There Are Reasons Why The Catholic Church Can't Be Like Walmart - Response to the Economist

A good response to a piece that the Economist has done on finances and the WORLD WIDE Catholic Church. See Spot the difference...

Here is just part what many people don't get :

What The Economist doesn’t get is that the institutions of the Church are incredibly decentralized—operating as individual entities under the pastoral umbrella of the Church. The pope is not a CEO sitting in the Vatican with a big map saying “build a parish here, a hospital here, and close that school over there.” Yet this is what The Economist wants the Church to be (maybe they’ve watched The Da Vinci Code a few too many times?). Throughout The Economist’s story there is an underlying tone or belief by the reporter that the Church has this information but is withholding it—“the Church does not release such figures.” The reporter fails to understand that the Church does not have these figures (e.g., aggregated annual spending by all entities of the Church, all donations to Church entities) because it has no apparatus to collect them.

There very well could be some reform and in fact we might see that coming. But the Church can't be Walmart and neither is the Vatican equipped to run it like it was.