By | Associated Press – 12 hrs ago
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Associated Press - This is a 1962 photo showing train carriages inside St. Peter's train station in the Vatican, whose tracks connect to Italy's rail system. There's a little-known open secret in the Vatican
VATICAN CITY (AP) —
Anyone left on your Christmas list just aching for a 65-inch Samsung 3D
flat-screen television? Just your luck. The Vatican's duty-free department store
has one on sale for €2,899 ($3,840) — a nifty savings over the €3,799
($5,032) it costs at Italy's main electronics chain Euronics.
Or how about some new luggage for
the holidays? The Vatican shop stocks a variety of Samsonite Cordoba
Duo carry-ons for €123, a nice markdown from the €135 on the Samsonite
website. But if a last-minute shopping splurge is in order, the Vatican
can also oblige: Take this leather-bound travelling trunk from
Florence's "The Bridge" leatherworks, with its five drawers, plaid
interior, six wooden hangars and shiny brass buckles.
At €5,900, it comes with a matching leather golf club bag, just what every monsignor needs under his Christmas tree.
There's a little-known open secret in the Vatican gardens, a few
paces behind St. Peter's Basilica and tucked inside the Vatican's old
train station: a sprawling, three-story tax-free department store that
rivals any airport duty free or military PX, stocking everything from
Church's custom grade shoes (€483 a pair) to Baume et Mercier watches
(ladies €1,585, men's Capeland €5,000).
There's a hitch, however. It's
not open to the public, only to Vatican citizens, employees and their
dependents, diplomats accredited to the Holy See and (unofficially)
their lucky friends who, after stocking up on holiday must-haves,
proceed to the checkout with their Vatican connection and the ID card
that entitles them to shop there.
To be sure, Rome is no stranger to tax-free shopping. Embassies,
nearby military bases and the U.N. food agencies all have commissaries
for their employees, where imports of everything from American ice cream
to French wine can be had minus the 21 percent sales tax included in
list prices in Italy.The Vatican has that and more, given that it's its own sovereign state — the world's smallest — operating in central Rome. At 44 hectares (110 acres), the Vatican city state is the physical home of the Holy See: the pope and governing structure and administration of the Catholic Church.
The Vatican Museums, home of
Sistine Chapel, are the main profit-making enterprise of the Vatican
city state, bringing in €91.3 million in revenue last year alone. But
other smaller entrepreneurial endeavors boost the Vatican's coffers as
well, including the department store, the tax-free gas station, the stamp and coin collecting office, the Vatican pharmacy and its supermarket.
And in these days of austerity, their profits and bottom line are ever more important to the Vatican.
The Vatican is entitled to run
such tax-free enterprises inside its walls based on the Lateran Treaty,
the 1929 pact that regularized and regulates the Vatican's relations
with Italy. But those regulations also limit the Vatican's customer
base, lest all of Rome descend on the supermarket to stock up on
Gordon's Gin (€8.50 a liter compared to the €15 it can run in nearby
liquor stores) or Montecristo No. 3 Cuban cigars (box of 25 €84
($110.95) compared to $164.95 on www.bestcigarprices.com).
About 4,700 people are employed
by the Holy See and the Vatican city state; the Vatican's diplomatic
corps — the Holy See has relations with some 175 countries — adds
another chunk to the customer base.
Few people outside Rome know the department store exists — there's no
evidence of it on any Vatican website, no photos of its wares, no
advertising outside the Vatican walls. Those who do know it exists seem
to want to pretend it doesn't since the high-end luxury items on sale
aren't necessarily in tune with either the sobriety or the salaries of
the Vatican rank-and-file.
In fact, on a recent Thursday
morning, nary a collar nor religious habit was in sight as ordinary lay
folk milled around the spacious store during December's "extraordinary
opening hours" — extended to accommodate bargain-hunting Christmas
shoppers who were rewarded with a wine tasting in the central atrium and
piles of Brooks Brothers non-iron shirts and Burberry backpacks to
choose from.
"More than the prices, it's the
material," said Luciano, a bulky Roman, who refused to give his last
name as he shopped for an overcoat with his wife and an obliging Vatican
friend waiting at checkout. "This one I don't like — I look like a
priest," he muttered as he put the navy blue trench coat back on a
hangar.
Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the American who sought to bring some order
into the Vatican's finances as head of the Vatican city state, is
credited with having made the department store what it is today, moving
it into the Vatican's underused train station, a miniature version of
Washington's Union station with a sweeping double staircase and
glass-front window that frames the dome of St. Peter's a few meters
(yards) away.Szoka said he moved it from the basement of the Vatican government building to the train station for more space, since the station wasn't used anymore for passengers and provided the perfect, airy open space that a shop of its kind would require.
"Our principal motivation in
changing the train station building into a department store was mainly
for the convenience of our employees, as well as for those who could
come into the Vatican and shop there," he said in an email from his home
in Michigan. "Naturally, we expected a profit, but that was not the
primary motivation."
Szoka retired in 2006, well before the global economic crisis hit.
The current leadership of the "Governorato" as the city state
administration is called, recently asked all department heads to come up
with cost-saving or profit-making initiatives to help the Vatican get
through the tough times."Any good administrator wants to save what can be saved," said Monsignor Giuseppe Sciacca, the governorato's No. 2. "It seems obvious, necessary."
The Philatelic and Numismatic Office, for example, recently started selling a special limited-edition stamp to help pay for the €14 million restoration of the Bernini colonnade in St. Peter's Square after corporate sponsorship dried up amid the recession.
Vatican Radio announced in July
it would be saving "hundreds of thousands of euros" in energy costs by
stopping short -and -medium-wave broadcasts to Europe and the Americas,
using other technologies instead.
Perhaps even more than the
department store, the Vatican supermarket is a much-sought after perk
for Vatican employees, and a boost to the Vatican's bottom line. And at
Christmastime, it is as jammed as the department store, with lines
snaking through the store and cars taking up valuable parking spaces
inside Vatican City
as shoppers pile their carts high with panettone, the traditional
Italian Christmas cake which is the de rigueur gift for Italian holiday
parties. Panettone can run €25 a pop at Roman bakeries; in the Vatican
supermarket, a high-end brand runs almost half that.
"The Nutella is just better here," said Maria Grazia Mancini, a Rome
municipal worker who was doing a major pre-Christmas shop with her
father, a Vatican employee. "The products here are for export — the same
brands but for export, so it's better quality."While Sciacca is only too pleased to see the Vatican saving money where it can be saved and making it where it can be made, he was adamant that there are no plans to expand the customer base of the Vatican's little-known discount stores. Accords with Italy don't allow it.
"We shouldn't. And we can't," he said.
He spoke on the sidelines of the
presentation of the Vatican's 2012 nativity scene, being unveiled Monday
night and donated for the first time. The Vatican happily accepted the
donated creche from the Italian region of Basilicata after its €550,000
Christmas setup in 2009 was exposed earlier this year during the scandal
over leaked Vatican documents.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
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