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As a fallen Catholic, I get the giggles with this story. The Catholic Church is probably the richest institution in the freakin' world and also one of the tightest. While stationed in Italy in the late 70s, our unit sponsored a local orphanage that was run by the Catholic Church. What that means is the Catholic Church had a priest and several nuns in place. After that, there was no real support - there were either charitable donations or there was no orphanage. We tarred the roofs of the place to keep rain from leaking through, filled in 2" gaps around windows (or put in windows to fill empty holes) plumbed toilets that had porcelain fixtures, but no pipes (either water or drainage) and the list goes on.

Now I see why my Dad decided not to pay our local parish more when he received a letter saying that they had checked and knew he had gotten a raise, so his new obligation was $xxx.xx. A couple months at the old rate and we got another letter saying we were being excommunicated from the parish. The Bible and spirituality are fine for me today - the Church is all about money and power (not to mention diddling little boys). That's what happens when Man decides to find organized religions - they turn into quasi-political parties and the original intent (worshipping as a group) becomes entangled in human errors...

According to the 1929 Lateran Treaty (signed between the Catholic Church and Italian government representative Benito Mussolini), Catholicism is the official national religion of Italy. That's why the Italian courts can legally collect these taxes & deliver them to the Church.

There's a *reason* why 19th century Americans watched the Italian revolutionary movements between the 1840s and 1880s with such interest. Every time the Catholic Church launched another broadside at the Italian "Republicans" (the name for those who wanted to free the Italian Papal States from direct Church control), Americans took it as a direct assault on their own system of government.

In retrospect, it's really obvious why we have the separation of Church and State - thank goodness.

Thanks Polycarp for starting the topic. Not pinging the GGG list, just found this while Googling for Etruscans, and will add this to the weekly digest and the GGG catalog.

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