Wednesday, 18 August, 2004, 21:42 GMT 22:42 UK
France's Roman Catholic Church has reported a 1.3m-euro deficit ($1.6m) from a visit by the Pope to the southern shrine of Lourdes.
Let's do the math: $1.6 MILLION DOLLARS FOR A SPA VISIT?!? Does anyone else have a problem with these numbers? Even if they flew the Pope there and back in an ICU air ambulance it couldn't cost that much.
The two-day event culminated in a Mass attended by 200,000 people on Sunday. However, donations covered only 15% of the expenditures for the weekend-long pilgrimage, a French bishop said. He blamed the shortfall on a poor collection system, and urged Roman Catholics to help the Church recover the costs through extra donations.
So what they're saying is that this actually should have been a gated event except that receiving a benediction from the Vicar of Christ really isn't supposed to be a profit center for the church. Or is it?
The Church did not exceed its estimated budget of 1.5m euros ($1.85m), Lourdes Bishop Jacques Perrier said. However, receipts from collections amounted to a mere 200,000 euros ($250,000).
Wow, a "mere QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS! Gosh, that's only ten times an average person's annual salary.
"Organisers did not explain to pilgrims how things worked," he told the French AFP news agency.
"Alla yez gotta pay ta play pray. Capiche?"
"People are used to giving in churches, but not at big rallies," he added.
So ... this "free event" really isn't so "free" after all? |