posted on Aug, 13 2006 @ 07:28 AM
Where I live, Almada, there are maybe 6 or 7 churches that belong to the Almada parish.
In Portugal there are 4353 parishes. Thats a lot of churches.
Some parishes have more churches than others. In the country the parishes are usually bigger in area but they have more churches separated by all the
small villages that belong to those parishes.
Also, the Portuguese Catholic Church has 82 institutions (associations, movements, etc.), 593 media related organisations (news papers, magazines,
bulletins, radios, publishers, printers, book shops, etc.) and 200 schools (including one university with five branches).
All those things cost money, but almost all those things are money sources.
If you think that the Catholic Church is spread all over the World and all Catholic churches are "branches" of the Vatican, you can see that
the Vatican has many sources of money and other valuable things.
Also, the Catholic Church is a great land owner in some countries, and, at least in Portugal and I supposed in other countries, has a special position
regarding taxes.