Land holdings does not prove the Church is evil, and the Church being the largest charity in the world makes no difference to Bible Christian hate cults.ok, so 3/4 of a million kilometers? Pick a number, k, i'm not trying to prove anything here, and as far as i'm concerned the RCC owning it is prolly better than Crystal Cathedral, ok. But let's get real, the only two entities that beat the RCC for land holdings are Monarchs, holding Virtual Title only.
So, how much land does the Church actually own? Well, what do we mean by "the Church"? The first thing we have to understand is that there is no such concept as "the Church" owning land. The Vatican does not have centralized land holdings all over the world like, say, the Church of Scientology does. The dozens of parishes in any given county all over the country are not in any way owned by the Vatican, and the Vatican has no claim or title to them.
Parish land is owned by the diocese in which a local church is situated. Usually, the parish itself will own the buildings on the land. Catholic schools are private organizations whose land is either owned by the parish they are affiliated with or by a holding group or corporation set up in that school's name. So, instead of asking how much land "the Church" owns, you have to ask how much land does any given diocese own, and even then it is confusing since the diocese may own only the land, but not the buildings upon which the land is situated. Monastery lands are owned by those religious communities, and seminaries are owned by the diocese. Oh, and keep in mind that probably in any given parish, a sizable chunk of its land holdings (sometimes up to 50%) are cemeteries.
In order to figure out how much land these many organizations own collectively would be a very burdensome task. You'd have to figure out how much land and buildings are owned by every parish in the world - there is usually only one Catholic Church in every city of average size, and many more in larger ones. Then you'd have to figure out how much land each individual diocese owns - and there are 2,797 dioceses and archdioceses in the world, and each of them is completely independent. That's a lot of dioceses, and potentially a lot of land, although any given diocese rarely owns more land besides the land immediately adjacent to the land that the parish sits upon. Then you'd have to figure out how much land each religious order owns, how much land held by private Catholic schools not affiliated with a parish, etc. These are all independent; they are not agents of the papal government or in any way under the legal authority of the Vatican as regards property ownership. The only benefit the Vatican gets from the dioceses of the world is an annual collection called Peter's Pence that is voluntary.
But even if you could do this math and add up the land owned by every Catholic diocese and parish, it would be a meaningless number, because it would not tell you how much land "the Church" owns, but rather, how much land is owned by an artificial hodgepodge of thousands of organizations. To ask the question of how much land "the Church" owns is like asking how much land blond haired people own - there simply is no collective organization that centrally owns land on behalf of blond haired people, and even if you could add up all the land owned by individual blond haired people, you'd have just a number that didn't reflect anything in the real world.
This answer no doubt does not satisfy you. You are convinced that "the Church" owns more land than anyone else and want to prove it. If we were to take 'the Church' as being just the Vatican, what would the answer be?
The Vatican itself owns only the 108 acres it happens to be on and some other small sites outside of Rome. So, if we insist on interpreting "the Church" to mean the Vatican, then there is your answer: the Vatican owns 108 acres plus some smaller sites outside Rome.
Okay, you say, so maybe the Vatican as a central authority doesn't own all the land mentioned above, but the Catholics collectively do, and this is "the Church" in some degree, even if it is extremely decentralized. When you add up all of the parishes, monasteries, seminaries and diocesan owned buildings, surely the Church must be the single largest landowner on the earth? Not so. Not even close. Who are the biggest landowners?
By category, the largest public landowners in the world are the governments of various nations who own things like roads, airports, public parks, etc. The largest private landowner in the world is CNN”s Ted Turner, who own 1,800,000 acres. The other top ten landowners are all ranching families (sources: Forbes magazine, Oct. 6, 2003). The largest single landowner on the whole planet: LAND VALUES-GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS: “As of June 30, 1966, the world's largest land owner was the United States Government, with a holding of 765,291,000 acres (1,185,787 square miles) including 529,000 acres outside of the United States. The total value at cost was $69,357,000,000.” I’d imagine this is still true, though I'm sure the dollar value has gone up.
Even if the Church is not the world's largest landowner, with all of the tithes and offerings that come through it, surely it must be the world's largest financial institution then? This is very untrue, and one which many non-Catholics are confused about. They seem to think that the Church is financed from the top down, as if things at the diocesan and parochial level are paid for by the Vatican or something. But we know that the Church is financed from the bottom up: the diocese is supported by the community of parishes, and Rome is supported by the dioceses, as well as from collections like Peter’s Pence, etc. The Church is actually quite poor, because statistically most parishes are in Third World countries and have very little to contribute.
I hope this provides you with some food for thought, and ammunition against those who arrogantly claim that the Church is the world's biggest landowner or biggest financial institution. The Church is not the biggest land owner because there is no centralized Church to own the land. It is not the biggest financial institution because it is funded solely by donations from a people who by statistical majority are located in the Third World.
Educate yourself.