I was surprised at the Steve's quote saying that the Catholic Church has $29 billion in gold, and did a little digging. According to
Yahoo Answers the correct figure should be 29bn Italian Lira - around USD13 million. What's more - it's deposit money held against liabilities by the Vatican's bank, so not actually church money. Apparently the Vatican's actual assets are around USD1 billion, not insubstantial, but nowhere near what Steve suggests here.