Catholicism’s multi-billion dollar brand is struggling despite Pope Francis

The Catholic church is one of the oldest and most profitable brands in history. Financial details are kept sketchy, but this vast multinational dwarfs any other. The Economist has estimated that, in 2010, spending by the US branch of the church and its various entities (probably the wealthiest and least opaque of the global organisation’s chapters) was $170 billion. Yet the church is beset by problems.