A billion euros of contributions from tax returns, 650 million euros in wages for religious education teachers, 700 million euros for education and health subsidies, 250 million euros for financing Extraordinary Events. Every year, an enormous amount of money is transferred from the Italian state’s balance sheet and from local administrations to the Catholic Church. And then there are the cumulative tax benefits the Vatican is entitled to, currently under investigation by the European Union, such as: the state’s loss of income from taxes on property and revenue which the Church is exempt from, as well as tax exemption from tourism and commercial activities. For a grand total of 4 billion euros, approximately half Italy’s annual Budget, the equivalent of a bridge over the Messina Strait or a yearly Mose project to save Venice. As stated by the Italian Episcopal Conference itself, only one fifth of this overwhelming amount of money is designated to charity and social interventions. In a true reporter’s style, Curzio Maltese pieces together numbers and data, he fathoms documents, balance sheets and websites and gives voice to unthinkable sources, providing a surprising and stoic insight. It is not an attack on the Church as such, nor is it an anti-clerical outburst. It is an attempt to shed light on this little known and not always transparent reality that touches very sensitive areas of Italian democracy such as fiscal protocol, the correct management of public resources and the concept of a secular State. If it is true that important catholic intellectuals have spoken out against the “control, the centralism and excessive power that bureaucracy has within the Church”, then it is seemingly a reality that also causes a degree of unrest among the faithful.