Vatican Gold?

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Erin_m87

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Please forgive me as I am new to Catholicism but I am struggling with this issue. I am not sure how to defend the the Vatican and the Pope against accusations of hipocrasy. Many question why the church hoards so much gold? Why does the pope have a golden throne? When reading into this I found claims that the church also is very wealthy in real estate and the stock market. I would very much like to understand this better myself so that I can defend my faith to others. I have a lot of Protestant friends and family who think the Catholic church is very corrupt. I am still learning but feel uncomfortable asking this question in RCIA as I don’t want to offend anyone. I love the ways of the church and find a lot of peace here. But I need help with this.

Thank you.
 
First, the papal throne is not actually made of gold. It’s made of wood, with a tiny layer of gold leaf over it. Although genuine gold, gold leaf is SO thin that it is not very expensive at all. It will make something appear to be made out of solid gold. My parents have an antique chair and a curio cabinet that is entirely covered in gold leaf. Trust me, if it were expensive, it wouldn’t be in my parents’ very modest home.

As for the rest:

Matthew 26:6-13
Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,
a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of costly perfumed oil, and poured it on his head while he was reclining at table.
When the disciples saw this, they were indignant and said, “Why this waste?
It could have been sold for much, and the money given to the poor.”
Since Jesus knew this, he said to them, “Why do you make trouble for the woman? She has done a good thing for me.
The poor you will always have with you; but you will not always have me.
In pouring this perfumed oil upon my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.
Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be spoken of, in memory of her.”
  1. The Catholic Church always has been, and remains, the largest charitable organization on the planet, by a wide amount. Much of the Vatican’s wealth has been donated to it by the great artists of the world for the glorification of God. Even that art which has been commissioned by the Vatican was still done for the glorification of God, because as Christians, we realize that the things of this Earth are fleeting. We give our best to God, but in the end, money doesn’t really mean anything. It’s our relationship with God. Jesus is saying in the passage from Matthew above that one can honor God with fine things AND help the poor at the same time.
  2. The people actually living at the Vatican are not living a magnificent lifestyle. In fact, the pope’s apartment is quite modest. It consists of just ten rooms. The layout includes a vestibule, the library, a small studio for the papal secretary, and the pope’s private studio, from which he blesses the crowd every Sunday. The other rooms include the pope’s bedroom, the medical studio (which has surgical equipment, in case he’s attacked, just like Air Force One has), his private chapel, a small living room, a dining room and kitchen. Further, the pope does not actually own any of this. It’s no different than asking the question of whether the President of the United States lives in too much opulence because he gets to use the White House, Air Force One, Marine One, Camp David, and so on. All of these things serve a purpose, and NONE belong to him. They belong to the people, which let him use it.
  3. The Vatican also serves as a museum for many of the world’s great treasures. As such, it protects them in museums. In reality, these objects have no objective value, because they cannot be sold. For example, let’s say the Vatican was to give up all of it’s wealth. How, precisely, would you sell off the Sistine Chapel? Is there really anything else you can do with it? You can’t give it to a private collector, or build a Starbucks, or something. That said, let’s do an experiment. Let’s say that the art that it WOULD be possible to sell at the Vatican is worth, say, a trillion dollars. That would indeed be a large sum of money. Now, let’s sell it all and donate the money to the poorest one-third of the world. The Catholic Church would then be able to give those two billion people exactly… $500. That’s it! Now, while the average income of those 2 billion impoverished people is around $300 per year, and while this would help them for a very short time, in about a half a decade, they would all likely go right back to being poor, and the world would have lost access to many of the world’s greatest treasures, as they’d be in private hands. Is the United States of America fabulously wealthy because it has the treasures of the Smithsonian Institution? I mean, wouldn’t it be better if they sold off all of those artifacts and donated the money to the poor? Of course not.
continued…
 
  1. The Vatican, like many great churches, dates to the late Middle Ages / early Renaissance. A cathedral was actually one of the best investments a medieval town could make. Despite their great expense, a large cathedral could take hundreds of years to complete. It could become an industry unto itself. Large cathedrals employed thousands, and generated huge amounts of highly skilled jobs… jobs that were sorely lacking in the period. When the cathedral was complete, they would still need to be maintained, so many workmen would still remain. The pilgrims that would come to visit the cathedral needed to be fed, clothed, and housed, and this provided a virtual tourism industry, bringing in much needed revenue to both the church and the community. Churches were also the only medieval centers of learning, and every major university in Europe split off from a cathedral. If you had a cathedral school in your town, opportunities for trade would skyrocket, since learning about math, geography, cartography, astronomy, business, and law was all required by merchants. Further, most towns only even needed to have one large church, since there were no denominations. Everyone was Catholic, so all the effort could go into one splendid building rather than many smaller ones. Almost all medieval cities with a cathedral were FAR better off than their counterparts without them. This is why the cathedral is often called the greatest innovation of the Middle Ages.
  2. There is an old legend (which is probably true) that in the late 10th century Grand Prince Vladimir, seeking a national religion to help unify his lands and peoples, sent out envoys to inspect the various faiths of the surrounding nations. Accordingly, they attended the Muslim rites of the Bulgars, the Catholic mass of the Germans, and the Orthodox liturgy of the Greeks. When they returned and were questioned by their Prince as to which of the religions they thought the best, they answered boldly that whereas they found neither joy nor glory in the ceremonies of the Bulgars and the Germans, when they entered the sanctuary of the Greeks, they did not know whether they were in heaven or on earth. “For on earth,” they explained, “there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty” (the Primary Chronicle). Vladimir accepted their testimony, and the Russian Orthodox Church (which in 1988 celebrated its Millennium) was born.
That idea of splendor, awe, and the sacred (more successfully accomplished by the Orthodox in the story above since Germany was a backwater at the time) is what is trying to be captured at the Vatican. If you come away with “it’s almost as if God is dwelling among men” at the Vatican, then you got the point.

By the way, have you ever noticed how the Orthodox Church NEVER receives this same question, and yet has churches equal in opulence to the Catholic Church (and in many cases, more opulent)?
 
  1. You also have to realize that much of the church’s money in real estate is in church buildings located in prime locations. How much do you think the land is worth that Vatican City happens to stand on? It’s in the middle of one of the most expensive cities in the world. What about Notre Dame cathedral, etc…? This is where much of that “wealth” comes from, but realistically, it’s unsellable because of the landmarks on top of it.
 
Also you can’t fault the church for having some money. It has to operate globally so really if that got a few quid banked away no one should care.
 
Erin_m87 said:
Please forgive me as I am new to Catholicism but I am struggling with this issue. I am not sure how to defend the the Vatican and the Pope against accusations of hipocrasy. Many question why the church hoards so much gold? Why does the pope have a golden throne? When reading into this I found claims that the church also is very wealthy in real estate and the stock market. I would very much like to understand this better myself so that I can defend my faith to others. I have a lot of Protestant friends and family who think the Catholic church is very corrupt. I am still learning but feel uncomfortable asking this question in RCIA as I don’t want to offend anyone. I love the ways of the church and find a lot of peace here. But I need help with this.

Thank you.
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First of all, the claims you mention are very imprecise. For example, what does “very wealthy” mean? It might be that someone extremely poor will consider the ones making the charges “very wealthy” as well.

Second, you should make sure that the claims are accurate. Where do the numbers come from? After all, such claims are not unknown to be simply false. Not just claims about the Church. For example, I have heard many rumors that in the building of Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) the toilets are made of gold. Well, actually I have visited the building once and have noticed that the toilets are not simply not golden, but that they are in a rather sorry state and need repairs… Many of such claims about the Church are likewise simply false.

Third, remember the scale. The Church is not just the Pope alone. Thus it would be misleading to compare the wealth of the Church with your own wealth.

Fourth… Well, actually, many other points have been covered by Rolltide and there is no need to repeat all that.
 
Rolltide had made great points. 🙂
Thanks. Now, I can have some answers to counter the anti-Catholics on FaceBook who have been whining about this issue.
 
Another interesting point, on a practical level. Let’s say that the Vatican DID try and sell all of its art. If it sold it all at once, it would flood the market and the art would only be worth pennies on the dollar, since there would be few institutions or people wealthy enough to purchase it all. The money wouldn’t make as much of a difference as you would think. If they sold it off just a few pieces at a time, it would still not generate enough revenue to make much of a difference. The revenue brought in from the Vatican museums and traveling exhibitions probably brings in more money for charity than selling it, to be honest.
 
Rolltide has made some great points. I would like to suggest someting that is not related to money. I always say that the beautiful art that the church has is for all of us. We get to enjoy it, it enriches us both esthetically and spiritually. Art is not just decorative but has a spiritual value as well. It can inspire us to prayer and greater devotion to God. All that beautiy belongs to us, it is a part of our heritage. Should the church sell it and deprive millions of people of it? (I guess someone with an utilitarian worldview and no need for beauty would think so, but I find it useless to argue with such people.)
 
Treasures of the Church exist for the benefit of the people and to make a statement about our values. Western civilization once placed faith at the center of our priorities and demonstrated that priority by how we spent money on art, architecture, and public gathering spaces.

Human communities STILL demonstrate their priorities that way. It’s just that today our priorities are demonstrated in the latest $350 million Hollywood shootemup and soft porn flicks and $500 million football stadiums built to replace the 20 year old $135M stadium that wasn’t fancy enough anymore.

When you view it through that lens, it’s pretty clear that things have NOT improved! The Vatican’s entire annual operating budget is substantially less than Harvard university’s is.
 
I’ve heard it described this way:

If the Church’s MOVABLE treasures accumulated over 2,000 years were sold to feed the world’s poor,
it would feed the poor for one day ! :bigyikes:

Then what, genius ? :mad:
 
If we did sell it all, how would it get to the poor. The Church would have to create some sort of World Wide institute to make sure it got to the poor and not in the hands of the greedy leaders of the third world.
 
empther said:
I’ve heard it described this way:

If the Church’s MOVABLE treasures accumulated over 2,000 years were sold to feed the world’s poor,
it would feed the poor for one day ! :bigyikes:

Then what, genius ? :mad:
Click to expand...
After that, the anti-Catholics would still be complaining about it.
 
Sometimes gold comes in handy.
When the Germans took over Italy during WW2 demanded the Jews of Rome cough up some huge amount (100 pounds? I forget) of gold. The Vatican came to their aid by melting down sacred vessels (chalices, ciboria).

Also, there’s a confusion in referring to “the Church’s” wealth. The Vatican’s basic endowment, its working capital, is around three billion US dollars. Compare that to thirty billion for Harvard. Likewise there is no “the Church”. There is the Holy See, hundreds of dioceses, thousands of parishes, scores of religious orders and institutes, &c each with its own finances.

All of these entities own property bit they require income to support.
 
If we did sell it all, how would it get to the poor. The Church would have to create some sort of World Wide institute to make sure it got to the poor and not in the hands of the greedy leaders of the third world.
Click to expand...
So you have this poor lonely woman starving to death in a village in Northern India fifty miles from the closest paved road. To get her one day quota of free food to her you have to rent a four wheel vehicle and drive through fifty miles of fields and forests.

Cost of food: two dollars.
Cost to get food to the poor woman: one hundred dollars.

People who talk about selling Church treasures to feed the world’s poor are dummies.
 
Offensive remarks and criticism about Church wealth often stem from ignorance or jealousy. True, the old cathedrals of the Catholic Church are very ornate, and are higly decorated by artworks which are now worth a lot in gold or currency. But let us not forget that the Catholic Church interpreted the Scriptures correctly regarding the use of pictures and graven images. Other Christian denominations, on the contrary, misread the Scriptures, and thought that the use of graven images was forbidden. As a result, their church buildings tend to be very plain and lacked the contribution of history’s great artists.
 
Read this from an internet article:

Of course, these figures (Vatican assets) don’t include the value of masterpieces of Western art housed in the Vatican, such as Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” The Vatican considers itself custodians of these items, not their owners, and it’s a matter of Vatican law that they can never be sold or borrowed against. Allen neglects to mention that this is due to a treaty with the Italian government. The Vatican is permitted its sovereignty, but only within certain boundaries. In fact, the European Union would make it impossible for the Church to sell these goods–they are seen as part of the Italian people’s patrimony. As a result, they have no practical value and are listed on the Vatican books at a value of 1 euro each.

My Commentary:
The Vatican’s ability and right to sell the art is a myth. Whether the Vatican wants or doesn’t want to sell the works, like the Pietà or Raphael’s paintings, is not an option. The Italian government, in line with the Lateran Treaty, insists that the works belong to the citizens of the Italian Republic and that the Vatican is just custodian. Can you imagine the reaction of the Italian government if the Vatican had a yard sale and sold Michelangelo’s the Pietà to a private collector? Moreover, Vatican City has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (United Nations) with emergencies measures and powers to protect it in case of war - because the entire city is one big collection of world heritage objects of history, art and architecture. The Vatican is answerable to this. Moreover, hoards of people come each day to see and enjoy this for nothing or virtual pennies. No one pays a penny to see the Pietà or Bernini’s baldacchino, etc. Who enjoys it in a private collection?
 
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