The Catholic church is as big as any company in America

According to Wikipedia, there are 1.2 billion Catholics. So this is $143 per customer. Or putting less than $3 in the collection plate every Sunday.

Wow, that actually seems kinda low, even considering that a lot of Catholics live in places that aren't as prosperous as the US.

And it's really even less, because as the article notes, they have other sources of income like healthcare payments, investments, and tuition.

This is silly. It's combining local churches, individual universities, hospitals and other healthcare organizations which are all unrelated entities. The Church is not a single "corporation" organizationally or financially. The authors might as well have included the payrolls of all companies who's owners happen to be Catholic if they're going to just lump all "Catholic" things together.

A totally crap HN headline: the referenced article refers transitively to "The Catholic Church in America". More than a small difference. Even the Economist headline fails to identify the subject America — north, south, or both.

At least the The Economist has an article; Patheos has a less then a gloss. Check out the article in The Economist. Ignore the other feeble one.

Too bad I can't figure out how to diss this HN post. Reference the article directly, or at least offer a reference to a decent commentary thereon.

There's more than one "Catholic Church", kumarksi. Please try to discriminate somewhere below the planetary level in such matters.

You just wasted my time.