Anybody see the Pope? Pope Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church, a title he holds ex officio as Bishop of Rome, and Sovereign of the Vatican City has come to town. A seemingly very kind man he heads up the largest business in the world. It has more than 1.25 billion members worldwide.

Pope Francis also the head of what’s probably the wealthiest institution in the entire world. The Catholic Church’s global spending matches the annual revenues of the planet’s largest firms, and its assets—huge amounts of real estate, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Vatican City and some of the world’s greatest art. A 2012 investigation by the Economist, which offered a rough-and-ready estimate of $170 billion in annual spending, of which almost $150 billion is associated with church-affiliated hospitals and institutions of higher education. For comparison Apple had a worldwide revenue of $150 Billion in 2012.

What's fascinating is that America’s Catholic population is a religious minority but the most important for cash flow. So rather than using political clout to influence the shape of mainstream government institutions, as in an overwhelmingly Catholic country such as Brazil, the Catholic Church in the United States has created a parallel state: a vast web of schools, hospitals, universities, and charities that serve millions of clients.

Very impressive indeed...