In a store a man stopped me and asked, “Are you a Catholic priest?” I had my blacks on but had pulled out my tab collar. After receiving an affirmation he said, “I thought so,” and then launched in on vicious attack, most of which was unfounded, against the Catholic Church. Don’t think I was hurt or offended, I relish in such things.His biggest complaint was the wealth of the Vatican. It was the reason he left the Church so long ago. Why this particular point should be the linchpin for his leaving I can’t figure out (I would think some perceived false teaching would be a much better reason, but that is just me).
He was convinced that if the Vatican would sell off everything that it had, that there would be an end to poverty in the world. But the Catholic Church was there simply to suck up money from the rest of the world so that it (I suppose the lucky few that “get to” live in the Vatican) can live in luxury.
So let us suppose for a moment that the Vatican were to sell all that it had. To what end? Suppose every one who was poor in the world got $1,000 and a meal. Then what? Would the institutions and practices of the world have changed? Would the causes of poverty be wiped out? What of future generations who now also no longer have their patrimony as Catholics available to them?
And is not part of the “mission statement” if you will of the Catholic Church to be an influence on culture? What is to be gained by destroying some of the greatest collections of art and knowledge in the world? At the Vatican these pieces belong to all the nations.
There is the mindset too that the poor need a meal and a place to sleep and we have done our job. Not so. This is crass. This pays not attention to the dignity and complexity of the human person. The poor need beauty too. A sensual being needs to be fed more than in his stomach to be truly fed. Besides, to make this statement is to miss the fact that the Catholic Church is of the greatest contributors to those in need in the world already.
Perhaps I lack the eloquence to state the argument convincingly, but Professor Thomas F. X. Noble of Notre Dame does give some insight in his Popes and the Papacy course from the Teaching Company:
“Let’s do say the Vatican is not rich. There is this notion that the Vatican is rich. Well, the Vatican bank controls three and a half billion in assets but none of that belongs to the Vatican it
belongs to the depositors. We could say, ‘Oh, they have all that stuff.’ Fair enough. Are they going to sell St. Peter’s? Are they going to sell Michael Angelo’s pieta? Are they going to sell the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? How could one put a value on any of these things?“It may amuse you to know that each of those things is on the Vatican books with the nominal value of one Euro. For what would the price be?”
9 comments:
I wish folks would not waylay priests to take out their grievances. Let them write Rome.
Really, these days, someone could make a fortune from making inflatable bop bags for adults, adorned with graphics of whatever upsets them -- especially if they come with slipcovers for those who can be outraged by a sardine.
The thing these miss understanding is that the poor anywhere in the world don't begrudge anyone anything and don't want anything sold off and given to them.. they just want jobs that pay so they can support their own (and/or a ceasefire and a non-occupation of their lands so they can rebuild and replant). From what I've seen and heard, that's a global thing.
I cannot imagine anyone doing that although my pastor and his co-pastor were just assaulted in a local restaurant by some pretend Presbyterian minister telling them why they were going to go to hell and challenging them to a debate.
The most common thing I hear (always from guys) is that sister-so-mean slapped his precious knuckles. I usually tell the person that he had it coming and probably deserved to be bounced off the wall but sister-so-mean was too kind to do that.
It's weird when you're a kid and you read about the persecution of Christians hundreds of years ago and in your childlike innocence you don't get it. "But Christians are the GOOD guys!" you think to yourself. When you're older you realize that we as a Church iritate guilty consciences and stand in the way of totalitarian governments and other evils that would oppress mankind. This has the power to tick off A LOT of people.
On his way to becoming Catholic, G.K. Chesterton noticed that the Church was critized equally both for its pomp AND its austerity. One the one hand, it is just another way we embrace all that is good, true, and beautiful. One the other hand, it is just another way we can't win for losing.
A few billion dollars. Don't they realize how little that is? Dozens of Universities in this country have more in assets. Yet no one asks Harvard to "solve poverty".
your store challenger may be a friend of the Sattvic Warrior, eh?
Mark 14:3-8
3
When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.
4
There were some who were indignant. "Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?
5
It could have been sold for more than three hundred days' wages and the money given to the poor." They were infuriated with her.
6
Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me.
7
The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.
8
She has done what she could."
People have been indignant about this sort of thing since Christ walked the Earth. I've always thought of the treasures of the Church as sort of an continuous annointing of Christ by his bride, the Church.
And wearing your Roman collar Padre is like a deer with a target painted on its chest ("bummer of a birth mark, Hal" as one deer said to another in a Gary Larsen cartoon.) Thanks for your coraggio!
Hence, Clerus' wisdom.
Just Me - I feel the same way on the surface - but also think that is perhaps the point sometimes of wearing the collar (or habit) so people WILL come up and ask questions so we have the opportunity to mininster (if they are truly seeking - but then again, like Adraianne said, sometimes you just want to eat a meal or fly on your plane.)
Speaking of Adrianne - how little people stop to think that that was just the way things were done too. The stories that I hear coming out of public schools are hundreds of times worse. Dangerous to judge the past by the standards of the present.
Sparky, I hear you. These are people looking for a reason not to have to pay attention. What can you do?
Rob - Right on!
Uncle jim - LOL! I really do miss him!!!
Rich - Yes- And I love that particular cartoon by the way!
Yes, Fr. V., a good point-- and thankfully, my own parish priests feel much as you do on that (and on everything I've read here for all these months).
As for today's public schools.. well.. they are 100 times worse than we remember them. Do homeschool your little ones instead, people-- if at all possible. Yes. I don't know how the kids who live through it, live through it. They sure as hell don't thrive through it, and some don't even learn through it.
Btw, one relative left the Church (translate: stiffed herself of the sacraments and their sacramental Grace!) because the Mass was no longer prayed in Latin. (She said that long before it was a popular mantra.) But guess who gets to hear her agonizing confessions, yet can't do anything about them?
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