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Obscenely Wealthy

Comment comment by ldsudduth on 12 March 2008

One of the sins the Vatican has added is being Obscenely Weathly. Arguabley the wealthiest man in the Old Testament was Solomon. Solomon was not only the ruler of Israel, but he is considered to be a wise man. He was also the wealthiest; some estimates put his annual income at $25-50 million in todays dollars. he controlled the Aegean trade route to Asia--equal to controlling both the Straits of Gibralter and the Suez Canal; along with the Panama canal.

Other 'obscenely wealthy' biblical people of note: Abraham, Job (lost all as the subject of a test between God and Satan, and subsequently rewarded double), and Joseph of Arimathea (put Christ's Body in the Holy Sepulchre).

It looks like the Vatican is ignoring some pertinent facts.

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RE: Obscenely Wealthy by scottb :: NR7

Arguably the wealthiest man in the Old Testament was Solomon.

Even if we don't look to unconfirmed folk history, they're ignoring a really glaring pertinent fact. Arguably, the wealthiest man in the world today is Pope Benedict, himself. The church is still organized as if it were a monarchy, with the Pope as monarch, and the RCC is an absurdly wealthy organization, when you look at its overall assets.

It has massive investments in some of the wealthiest banks around the world - the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Boston Archiocese alone had an estimated worth of over half a billion dollars about a decade ago, and it isn't even the richest - and there are twenty-eight such archdioceses and 122 dioceses in the US alone. A priest once said on a syndicated talk show that the church's assets "must exceed those of Standard Oil, AT&T, and US Steel, combined." They buy and sell gold in lots of a million or more dollars at a time.