Dark Mysteries of the Vatican

but it also operates like a worldwide corporation

were accused of trying to sell works of art falsely attributed to artists such as Michelangelo, Guercino and Giambologna, to art institutions such as the Metropolitan

Vatican is both a city and a state

“If the Vatican sold all its artworks, they would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars-but only once.

It has been calculated that “it costs about $250 million a year to operate the Vatican

No nation of Catholics gives more than Americans.

For 2004, that total came to $89 million. Of this amount, roughly $27.2 million came from individual dioceses under the terms of canon 1271 of the Code of Canon Law, which obligated dioceses to contribute to the financial support of the Holy See. This means that the 2,883 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the world gave an average of $10,000 each in 2004…

The money comes from…contributions from bishops’ conferences, dioceses, religious orders, individual lay donors, and ‘other entities.’

. Peter’s Basilica, are ornamented with gold, silver, precious stones, and the finest marble.

major damage suffered by a work of art in St. Peter’s since a German broke two fingers off the statue of a kneeling Pope Pius VI in 1970.