One of the most frequently heard complaints about the Catholic Church is its alleged “enormous wealth.” The general consensus among those critical of the Church is that, in the course of two millennia, the Holy See has accumulated enormous storehouses of treasure and is likely sitting on billions - if not trillions - of dollars’ worth of gold, jewels, property and art.

Now for a dose of reality courtesy of John Allen:

In the public’s imagination, the Vatican is awash in priceless art, hidden Nazi gold, plundered treasures from around the world, and vast assets tucked away from prying eyes in the Vatican Bank. Reality is far more prosaic. To put it bluntly, the Vatican is not rich. It has an annual operating budget of $260 million, which would not place it on any Top 500 list of major social institutions. To draw a comparison in the non-profit sector, Harvard University has an annual operating budget of a little over $1.3 billion, which means it could run the equivalent of five Vaticans every year and still have pocket change left over. The Holy See’s budget would qualify it as a mid-sized American Catholic college. It’s bigger than Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles (annual budget of $150 million) or Saint Louis University ($174 million), but substantially less than the University of Notre Dame ($500 million).

The total patrimony of the Holy See, meaning its property holdings (including some 30 buildings and 1,700 apartments in Rome), its investments, its stock portfolios and capital funds, and whatever it has storied up in a piggy bank for a rainy day, comes to roughly $770 million. This is substantial, but once again one has to apply a sense of scale. What the Holy See calls “patrimony” is roughly what American universities mean by an “endowment” – in other words, funds and other assets designed to support the institution if operating funds fall short. The University of Notre Dame has an endowment of $3.5 billion, meaning a total 4.5 times as great as the Vatican’s.

As for the art treasures, Allen points out that the Vatican doesn’t even regard these as fungible assets. Statues such as the Pieta are listed in the account ledgers as having a value of one Euro. In the Vatican’s eyes these art treasured belong the world - and yet the Holy See foots a budget-draining  bill for their housing, maintenance and restoration.

So what does all of this have to do with Carthage? Which Carthage are we talking about anyway?

I’m referring to Carthage, Tennessee - in which is located the palatial home (which, by the way, consumes five times more energy per month than the average American home) of Albert Gore, Jr., who is poised to become the world’s first carbon-offset billionaire.

Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.

The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr Gore. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, has claimed that Mr Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr Gore had said that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

Here at Manly’s Republic I refer to this bloated, hypocritical gasbag as Pope Albert the Pompous and, for all practical purposes, his home in Carthage is the Carbon Vatican, from which he presides over the First Church of Anthropegenic Global Warming.

I call it a church because, for many proponents of AGW, it has a become a sort of religion that is based more on faith in the speculation arising from very questionable scientific research than anything else. Dissent from the established orthodoxy is not tolerated and heretics, apostates and non-believers are dealth with both quickly and ferociously - and for good reason: their supreme pontiff stands to reap substantial profits from what is formally known as “crony capitalism,” a pernicious symbiosis between government and business where each benefits the other in ways never intended either in the spirit of the letter of the U.S. Constitution.

Almost all of the “green” energy industry - in this country especially - exists on this basis, for without the legislative and financial assistance of the federal government it would collapse and revert to its original status as a hodge-podge of scatterd cottage industries struggling to survive in the free market.

For this reason, most of the climate change research emanating from government-run or funded institutions is suspect: these researchers depend upon government grants and funding for their very existence. If the prevailing policy of the government accepts the premise that global warming is anthropogenic, the researchers will be pressured to produce evidence to that effect, lest they lose their financial support.

This research, in turn, is used as evidence to enact legislation and appropriations supportive of  “green” industries and punitive of mainstream fossil fuel energy industries. Those who have a vested interest in these industries will stand to reap incredible fortunes on investments that are made, for the most part, with taxpayers’ money. For their part, those in government who are colluding with these carbon neutral tycoons can use climate change legislation such as the Cap & Trade scheme to effectively seize control of the mainstream fossil fuel energy industry and, in so doing, effectively control the everyday lives of almost all Americans.

From Pope Albert’s perspective, of course, it makes perfect sense. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, he suffered a psychotic episode after losing the 2000 Presidential election to George W. Bush and has never fully recovered, in spite of his Oscar award, Emmy Award, Nobel Peace Prize and ever-growing fortune.

It is tempting to think that Albert the Pompous is doing all of this purely for the money, but that is only a small part of the reason. The driving force behind his global warming crusade has little to do with accumulating wealth and he couldn’t care less about saving the earth: even Pope Albert knows the catechism he preaches is a complete fabrication.

His singular motivation is revenge - against the American people for failing to elect him and against the United States because he was unable to be its President, an office for which he had been groomed since childhood. In his twisted mind, if he cannot be President of the United States then he will be a world leader who destroys it.

The one hitch in this entire scheme, of course, is the earth itself: facts are stubborn things and the fact remains that for the past decade the temperature of the planet has remained stable and is now actually beginning to drop. Winters - starting with this one - will become increasingly longer and colder while summers - like this past one - will be shorter and cooler.

There is also the problem of the increasing numbers of scientists who standing up to oppose the “settled science” with research that completely contradicts the “evidence.” Once numbering just a few, there are now thousands of them worldwide. They are all but ignored by the Drive-By media, of course, but their presence is keenly noted in the alternative media - including the Internet.

Couple these two realities with an electorate that is already on the verge of revolution in this country and it isn’t difficult to see that, at some point in time, Pope Albert will be forced to hole up in his Carthage Vatican and pray there are enough local law enforcement officials to prevent angry mobs from burning it to the ground.