When Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu attacked the plutocrats the story ripped around the world.

The Archbishop of Canterbury quoted Karl Marks, and The Archbishop of York condemned the ‘bank robbers’. The archetypal story ticked all the boxes. Good stands firmly on the moral high ground and attacks evil. Evil is vanquished. The system is cleansed. Good – and in this case – God have triumphed. We all live happily.

The proverbial fly in the ointment is The Church of England’s financial arm – The Church Commissioners. They turned to currency hedging in 2007 to protect some of the churches £5.7 billion central assets. Effectively they were short-selling sterling in the currency markets – not to speculate against falling currencies for profit – but to guard the value of their funds. Whether preserving wealth or making money why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own?

The Church of England portfolio over the past decade has allowed their blessed fund managers to achieve an impressive 9.5 per cent average annual return on divine assets. The Church has an estimated annual income of £177 million and invests billions in property and shares. It invests hundreds of millions of pounds in oil and mining companies. It has benefited significantly from the speculation that has underpinned rising oil and commodity prices such as gold and copper.

With 123,000 acres of agricultural land worth £237 million and around 31% of its assets invested in property the lowly Church of England generates enormous income from land so what about the world’s largest private bank?

Listen Canon – If anyone can the Vati-can can

Asked how many people worked in the Vatican, Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) famously confessed: “About half, I think.”

The current Pope – Benedict XVI – perhaps aware of the general papal work ethic now offers corporate-style bonuses to Vatican employees deemed to be “doing a good job”. In his eyes “Dedication, correctness, professionalism and productivity” constitutes “doing a good job”. Ignoring correctness, these same qualities would feature in any job description on Wall Street or in The City.

In implementing a corporate bonus system, the Vatican is merely “moving with the times”. These are, after all, mercantile times. Does “moving with the times” also mean positively promoting contraception in developing countries? We digress.

The Vatican has $3 to $5 billion of shares handled by the cream of the global investment community. The Vatican has gold reserves and a huge property portfolio. Although St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel are priceless, the Vatican’s accountant valued The Vatican’s real estate portfolio at $908 million. A conservative valuation for the world’s most righteous buy-to-let landlord. The Vatican collects millions of euros in rent from thousands of properties not just in Rome but America, Italy and other parts of Europe.

The primary driver of the Vatican’s economic engine? Land.

God Given

Here are two different ideologies with one remarkable similarity: apart from the weekly collection plate and the odd bit of inheritance – the economic dynamo driving both (possibly all) religious organisations is rent. Appreciated land values and collected rents are reinvested allowing the staff – regardless of denomination – to exist and then practice religion.

As land is God given, rent, logically, must be a sacred payment. And who better to collect it than God’s own agencies you ask? But would the Big Man (or Woman) be happy in the knowledge that what he has provided has been privatised? And what would his or her reaction be on discovery that the money this gifted land generates happens to be arbitrarily invested in organisations – some of which are without a trace of moral decency?

Remember the wonderful words of The Archbishop of Cape Town: “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said: ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” Religious organisations: Spiritual yes – shrewd speculators – absolutely!

Intrinsically Linked

The church and the bankers need one another: they are intrinsically linked. To operate, the church needs the bankers. In return the bankers need the church to absolve the guilt and unbearable feelings associated with making massive sums off the back of the people who can least afford it. It’s where cash flow meets catharsis but at present neither invest ethically.

Because of the rotten structure on which The City is built, it will always pay lip service to an ethical approach and continue converting compliance into marketing. But given the substantial financial leverage of The Church of England and others all find themselves in a very interesting position. With their intrinsic moral values pious institutions could lead the way on ethical investment for the greater good. By accepting a slightly lower profit margin return they could utilise potent alternative investment strategies that would benefit humanity.

After all that speck of dust and the lump of wood were both by-products created by Jacob in his rent-free workshop. He was busy increasing the productivity of the economy and consequently the quality of people lives that he wouldn’t ever meet. That’s a miracle economy – it’s also good for the soul.

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