Saintly distractions

[The_Reginator]

I feel a letter to the editor coming on – if I find the time.
The problem I’m having with it is a possible response to the accusation (that I often heard growing up as an Anglican) about the Vatican’s immense riches.

I’d be interested in some facts about the material riches of the Vatican and how much of that money, etc, is spent on charity.

The following is from a column by the lefty writer for the Ottawa Citizen (a somewhat right-wing newspaper). She was raised Catholic and maybe still considers herself to be one. I can’t remember.
She was “unnerved” at people’s behaviour at Brother Andre’s canonization.

From Saintly distractions

As a kid in the 1950s, I regularly went to St. Joseph’s Oratory …
And we’d walk the hall of miracles in childish reverence, oohing at the crutches and braces festooning the walls and aahing as we touched Brother Andre’s preserved heart.

Although the very thought grosses me out today, at the time it seemed pretty neat. I was a child.

So I was a little unnerved recently to see a reprise of this childish approach to spirituality played out by and for adults.

There they were, watching the cardiac tidbit go by and participating in a show of gold-plated pomp for a good, simple man known for his kindness – a man who would probably have disapproved of all the excessive foofaraw, from the rich clerical robes to the mass admission tickets to the brisk business in the on-site Oratory gift shop.

But business is business, …

She goes on from there to speak about the vast riches of the Church, including art at the Vatican. And, of course, she doesn’t miss the chance to elude to the sex scandals.

I could show where she makes a lot of mistakes, but I’m not sure of the remark about how the Church uses its riches.

 

[St_Francis]

The first to criticize riches being spent on worship of God was Judas:

St John 12: 2-8: *And they made him a supper there: and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that were at table with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? *

Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein. Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you; but me you have not always.

It is not the needy who should be the object of our actions but God Himself. We do things for God first. We do things for the needy *because *of our love for God, not *instead *of our love for God.

It has been said that if one took “all the riches” of the Vatican and sold them, there would be enough money to feed the hungry only for a few days. But the loss of the many things which give glory to God would be incalculable.

Better that the US presidents stop travelling in such expensive style and give that money to the poor than that we take what is rightfully due to God to use for what our little minds think is more important.