Foreign Correspondent: Mar 6

This week Foreign Correspondent‘s Eric Campbell takes a look at special privileges enjoyed by the Catholic Church in Italy.

As austerity falls like a winter blizzard across the nation Claudia and Leonardo Peruzzi are feeling the pinch. The young couple are something of a novelty in Italy, not simply because they have three children when the norm is to stop at one. The Peruzzis actually pay tax, and a fair whack at that. They work for foreign multi-nationals so their taxes are directly deducted.

Not far from the Peruzzis, effervescent barista and Café owner Francesco plays the tax regime a little more, well, Italian.

Both Francesco and the Peruzzi’s live and work in a city dominated by the architecture, iconography and sheer presence of the Catholic Church and as they struggle to pay their bills and get by, they’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable about the tax breaks and special privileges enjoyed by the Church.

Direct from a jaunt through the prosperity and optimism of Germany’s booming Bavarian region (A Bavarian Fairytale FC Feb 14) Foreign Correspondent’s Eric Campbell fires up the gothic candle, lifts the heavy latch and heads into the labyrinth of the Church’s coffers to examine if it has been playing things by the Book. Along the way he discovers evidence that all’s not above board and meets critics who say so, particularly when it comes to the Church’s extensive real estate holdings and hotel operations.

And while the Government has announced the Church will be captured by changes to the tax regime it’s not exactly a red-hot agenda item at the top of the to-do list.

8pm Tuesday ABC1.