Sell the Vatican feed the world??

Post Reply New Topic

EDIT : The video may not be suitable for all people. It has some humor that some may find inappropriate, and I hope I do not overstep things by including it, but I do find it funny and it was the inspiration for this thread. [/EDIT]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bObItmxAGc[/youtube]

Ok, I will admit that I got this idea from this Youtube video, but should the Vatican sell its holy treasures?

It seems to me that there are a few lines of reasoning here:

1) The Vatican should not sell its holy treasures as those are intrinsically valuable to keep in church hands.

2) The Vatican should not sell its holy treasures as those are important for maintaining the majesty of the Catholic church or for other pragmatic ends.

3) The Vatican should do whatever the heck it wants with its treasures, as it is Vatican property and nobody should try to tell the church what to do.

4) The Vatican should sell its holy treasures because in the end that will help the vitality of the church by showing its commitment for caring for the world.

5) The Vatican is morally obligated to sell its holy treasures so long as poor people exist, due to the existence of Bible verses such as 1 John 3:17 "But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?"

6) All people are morally obligated to sell their worldly goods to better the poor so long as the poor still exist.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

On Christian theory I imagine the buyers should be taken into consideration. If they have the funds to spend on trinkets why not persuade them to donate those funds for charitable purposes without destroying the wonderful collection of the Vatican?

I don't see it as conceivable to persuade everyone who would seek to buy valuable pieces of art, to give up the money that they could buy these artworks with. Not all of these individuals will be Christian, not only that, but many individuals do hold off to the side some money for personal purchases, which could include fancy portraits, finally, some of the purchasers could quite easily be organizations such as museums and the like.

I think selling Vatican is a great idea. Oh, and organized religion should go to hell.

Since the glory of the Vatican is partly due to its valued treasures a smarter move would be to hold the collection hostage to well off Catholics so that if they want to preserve the collection they could donate huge amounts to prevent the sale of the valued pieces.

Liquidating the Vatican will only feed the world for a few years. It is not a long term solution to the problem of hunger. However I still think it is a good idea to liquidate the Vatican, which is a pest-hole of Catholic pedophilia.

ruveyn

Selling the Vatican collection would not liquidate the Vatican.

True. That is why I generalized it to financially liquidating the entire organization.

ruveyn

"Liquidating" in the vernacular of the hitman?

I personally don't expect the vatican to survive the next century, perhaps not even the next decade or 2.
I don't think that the money for the foreclosure will be used to feed the poor.

The same might even apply to nearly every large religious organization? Especially the political active religions are really good at irritating a large part of the population.

Shouldn't the separation of church and state be reciprocal? Currently it only restricts the state towards religious organizations, the state stays out of church law. If free people want to join a religious organization and choose to abide by their rules then they are free to do so. To make it reciprocal religious organization should (as organization) remain politically neutral, so no religiously founded political parties trying to impose church laws upon the wider community who did not choose to join.

Last edited by Meta on 23 Dec 2009, 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

1. On matters of church historical treasures, I say they should not sell them. History cannot be replaced.

2. The Vatican is recorded as an international banking institution. That's what they really do with all of the Vatican's wealth. That's why the church doesn't help out their dioceses financially except to lend them money. Why would a BANK care about the needs of other people?

Culture and history like that can't be replaced once split up into private collections.

The Vatican is the largest political power in the world and has more wealth then all the original members of Microsoft & Walmart combined.

Having enough wealth not the worlds problem, it that resources are controlled by too few people and managed poorly. There the only reason anyone goes to bed hungry is greed and abuse of power. (better get off my soapbox before I rant too much)

Sell the Vatican?

Sell it to whom?

Why are rich oil sheiks, Donald Trump, or Bill Gates, or Narco smugglers, or whomever, more entitled to own the Cistean Chapel than is the Vatican?

Maybe you envision the Vatican trading its goods directly for food- Bartering the Sistene Chapel to Cargill, or to Archer Daniels Midlands, directly for grain.



Even if the Vatican did auctioned off all of its treasures (perhaps in telethon) for charity. What would that accomplish?

If the Vatican got full value for its estate and then spent it all on food for the poor it would bid up the price of food. The most desperate would get the free food. But those not poor enough to qualify for the free food would suffer from the inlfated food prices. The amount of suffering would balance out to about the same as if no Vatican estate sale had occured- thus there would be no net benifit to the poor of the world. Also- if the Vatican dumped all of it goods on the market the value of those goods would be immeadiatly depressed ( the demand for art treasuses would be the same but the supply would suddenly spike up) so the Vatican would end up selling its wealth for pennies on the dollar.
And it would be a one shot deal anyway. Even at full value the wealth of the vatican would be enough to buy groceries for the billions of hungry for only a short interval. And it would do nothing to solve the root causes of poverty and hunger in the world which are too many people and not enough productivity.

So what would be the point?

Ofcourse you could just directly distribute the wealth of the Vatican to the world's poor.
Then each child in Africa could have a piece of gold ieaf from a bernini statue or a two inch square piece of plaster from the Sistine Chapel. But those things are not very nutritious to eat.

No. Dismantling the organization, closing the churches and having the past pedophile priest turn out the lights on his way out.

ruveyn

A tough sell topic

An idea might be to rent out these valuables to different museums, and make the money available to poor parishes in order to help the people become self sustaining. Kind of like that new thing that involves buying something for the poor that will help them in their own country to generate income, like a cow, a clean water well, a rickshaw, a scholarship, building schools, etc. Religion in action.