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Día

julio 11th, 2010

VATICAN CITY, JULY 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- For the third year in a row, the economic crisis has left the Holy See and the Vatican City State in the red.

This was revealed Saturday in a statement published by the Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organizational and Economic Matters of the Holy See on the 2009 financial statement of the Holy See and the Vatican City State Governorate.

The council met for its 45th meeting last week in the Vatican, presided over by Benedict XVI's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The president of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, presented the 2009 financial statement of the Holy See, in which it records income of 250,182,364 euro [US$ 316,317,777] and expenditures of 254,284,520 euro [US$ 321,504,333], with a deficit of 4,102,156 euro [US$ 5,186,556].

The Holy See is composed of all the organisms of the Roman Curia and of the pontifical representations around the world, as well as its media network: Vatican Radio, L'Osservatore Romano and Vatican Television Center. It is financed by the donations of dioceses, religious congregations and the generosity of the faithful.

The Holy See employs 2,762 persons, 766 ecclesiastics, 344 religious (261 men and 83 women), 1,652 lay people (1,201 men and 451 women).

Vatican City

Archbishop De Paolis also presented the 2009 economic statement of Vatican City, which the archbishop noted that "similar to other states, this year too the Vatican felt the effects of the international economic-financial crisis."

The city-state ended with a deficit of 7,815,183 euro [US$ 9,881,117], with a positive difference comparison to the preceding year of nearly 7.5 million euro [US$ 9.4].

Vatican City employs 1,891 persons, of which 38 are men religious, 27 women religious, 1,543 are laymen and 283 are laywomen.

The financial statements did not take into account annual Peter's Pence collection, which is used exclusively to aid the poorest local Churches. The collection in 2009 totaled $82,529,417. The largest contributions of 2009 came from the Catholics of the United States, Italy and France, with significant contributions from Korea and Japan.

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On ZENIT's Web page:

Full text: www.zenit.org/article-29859?l=english