Triads. And while Vice I'm sure also covers it, you can find it originally making an appearance in Shadowrun in the Underworld Sourcebook. I've seen it movies and other pop culture before that.

Information on the Vatican's actual finances is difficult, since the Holy See doesn't release such data and it has issues with conspiracy theorists that like to have it behind everything that's ever happened, but, it's known to be sitting on a vast, vast pile of wealth. Yes, they have priceless artwork, but it doesn't really count since it can't be liquidated, but the gold reserves are enormous and, in the modern world, it's a major investor in real estate, insurance, banking, industrial supplies, and construction. It has somewhere in the realm of 10-15 billion in active, invested funds (About 5% of what a triple-A runs), but several assets are difficult to track down. It's known to control about $1.6 billion in the Italian stock market, for instance, which is fully 15% of the market's value, and is equally as heavily invested in US stocks, though this is, obviously, a smaller percentage. The Boston archdiocese has around $630 million in assets, for instance, and while it's one of the wealthier areas in the US, it's not the wealthiest... there are 28 archdiocese and 128 regular diocese in the US.

You can find investments in General Motors, IBM, Bethlehem Steel, Gulf Oil, SHell, General Electric ... the list goes on and on. Lemme grab a quick quote here:

""Some idea of the real estate and other forms of wealth controlled by the Catholic church may be gathered by the remark of a member of the New York Catholic Conference, namely 'that his church probably ranks second only to the United States Government in total annual purchase.' Another statement, made by a nationally syndicated Catholic priest, perhaps is even more telling. 'The Catholic church,' he said, 'must be the biggest corporation in the United States. We have a branch office in every neighborhood. Our assets and real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T., and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members must be second only to the tax rolls of the United States Government.'"

Note that the name of said preist isn't listed, so, take with a grain of salt ... once again, there are a LOT of rumors and urban legends about the church and it's easy to get lost in the haze. Income from parishoners has been down for several years in a row, with some listing a budget shortfall of about $100-150 million a year for the past few, but remember that, as a 1500 year old organization, they plan for the long run, not the short run.

In terms of gaming, you can go with any type of organization that you want, of course. Female priests, vast underground conspiracy, bug-fighting exorcists, nuns with guns blasting through Yakuza soldiers in bullet time, nice old guys that raise Ork orphans and quietly wish the world wasn't so dark so try to be a small candle... your options are wide open.

Yes, it's the Triads, also, apparently they figured this trick out after a joint work between Wuxing and Aztechnology in the Nicaragua Canal.
Can't for the love of $Deity$ remember where you can find this, but Aztechnology was having some problems with local spirits disturbing the construction of the Nicaragua Canal and they called in the expertise of Wuxing on Geomancy. Apparently there was some exchange of magical knowledge between them, with Wuxing learning some Blood Magic rituals and Aztechnology learning some Feng Shui rituals (who ended up wining is to everyone's guesses).

Here is a different way to look at it. Rather than compare the RCC to the mega’s compare it to the remaining nations in the world. With the balkanization that occurred in the SR universe the RCC is very probably on an equal footing with the remaining “1st world’ nations in wealth and influence. In sheer military might the 1st world nations still outclass it but then they also outclass all the meg’s as well. Just a different way to look at the RCC in the modern SR world.

Good thing I didn't claim that, or anything remotely like that!

Thanks!

I'm certainly not saying the church is poor. However, the claim was made that they have the sort of wealth that only Great Dragons could hope for. Now, if that's how you want it in your world, GO FOR IT. Go the full Dan Brown if you like. My discussions here are limited to a more 'realistic' view (note the inverted commas before objecting there, please).

What I am saying is that most of the wealth of the church is inaccessible. If it liquidated its holding it would make a lot of money... but if it did that, it wouldn't be the church any more. HAVING that stuff is worth more to them than the money they'd make by selling it. Yes, if the church got into financial straits, it might sell them to stay afloat -- but I can't see them auctioning off a Michelangelo to fund a black ops team.

I'll still come down to this: the church has land and it has people. As pointed out, most of its adherents aren't zealous, but they are numerous and widespread (and I strongly suspect that, with the church being a lot smaller than it used to, the percentage of zealous members is higher than it was). That, and goodwill. This was blown to some extent after the Awakening, but they've had nearly 60 years to earn that back. In the real world, until the sex scandal broke, a priest was someone you could trust absolutely (to most of the community, anyway -- even most non-Catholics). That's a powerful asset right there. If the Church has managed to keep itself relatively clean, it might have won a lot of that back.

So, play the church however you like. I'm not saying you can't have Vatican SWAT troopers dual-wielding machineguns via augmentations paid for by the secret Vatican reserves. I'm saying that this is a way to distinguish the RCC from merely another megacorp-level player -- they do things differently. I personally think that's more fun, and that different ways of doing things are always worth introducing into a discussion.

In a rare show of my love for gonzo role-playing, in my games the Vatican is a mover and shaker. Comparable to an A level corporation, with a lot of support rolling in from believers. Some of it is monetary, much more of it comes in other forms. Intelligence from believers, stock tips and insider trading data from believers. They exercise a subtle power over the psyche.

It's a lot easier for me to look at it in the way the Vatican operated during the World War II and Cold War era. And yeah in my game they have Vatican sanctioned killers, but like the Ghost's or the Red Samurai in my game they only show up when you've really stuck your dick in the door and slammed it. In my own games if you run across a team of professionals like that, it's pretty likely you're screwed.

But then few of our characters end up being prime runners.

I suppose I could have gone with a shorter version:

The Church is wealthy, but has very little liquidity.

Not sure if this is relevant, but it points to the Vatican having alittle walking around money.

http://www.cai.org/bible-studies/vatican-billions

Given the other links on that site (which seems to be run by the "British Israel" crowd, where's me phrenology gear?) and the bibliography of Mr. Manhattan, I'd take that site with a planet-sized grain of salt (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I should hope so, as I said, its relevancy is very suspect.

The concept of magic-backed triad initiation oaths has been around at least since the 2nd ed. Underworld and Mob War books.

In our games the church also has the Order of St. Joan- technically an order of nuns dedicated to Jean D'arc. They are all agents, deckers, psy-ads, samurai or mages.

the Chruch has 3 major advantages over any corp which makes up for the smaller scale it operates on.
1) It doesn't need to focus on profit so it doesn't have warehouses/shipments/product secrets to guard
2) It's devote are motivated by more than loyalty to the corp and paycheck. I mean Renraku can't talk about rewarding you in the hereafter.
3) It's been around millenia so it has much deeper roots and secrets and is use to keeping them.

This does make me wonder if the church has gotten back in to the talislegging business under the guise of selling indulgences and relics, they may work a lot better in 2070 than they did in 950 too

Now that is an idea. Are the relics being embued by the belief of the RCC or are they simply pulling this stuff out of vaults?

an interestingh idea, some relics might becoem real power focus' when the awakening comes, other don't. That can lead to whole sets of questions-is it real? was it stolen? was it ever real (like portions of the real cross) or maybe the story was never true to begin with so there was no power to it. Even better how does the church respond if relics of discarded Saints suddenly have power? There could be all sorts of runs a la Dan Brown books to find or hide truth or find/steal/replace relics

oh my, so you think Catholics will start worshiping body parts again? Would be interesting to have a Catholic mage pulling out a leg bone when its time to do his thing.

You may find it far less interesting when the Sylvesterine Mage uses the Tarsal Bones of St. Stephen the Martyr to hurl an Elemental Stone attack your direction (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

Things do not turn into foci spontaneously by being exposed to magic, see the discussion about the "Fleshfinder". No magic bones, sorry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Some saints could of course have awakened during a mana spike and somehow subconsciously have crafted a focus, so a saint's possessions could indeed have some magic...

Whose Discussion? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
And how do we know that they did not have power (however minor it may have been) before magic returned?

Maybe the bones were made into foci when the Church still believed in magic, not long after they pulled the dead bodies of the saints apart to sell off as relics to local churches around Europe...

This could be fun (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Who knows if they even had the right bones, in a lot of cases the Bones / Bodies were looted from Crypts in the Middle East centuries later during the Crusades and others are just outright fakes taken from local cemeteries, belonging just as easily to John the old farmer from down the road as to John the Baptist. So there may well be a few legitimate artifacts and an awful lot of counterfeits purporting to be the same relic. There is a lot of treasure hunt type run potential here I think.

This of course could lead to the focus: Morning Star of Mother Teresa (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You could have a scandal around a relic thought to be authentic, that just won't turn magical, to great disappointment of the locals. Or perhaps even attempts to artificially enchant it, and another's attempt to expose the deception...

Sounds like Cadfael Goes Cyberpunk (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Or how does this grab you for a plot hook: Your regular Talislegger ask you for a favor, track down the guy that sold him a load of bogus Catholic Relics and get his money back, only to find out the perpetrator is actually a Templar raising money for a much larger operation, and guess what chummer you're along for the ride now.