Negócios, negócios, religião à parte...

Quem visita o Vaticano fica, desde logo, com a sensação que os membros da igreja não vivem de acordo com os ensinamentos de Cristo.
Os cardeais, anafados, que se passeiam em limousines com motorista para cá e para lá.
As cadeiras de ouro para passear o "representante" de Cristo.
As riquezas acumuladas pela igreja ao longo de séculos e, algumas, em exposição nos seus museus.

Lembro-me sempre daquilo que aprendi na catequese:
"Cristo expulsou os vendilhões do templo"

Pois agora quem expulsa é o Vaticano e não são os vendilhões:

Vatican evicts tenants to make hotels

By Malcolm Moore in Rome and Alessandro Speciale
Last Updated: 1:20am BST 25/05/2007

For centuries, the Vatican has bestowed a special kind of charity on the residents of Rome, providing low-rent accommodation in the vast number of properties it owns in the heart of the Italian capital.

But recently the Holy See has suddenly turned on many of its tenants, demanding higher rents or threatening to throw them out.
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The elderly residents of a palazzo in Via Giulia, all over 70, were turned out when the building was made into a five-star hotel, the St George, where rooms now cost €400 a night. Many of the residents had lived in the building since the Second World War.
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The Vatican owns a quarter of the buildings in central Rome and last year, another 8,000 properties were gifted to the Catholic Church in wills. The Vatican's total assets are estimated at around £4 billion but its Rome properties are officially only worth a few million pounds.

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Vatican buildings are not subject to any council tax, even if they lie outside the Holy See. In addition, businesses run by religious enterprises get a 50 per cent discount on corporation tax.

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Cardinal Attilio Nicora, who heads the unit that controls the Vatican's property and equity holdings, has completely restructured the Holy See's finances since he arrived in 2002.
He made a profit of £33 million in 2004/5 from the sale of various buildings.
The money more than covered the heavy losses from running Vatican Radio and Romano Osservatore, the official newspaper.