this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Start by removing their tax exemption status.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The Vatican is its own country, they don't pay themselves taxes.

[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They don’t pay taxes to the city of Rome either, despite using our services and infrastructures: they use Rome’s sewage system but don’t pay for it, they use Rome’s garbage collection system but don’t pay for it - we are talking about private homes, not just churches. They don’t pay for the police service, streets maintenance and so on. The Vatican is s literal parasite of the city of Rome and the Italian nation as a whole. They are not an independent state, they depend on us for everything, hence they should pay taxes for the social services they use.

[–] Daft_ish 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These are just humble men of God. Where would they possibly get the money to pay for such things?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] MisterFrog 1 points 1 year ago

To be fair, this sounds like it's also on the Italian politicians and therefore the Italian public for not having done anything. Just start charging them, what are they gonna do? Either cough up or become a stinking pile of shit.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago

They also don't pay taxes in a shitload of other countries.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

When the Church is dismantled, who gets Vatican City? What would be a fun choice?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, Vatican city was already an Italian possession after the unification. The fascist regime gave it back to the papal state in exchange for the Church supporting Mussolini and fascism (Patti lateranensi).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

That's why we can't give it to Italy. Someone else gotta get it.

[–] TheOnlyMego 16 points 1 year ago

According to Crusader Kings, the Norse

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

The Islamic State

[–] afraid_of_zombies 4 points 1 year ago

Walmart. Some of the supercenters are already almost as big as Vatican City when you count parking. At least it would serve some useful function.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Then seize property, then arrest high ranking members.

The entire international agency is to blame

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seriously, fuck the taxes. I mean, fine, tax them where you can, but that is BY FAR the least of the worries. Churches in the US are tax exempt because they are organized as non-profits and charities. You either have to change those tax laws or audit the shit out of each of them, neither of which is a quick or easy solution. 

There’s two things I think can be done given the political will/public pressure. First, do not let institutions do like the catholic church does and let an individual diocese declare bankruptcy after losing a suit. The catholic church is a holistic organization and the entirety of the church should bear the blame for what it’s representatives did. Use the income of the entire church to determine damages, and make the church responsible for paying them. Seize assets if it declares itself unable to pay. Same with the mormons and any other religious institution.

Second, send bishops and other administrators to jail for criminal conspiracy if they knew of an incident and covered it up. Set mandatory reporting requirements that disregard religious ideologies like the “seal of confession.” Treat it like the criminal conspiracy it is. In the US you can bring in the feds because they moved criminals between states to escape justice.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 63 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is why I left the Catholic Church and became a wizard with unimaginable powers of alchemy and healing.

[–] kn33 45 points 1 year ago

This is why I left the Catholic Church

Nice, good

and became a wizard

uhhh...

with unimaginable powers of alchemy and healing.

Oh... okay... phew


A real roller coaster, that one

[–] hedgehogging_the_bed 10 points 1 year ago

became a wizard with unimaginable powers of alchemy and healing

Is there a YouTube channel for that? Maybe a Great Courses Plus or a Coursera even?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Man bg3 really setting the bar with its cheap respec carrying over to real life.

[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After the decades of one child sexual abuse case after the other coming out and time and again finding out higher ups in the church knew about this but just kept hiding it, are we really at all surprised? That level of corruption originates from the top down, not bottom up.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It will not surprise me to find out that one day they bust a Vatican City meth lab. Once you already got helping Nazis and child rape and tax evasion you might as well throw in meth production.

[–] AnUnusualRelic 3 points 1 year ago

Meth seems a bit on the low end for the Vatican.

They ought to be selling bio weapons, or nukes or something...

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Does anyone know why the Vatican State exists? The answer is, because of a pact with Mussolini to support his regime in exchange for a state and the involvement of the church in education.

Sp, who's really surprised?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] postmateDumbass 2 points 1 year ago
[–] mightyfoolish 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wasn't it created by Charlemagne The Great to support his rule as the "Holy" Roman Emperor?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the papal state, not Vatican city. The papal state ruled over central Italy for centuries until it lost most of its territories leading up to the unification of Italy in 1861. Then lost Rome in 1870 and ceased to exist. The Pope retreated to the Vatican where he assumed the position of "prisoner in the Vatican" while the Italian government tolerated for the most part the Pope ruling over the basilica and its territories.

The modern Vatican State is a new entity created by Mussolini and Pius XI in 1929 with the Patti Lateranensi. With the creation of this state Mussolini gained the approval from the church, which was extremely important to solidify its grip over Italy, while the Church abandoned all claims from the former papal state.

[–] mightyfoolish 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you. I did not realize that the Vatican was only recently made. Since the church abandoned the state, was it considered a good compromise by most Italians? I would imagine most Italians are loyal to the Pope.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Prior to 1870, Italy was several kingdoms, republics and duchies, with a federation of papal states in the middle, and Vatican, then just another cathedral hill in Rome, was not special – the pope mostly lived elsewhere. During the unification of Italy, the pope retreated to Vatican and troops left the palace alone. For almost 60 years, the papal state, now only controlling the Vatican area, was informally tolerated by Italy until Mussolini signed a 1929 treaty, recognizing the territory was independent.

To be honest, I’m not sure what the pope could do if he no longer came to good terms with the fascists but if I were him, I would retreat to an Allied cathedral on a “diplomatic mission” and ring the alarm, not caring if the tiny Vatican was occupied to Italy. Its bad wartime performance was becoming apparent and there would be a chance of reclaiming Vatican after it lost the war.

[–] mightyfoolish 1 points 1 year ago

Would the Pope have really been in danger? Wouldn't most Italians see him as worth protecting due to Italy's long relationship with Roman Catholicism?

[–] febra 3 points 1 year ago

Organised religions and dictatorial regimes have almost always lived in a symbiosis.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

“However, Coco noted that Koenig also urged the Holy See to not make public what he was revealing because he feared for his own life and the lives of the resistance sources who had provided the intelligence.”

Koenig, for the 99% of people who don’t read past the headline, is the author of the letter in question.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

You can take action without revealing your sources. Journalists and police officers do it every day. Politicians and businesses do it all the time. Yet the all powerful Catholic Church did nothing.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Which has zero relevance as the war ended

[–] febra 29 points 1 year ago

Oh, the morality of organised religion at work again.

[–] rustyfish 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Vatican and denial. Name a better Duo.

[–] andxz 8 points 1 year ago

Religion and hypocrisy.

[–] FordBeeblebrox 16 points 1 year ago

This is completely unsurprising. Might be interesting to see how much communication there was between the Vatican and the Swiss banking cunts during that time though

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Plenty of photos of hitler and the pope of the day.

[–] LEDZeppelin 11 points 1 year ago

In b4 “GoD WorKS iN MysTeRious WaYS”

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

These people aren't dumb, they do it intentionally and know exactly what they're doing. Probably to either control a narrative, religious political reasons, or just bigotry.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Always read those links as smh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sounds like a death cult.