Vatican City, Jul 7, 2004 / 22:00 pm
A supervisory committee of eight cardinals headed by Cardinal Sergio Sebastiani announced yesterday that the Vatican budget is in the red for the third consecutive year, despite the raise in offerings.
Sebastiani explained that there was a loss both for the Holy See (the central organization of the Roman Catholic Church) and the Vatican State, which has its own employees and sources of income.
The Cardinal said the Vatican had an income of 203.6 million euro ($351.4 million) in 2003, and a deficit of nearly 9.6 million euro ($16.6 million) compared to 13.5 million euro ($23.3 million) the previous year.
The Vatican gets income from investments, real estate, legacies and donations by the faithful called Peter's Pence, which increased 5.7 per cent last year to 45.2 million euro ($78 million). But officials said the pope gives this money away to people affected by war and natural calamities.