Clare’s blog, aka rantspace

If I wasn’t laughing, I’d be crying:

THE body of an inspirational Catholic who died in 1925 will be flown to Sydney for World Youth Day. Pier Giorgio Frassati will play an important role in the huge Catholic festival despite being dead for more than 80 years, Fairfax Media reports. Mr Frassati was only 24 when he died from polio, but he has become a role model for young Catholics because of his fervent faith, teamed with good looks, a robust physique and sunny nature. The idea of bringing his body to Sydney seems to derive from personal contacts between the Frassati family and the Archdiocese of Sydney, Fairfax Media reports. Italian sources told Fairfax Media his body would be flown to Sydney in June, and would be displayed in St Mary’s Cathedral during the World Youth Day period in July.

…and these figures:
Cost to taxpayers A (of funding extra police, turning schools into dormitories, and extra public transport) $86M
(see here)
Cost to taxpayers B (compensation to AJC for disruption to income due to WYD being held at Randwick Racecourse) $41M
Cost to Catholic Church (presumably including the transport of body as described above) $150M
(see here)

Benefit to nation’s economy $150M (but that figure, and its breakdown, is in doubt because the govt has used FoI provisions to ensure the report detailing it isn’t published)
(see here)

Spiritual benefits:
1. Preaching to the converted
2. The chance to venerate a dead body
3. Potentially more religious (a vocations expo will be handing out showbags)
4. Plenary indulgences for those who participate in rituals around the WYD cross

And in amongst all this lavish spending, the average Catholic payout to clergy abuse victims, usually after years of fighting to get it, is around $40,000. That means, in case you don’t want to do the arithmetic yourself, that the amount the church is paying for WYD would fund approximately 3750 abuse payouts. The amount the govt is paying would fund another 3175 payouts. Benefits in goodwill, and spiritual benefits, from settling without fight nearly 7000 abuse claims are about as unconfirmable as the economic benefit supposed to be the outcome of WYD.

I can’t help wishing they’d spend a lot less on self-promotion and a lot more on restoring the damage they’ve caused in the past.

Oh, and though the dead Frassati will be there, presumably Jesus won’t be – he was Jewish!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Catholic, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.