C
Crumpy
Guest
I tried to send a personal message to the author of the question in Ask An Apologist about whether the wealth of the Vatican should be sold off for the benefit of the poor.
I was unable to send the message, so I am posting my reply to that question here:
Doing what your “friend” suggests would put the Vatican out of “business” so to speak. Is that what he or she wants? Are you sure? Why would you want to do that?
The Vatican has a lot of inspirational art and it has large collections of documents that are helpful to understand Catholicism, particularly its history and its beliefs.
If you were at all familiar with the Old Testament, you would see that many material items were required for the Temple and the people who worked there.
One would really have to be very malicious to want to destroy the heritage of the Church.
Your entire suggestion takes God out of the picture, as well. Do you want to destroy all the churches in the world, for the same reason, to serve the poor? I don’t think that even the poor would want that. Where would they pray, and why would they believe, if mankind had destroyed all the inspirational places for prayer?
There’s a lot more money in the world than what’s in the Vatican, for example. And, as a matter of fact, the Vatican does spend a some of its income for emergency aid. It has other missions to address besides that one.
Certainly you and your “friend” must agree that the world spends WAY too much on weapons and fighting, and that THAT is where the world’s wealth is wasted much, much more than at the 104 acres of the Vatican.
In the order of things, the wealth of the Vatican, its cultural
heritage, is the LAST thing you should want to get rid of, off the face of the earth. Let’s start with all the video games and music CD’s and pornography and money wasted on illegal drugs. Those are things that should be sacrificed FIRST for the benefit of the poor; they are an insult to the poor, the Vatican is not.
Yet, even in our Christian faith, and certainly from science, too, if you pay attention to the History Channel and Nat Geo channels, that the earth and everything in it, even the Vatican, are going to be destroyed sooner or later. We should all be humbled by that, no?
I just read in the Bible, but I don’t remember where, a reminder that the whole earth belongs to God. We should never allow ourselves to become too possessive.
I was unable to send the message, so I am posting my reply to that question here:
Doing what your “friend” suggests would put the Vatican out of “business” so to speak. Is that what he or she wants? Are you sure? Why would you want to do that?
The Vatican has a lot of inspirational art and it has large collections of documents that are helpful to understand Catholicism, particularly its history and its beliefs.
If you were at all familiar with the Old Testament, you would see that many material items were required for the Temple and the people who worked there.
One would really have to be very malicious to want to destroy the heritage of the Church.
Your entire suggestion takes God out of the picture, as well. Do you want to destroy all the churches in the world, for the same reason, to serve the poor? I don’t think that even the poor would want that. Where would they pray, and why would they believe, if mankind had destroyed all the inspirational places for prayer?
There’s a lot more money in the world than what’s in the Vatican, for example. And, as a matter of fact, the Vatican does spend a some of its income for emergency aid. It has other missions to address besides that one.
Certainly you and your “friend” must agree that the world spends WAY too much on weapons and fighting, and that THAT is where the world’s wealth is wasted much, much more than at the 104 acres of the Vatican.
In the order of things, the wealth of the Vatican, its cultural
heritage, is the LAST thing you should want to get rid of, off the face of the earth. Let’s start with all the video games and music CD’s and pornography and money wasted on illegal drugs. Those are things that should be sacrificed FIRST for the benefit of the poor; they are an insult to the poor, the Vatican is not.
Yet, even in our Christian faith, and certainly from science, too, if you pay attention to the History Channel and Nat Geo channels, that the earth and everything in it, even the Vatican, are going to be destroyed sooner or later. We should all be humbled by that, no?
I just read in the Bible, but I don’t remember where, a reminder that the whole earth belongs to God. We should never allow ourselves to become too possessive.