False Sense of Maturity

I think I’ll keep up with the Fox animation theme.  When it comes to satirizing religion, the new season of Family Guy is on a roll. The first episode of the season featured Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, and the most recent episode, titled “I Dream of Jesus,” takes on religion from a totally different angle. Title character Peter Griffin finds Jesus working at a record store (he wanted to get away from God, who had just quit smoking), and the two quickly develop a blasphemous friendship, with Jesus turning miracles as a form of entertainment. Jesus also takes the time to tell off George Bush, noting that the president has failed at following his example.

Later, at the encouragement of Peter, Mr. Christ goes on a sacrilegious publicity tour. During an appearance at the MTV Movie Awards, Jesus comes armed with the Pussy Cat Dolls, and jokes “Hey, it a pleasure to be here with you six interchangeable women. The last time I was down here on Earth, I only hung around with one whore.” Take that, Catholic League!

I’ve often thought about how much the Catholic church was worth. I knew religion in general was not cost effective (for society) but also knew that the Catholic church had extreme amounts of wealth. But I read an article today where the pope was chastising the wealthy, basically. He who lives in a castle, wears fine linen and gold, has servants and makes money from donations, is preaching about wealth. But yes, the pope is using the current financial crisis and scare tactics in order to increase his congregation and therefore the church’s wealth.

So I tried to do a little research, and I’d welcome any help/input in nailing down some figures but I dug up some interesting figures and links from 2001.
Total income 422.098 billion (increased by 64 billion from previous fiscal year). Expenses were 188 billion.
*note: Unless I read the article wrong, there was no mention of charitable giving, only receiving.

Is this really the man for the job? The Keating Five.