**Economic justice is a big theme in this synod, and you come from the world’s poorest continent. Recently an American comedian did a bit on the Vatican, asking if the pope really cares about the poor, why doesn’t he sell the Vatican and move into a more humble dwelling? Do you ever hear that, and how would you respond? **
First, it would depend who is telling me that. If that person is from Europe or America, I can suggest a few other things that they could sell to help the poor. I would tell them to start there first, before coming to the Vatican. But if any person from our own poor countries were to say such a thing, and I hardly see that happening … the few poor people who come here have never said, ‘Oh, why don’t they sell this and give us money for food?’ They always say, ‘What a beautiful place.’ They admire it. Maybe it’s because man does not live by bread alone. It helps them to see how great our God is, and they’re not expecting the Vatican to sell it off. Anyway, to whom? Who would buy it, and what would it cost? The joke [from the comedian] isn’t only offensive and in bad taste, it’s stupid.
What they should be asking is, what is the Vatican doing about poverty in the world? That’s the question to be asked. If you’ve ever come up to see the pope’s apartment, it is very straight-forward and simple. This isn’t just his house, it’s not just his mansion. As you know, the whole building has all the offices, the Secretariat of State, the Vatican Museums which occupies a whole lot of space, all that. It’s like your White House isn’t just the bedroom of Obama. Maybe if there were no Vatican, the pope would still need to build a house for himself and his offices. It would not be built like this, because I don’t know that modern architects have the same kind of spirit as those who designed this, but that’s another question.
The answer I would give is that poverty in the world has to be dealt with by justice. All these big structures, all those unjust economic structures in the world, those are the things to move so that the poor can survive. I think we know that sadness and the tragedy of it, and we know what to do. It can be done, and it can be done without reducing everybody to the same lowest common denominator of misery. What we don’t have is the political, and I would say spiritual, will to do it. Will it come? I don’t know (
source).
