint by the Church he led, after news had surfaced of Archbishop Law having protected nearly 100 pedophile priests in Boston at the expense of 550 victims and with court judgments “that eventually topped $85 million.”[7] Even though the Boston Archdiocese was responsible for paying out the judgments, the hit to the credibility of the Roman Church from not only there being so many pedophile priests (and bishops), but also there being so little accountability—not even a resulting change at the top due to the serial unaccountability from Rome—led to a marked decline in church attendance. Besides this meaning less in donations, surely a significant number of the laity decided not to contribute financially to a religious organization in which employees thereof had been molesting and even raping children over decades. In any democratic state, a government covering up and even harboring so many rapists and their superiors would have faced a no-confidence vote, yet neither Pope John Paul II or Benedict XVI was pushed out or resigned for that reason, although it may be that the International Criminal Court made a deal with the latter pope, Joe Ratzinger, that would drop the charges pending against him in exchange for that conservative pope breaking with tradition and resigning, as well as being confined to Vatican City for the rest of his life. Even efforts inside the Vatican to hide this deal would be consistent with the efforts to cover-up cases of pedophile priests and their clerical protectors, such as Archbishop Law of Boston.

In short, no one should be surprised that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy, though were the Vatican to sell some of its real-estate and gold the organization’s pensioners might not have had to fear being left high and dry in a worldly rather than heavenly sense. Although such fear would not be just for innocent priests and bishops, the extent of orchestrated covering up by the Vatican since at least 2002 and even the possible culpability psychologically of clerical celibacy as a church tradition from the Middle Age regarding the molestation and raping of children as a result of dysfunctional repression means that in addition to guilty priests and bishops being defrocked, the Roman Catholic Church was facing natural and perhaps even divine justice in being on the brink of bankruptcy. That is a powerful statement—much more so than one blaming the Vatican’s weak financial condition of Pope Francis, as if his policies were progressive, and if they really were so, blameworthy too.  

To be sure, religion does not reduce to morality; Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible is more concerned with being worshipped exclusively and thus in covenant, than in sticking to human ethical principles. But it is God, rather than Popes and other bishops (and priests), who has license to trump ethics when needed for theological purposes. When us mere mortals decide unilaterally to trump the dictates of justice by inflicting harm on other people and by enabling the perpetrators who are aggressive especially against the weak, then we can expect that our own suffering is just. Therefore, it is just that the Vatican was on the brink of bankruptcy at the end of 2024.

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1. See my books, Godliness and Greed, and God’s Gold, the latter text reflecting my further thought on the topic, especially on how Christianity can be held off from the increasing susceptibility to greed theologically.
2. Alana Loftus, “Vatican ‘On the Brink of Bankruptcy’ Due to Dramatic Decline in Global Donations Under Pope Francis’ Leadership,” MSN.com, December 17, 2024.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Phillip Martin, “The Pope Promises Accountability to Victims Abused by the Church. Where is Cardinal Law?” The World, August 3, 2015.

Justice’s Last Resort: Accountability in the Roman Catholic Church Sex Scandals

A pattern of deeply violent acts of power-aggrandizement, followed by the efforts of “organizational men” to cover up the atrocities in the interest of the organization and even the offenders at the negligent expense of the offended, cannot but have ripple effects, or make waves, once the stories are revealed to the public. It is sad, very sad, when an offending institution, or “club,” refuses to enforce accountability on its offending functionaries—members of the club. In early August, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office released to the public an 884-page report finding that six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania had covered up sexual abuse—molestation and even rape—by 301 “predator priests” over 70 years in the twentieth century.[1]

With even at least one bishop (then cardinal)—Donald Wuerl--a prime culprit in covering up rapes, the lack of accountability on Wuerl by the Vatican would send a message that within a club, the big guys are essentially beyond reproach, even in such a sordid matter as covering for pedophile rapist subordinates. The sheer extent of injustice within one organization can trigger vigilante acts at justice. Hence, Rev. Basil hJ. Hutsko was thrown to the ground while praying at his church one morning—the assailant saying, “This is for all the little kids.”[2] It is sad, very sad, when justice is so imperfect as to be “accomplished” on an innocent priest. This incident thus reflects badly back on the lack of justice having been enforced by the Vatican on its own.

After the grand jury report was issued by the Attorney General, Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s upcoming appearance at a Roman Catholic conference on the family. Additionally, a Catholic High School in Pittsburgh removed mention of Wuerl from the school’s name—ostensively because Wuerl suggested that mention of his name would “detract from the purpose of Catholic education.”[3] The remaining question at the time was whether the pope would remove Wuerl from the College of Cardinals.

In line with the dictum, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, I got a snapshot of how Bishop Wuerl’s cathedral operated when I was a graduate student studying business and religion at the University of Pittsburgh. Late one weekday afternoon when the church was open, I knelt down near the low fence separating the place for the laity from the liturgical area. A janitor came up to me from behind and pushed me down, even though I was on the people side. So, interestingly, I can have a sense of how the innocent priest felt when he was pushed down from behind. At the very least, I concluded at the time that the bishop was probably a hard-ass, or at the very least he put up with some rather squalid employees. I complained at the time to the church office receptionist, but she gave it only a cursory notice. Clearly, Wuerl’s little world in Pittsburgh was not to be a part of my study of places of worship there.

My point is that the callousness and even violence one a very small scale in a religious organization can be just one sign of a broader and much deeper dysfunctional organizational culture. In such cases, accountability and justice from within are not likely; presumptuous boundary-issues are more likely. The press reported in the wake of the report that American Catholics were demanding action rather than just words in enforcing accountability; even so, I was struck by how many Catholics kept going to their same Roman Catholic church as if news of the report had not been made public. Perhaps accountability can easily be slighted by religious laity who believe that going to their church—receiving Catholic communion—is vital soteriologically even if not ethically. Yet Jesus surely would have tapped the dirt from his sandals and moved on had he been amid a religious group that covered up rapists in the group and even the cover-uppers. Great harm to others is antithetical to the Golden Rule, let alone the notion emphasized by Augustine and Calvin both that God is love. How can love of this sort overflow in an organization that covers up rapists and then the cover-uppers? We all know what Jesus thought of the hypocrites—the Pharisees.

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[1] Hayley Miller, “Indiana Priest Beaten Unconscious, Allegedly Told ‘This Is for All the Little Kids.” The Huffington Post, August 22, 2018.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Michelle Lou, “Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s Name Removed from School after Abuse Coverup,” The Huffington Post, August 22, 2018.

A Megachurch Pastor and Sexual Assault: A Compromised Christian Leader

“A Memphis megachurch pastor received standing ovation during a church service on Sunday after he admitted that he had engaged in a ‘sexual incident’ with a high school student 20 years ago in Texas.”[1] That the woman had made the man’s prior misdeeds public just days before throws into doubt whether the pastor deserved the ovation by his loyal flock. Prompted by the firing of Matt Lauer, the anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, the woman emailed the pastor more than a month before his public acknowledgement at his church; he had not responded to the woman’s email to apologize. Letting his flock in on the secret hardly added much value to the man’s character, for damage-control is not laudatory. The standing ovation connoted not only praise on the man and a revalidation of the pastor’s continuance as a religious leader. That a Christian leader could be validated as such, rather than invalidated and thus shown the door, throws into question the integrity of religious leadership itself.

What is distinctive about specifically religious leadership? Moses is a distinctively religious leader because in the story of Exodus he follows divine decrees in leading his people out of Egypt and handing over ten basic laws. That five of them are moral in nature means that moral infractions can legitimately count against religious leadership in the Abrahamic religions. Yet the Book of Job tells us that God is not bound by what we take as ethical; omnipotence cannot be limited by anything, including moral commandments applicable to us mere mortals. As Kierkegaard’s analysis of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling suggests, religiosity can seem absurd from the lower perspective of morality. Following the divine decree to sacrifice Isaac is not murder in religious terms, yet the act would be highly unethical as murder in terms of ethics and public legal justice.

Morality and theology are clearly distinct, yet at the same time related. This is why assessing the impact on the ethically-sordid pastor’s religious leadership is so difficult. In Christian terms, morality is salient in the preaching of Jesus. Yet love as agape (i.e., divine self-emptying) and even as caritas (i.e., human love directed to loving God) do not reduce to morality. In directing the girl to perform oral sex on him and touching her naked breasts twenty years before his acknowledgement, the then youth minister had not only acted immorally, but also violated the sort of love that Jesus exemplifies and preaches in the Gospels. That sort of love, being theological in nature, cannot reduce to moral or even emotional love; religious love as depicted by Jesus is God itself, as Augustine and Calvin emphasize in their respective writings. What is theological love as distinct from moral and emotional love? The self-emptying aspect of agape love provides an opening, yet not even the metaphysics of divinity voluntarily self-emptying of itself reaches the distinctly theological.

To decide whether the pastor’s religious leadership was compromised or outright deflated, the nature of theological love must first be known—in this case, as depicted and taught by Jesus. That the youth minister had not followed the Golden Rule is a good indication that in acting selfishly at the expense of the high school student, he had violated a divine decree on love, or God itself. Furthermore, in refusing to atone, the man had for twenty years (or more) kept himself reconciled with the woman and thus with God, and thus he remained at a distance from God. That the public acknowledgement was predicated on the woman making the incident public suggests that the pastor remained unreconciled in his heart, and thus with God. The standing ovation, giving the pastor a pass, thus suggests that a religious congregation can be misguided regarding not only morality, but also the very nature of religious leadership itself.

For more, see Spiritual Leadership and Christianized Leadership.

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[1] Matthew Haag, “Megachurch Pastor Admits to Illicit ‘Sexual Incident’,” The New York Times, January 10, 2018.

Christian Leadership Navigating Geopolitics: Pope Francis in Myanmar amid Ethnic Cleansing

With the U.N. having “denounced the murder, rape and pillaging of the Rohingya in western Myanmar as ethnic cleansing,” Pope Francis had to “strike a careful balance” during his visit to the country in late 2017 “by maintaining his moral authority without endangering his tiny local flock.[1] Even the decision to meet first with Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of the military that had “driven more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslims out of the country” could be taken as a compromise of the Pope’s moral authority because Francis would met with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and de facto leader of the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the next day.[2] That the local Cardinal had urged the Pope not to even use the word Rohingya during the visit pointed in the direction away from the Pope acting as a moral compass and thus to a hit to his reputation as a leader of principle rather than expediency.

Considering the salience of agape, or self-emptying love, in Christianity, the spiritual virtue should be in the Pope’s leadership even in the context of national and global politics, especially if on behalf of a persecuted group. Was not Christ himself persecuted? Furthermore, a history of Christian martyrs suggests that compromising for the sake of one’s self or organization enjoys little legitimacy. To gain the whole world and yet to compromise or lose an opportunity for spiritual leadership in a secular, sordid context—evading talking truth to power—has an anti-Christian resonance that can deplete a Christian leader’s reputational capital.   

The institutional self-protection that an organization tends to engage in can rationalize all sorts of antithetical conduct, including protecting clerics who rape children. Are not such children worthy of protection even if the institution itself bears the brunt? What then of a persecuted religious and ethnic minority? If Christ evinced love where it is not convenient, then Christian leaders should be protecting other religions even more than Christianity itself. Paradoxically, only in such a way can Christianity really thrive, for being true to itself—being authentic rather than self-serving—is true strength, whereas expediency evinces weakness.  

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[1] Jason Horowitz, “Pope Francis Arrives in a Myanmar Tarnished by Rohingya Crackdown,” The New York Times, November 27, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

The Regensburg Domspatzen: Systemic Abuse of Kids in an Established Religious Institution

The utility from beautiful music for many does not justify the physical and sexual abuse of a relative few. Even though utilitarianism goes by the motto, the greatest pleasure (and least pain) for the greatest number, the severity of the pain to a few can, I submit, outweigh a more widespread, yet relatively superficial, pleasure for others. Surely the intensity of pleasure and pain must enter into the ethical calculus. I have in mind here the Regensburg Domspatzen, a Roman Catholic boys choir, in the E.U. state of Germany. This case points to the default power of established institutions and a religious psychology.

On July 18, 2017, Ulrich Weber, an outside lawyer announced the findings of his investigation. He found 547 cases of plausible physical abuse, 67 of which involved sexual abuse.[1] The abuse took place while Georg Ratzinger was the choir’s music director—from 1964 to 1994. His brother would be the Pope from 2005 to 2013. The presumption in terms of accountability was that the Church would police itself according to its Canon Law. However, in this case the personal conflict of interest should have sent the case to the local police, yet this was not the case. Instead, that pope threatened priests with excommunication should they contact the public authorities. Cut off from heaven for aiding accountability concerning people who had abused children! The power to excommunicate itself can thus be viewed as culpable. Moreover, the presumptuousness, including the accompanying blind-spots, that religious authority can engender and perpetuate is worthy of note.

One rather obvious take-away from this case is that the investigation of illegal act should be left to local police rather than religious organizations. Put another way, canon law does not trump criminal law. A second, less obvious, point regards the ethics of the sheer inertia of established societal institutions such as large, very old, religious organizations. Like a speeding ball in the void of outer space, such an institution can go through time seamlessly without virtually any resistance to slow it down, regardless of how unethical or even illegal the internal acts and cover-ups may be. This disconnect for clergy and members alike, wherein they continue as they had as if nothing had changed, can be reckoned as a sort of cognitive pathology in itself akin to or abetted by denial. Members as a whole continue to contribute money, and virtually no one resigns from the organization as an ethical protest or personal stand of sorts. In terms of organization theory, a disconnect between an organization and the wider society can be expected to impair the organization in at least some respects, not limited to diminished reputational capital. In terms of organizational life-cycles, such a period should be one of significant contraction, rather than steady-state. I submit that in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, the combination of being such an established (i.e., entrenched) institution and the psychology of religious denial block the natural “ebb and flow” that both in theory and practice pertains to organizations generally.

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[1] Melissa Eddy, “’Culture of Silence’ Abetted Abuse of at Least 547 German Choir Boys, Inquiry Finds,” The New York Times, July 18, 2017.