What happened to the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church accumulated over the ages?

Throughout the ages, most of the income of Roman Catholic Church has been spent, of course. Expenses tend to equal income.

The total wealth owned by the Roman Catholic Church must be immense, but who owns how much of it?

What persons and institutions have their names on the deeds to thousands and thousands of pieces of Roman Catholic Church real estate, financial investments, etc. around the world?

Is a parish church owned by the parishioners, by the parish priests while they are stationed there, by the diocese, by the archdiochese, or by the Vatican itself?

Where does the income to maintain a parish church facility come from, and where does any profit from that income go?

Is the Roman Catholic Church a single institution with countless thousands of sources of income and expense, or is it a group institution that includes many thousands of smaller institutions each with a few sources of income and expense?

I suspect that the OP imagines that the Pope and Vatican officials own or control all the wealth, property, income (and expenses) of all Roman Catholic Church institutions, and I suspect that in reality ownership and control tend to be somewhat more decentralized. And I suspect he forgets that income and expenses are usually approximately equal.

the Church is not a company, the pope is not the CEO. Every parish and diocese is a juridic entity in canon law and often in civil law. The same for every religious order. Administratively they are all independent.

Many dioceses have more patrimony than the Holy See. The Diocese of Rome itself has a much larger patrimony, personal, and budget than the Holy See (yes, the Holy See is juridically and administratively separated from the Diocese of Rome, even if the pope directly heads both. The Vatican City State is also a different entity.)

National Episcopal Conferences are not owners of dioceses, and are not even 'superiors' except in some very limited roles.

In Brazil, some people are amazed that the Catholic Universities are completely independent of each other. They belong to foundations, somewhat controlled by the respective dioceses, and there is not a "National Administration of Catholic Universities" or some entity which owns and controls all.

these facts have very strong theological foundations in catholic ecclesiology and the relevant role of dioceses and bishops.

Other important factor is that patrimony and income are different from profit, there are large costs involved in running schools or hospitals, etc., even in keeping the church running: personal, buildings, etc.

Another good example is when the english king expropriated the Templar Order. Yes, they had a lot of land, and a lot of income. But proportionally very little stored money, because most of the income were spent to support both the military and the charitable activities of the order. In some instances the king representatives were amazed that inside a large castle there were only very old furniture, usable, in good state, but not of great value if sold [Daniel Rops book, I think]. So the king was very disappointed. Many examples like this exist, where the expropriating king expected to hit the jackpot just to be disappointed.

Some parishes publish financial statements. this is what I remember from the year 2001, from a church in Campinas, SP, Brazil. I used to go to mass there. the building: neo-gothic church, fits hundreds of people inside, 2 tower façade. I do not remember the numbers exactly, but approximately, as they were more or less the same every month.

Total monthly budget: R$ 15K (may be around US$ 4k at that time) half of the income were donations, but they also had rent from parish property. I think they were the landlords of a bakery and something else.

• support for the diocese: RS 1k
• support for nuns convent: RS 3K
• priest salary: RS 1.5 (the same as my master degree scholarship, so you can see how little it is. But he could live at the church)
• saving to pay for scheduled building renovation: RS 3k
• light, water, internet: R$ 3K
• liturgical expenses: R$ 2k
• paying other bills, random expenses: RS 500
• charity to the poor: R$ 1k
• and this month we could not save nothing and still have charity to do! please help!

the priest would really write a line like the last one at the end of the financial statement published inside the church

as you can see, more than 90% of the income is spent locally (the convent is exactly across street from the church, and the nuns did much work for the parish). The diocese gets only a small part. The Holy See gets a even smaller contribution from the dioceses: last time I checked the Holy See budget was a few hundreds of million dollars - with 2000 employees this is not much.

In short, what happened with the local wealth of the church is a question that can only be answered locally.

Money can be spent, as other answers pointed, but the wealth of the Church was mostly as real property - land were money came from - , and those property couldn't be alienated (mortmain). That wealth made the Church the biggest landowner in most places until it was confiscated - an irregular process that took place in different countries at different moments. A non exhaustive list:

• In England, most of Church wealth was confiscated in the dissolution of the monasteries. Other protestant countries had similar processes by the reformation.
• In the Austrian Empire, Josep II confiscated a lot of monasteries in 1780-1790.
• In France, the properties of the Church became biens nationaux in 1789.
• In Spain, there were a series of ecclesiastical confiscations in the 19th century, mainly in 1836-37 and 1855.