Dismantle Catholicism, Destroy the Common Good, and Feed the World!
Unravelling the fake radicalism of libertarian fantasies.
I wish to address the charge that the Pope, if he cared so much for the hungry and the needy in the world, should sell the assets of the Vatican and give the money away. The call is basically an aggressive debating point. It demands something that will not happen and is merely a tactic to allow those making the call to accuse the Pope, Catholicism, and Catholics of hypocrisy. For the Vatican to effectively give its assets away – the art, the architecture etc – is for the Catholic Church to dismantle itself and cease to exist, merely become a sect.
The charge is also economically illiterate as well as institutionally illiterate. The Catholic Church as an institution uses its assets and its history to generate resources and then redistribute them via any number of global programmes, whether on poverty or education or other health and social services. The challenge may be issued back – do you and the social and political movements you believe in do even half as much as the Catholic Church in these areas. I very much doubt it. The expenditure of the Church in these areas is second only to the United Nations.
Calls such as this have been made throughout history, typically from two sources: humanists and atheists on the one hand and Protestant radicals and religious warriors on the other. The people who make the charge make no reference at all to the work the Catholic Church as an institution does in the fields of poverty, health, and education the world over. Because their interest lies in damaging the reputation of the Church and in implying the Pope and Catholics are hypocrites who do not practice what they preach. I note that when the charge comes from Protestants of libertarian persuasion – in both religion and politics/economics – they are the same people who take great delight in revealing socialists to be hypocrites too. Anyone who brings a social ethic and conscience into politics is a target for criticism. This can reach truly ridiculous proportions, as in the revelation that Bernie Sanders has money, spends money, drives a car, takes flights, and probably spends money to eat meals every day. How very dare socialists have money and assets! I once heard a right wing critic attack the leaders of the National Union of Miners Arthur Scargill for driving a big car. Scargill said he didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t smoke, lived an austere lifestyle in the main, but admitted a lifelong love of big cars. He then asked the interviewer as to who he thought made the cars .. The workers are very much entitled to enjoy the things made by their own hands.
But let me rebut the charge of hypocrisy with respect to the Pope and the Catholic Church. The fact that such charges have been made and rebutted for centuries now indicates the extent to which such activity on my part is fruitless and resolves nothing. I am afraid we are in the world of religious and political bigotry, a wilful blindness that is impervious to reason and evidence. The charges, I don’t doubt, will be made again. For the very reason they are cheap debating tactics designed to shed the Pope and the Church in ill-light. The charges have immediate effect, in a way that their rebuttal does not. The lesson is simply to know that those who issue such charges do so with ill-intent. They are not really interested in the hard institutional work of seriously addressing issues of health, education, hunger, and poverty around the world. These are both global and social issues and require substantial capacity by way of organisational and financial resources. I will take the criticism when it comes from socialists who do understand the need for such institutional and fiscal capacity. The Catholic Church has that capacity and uses it. I will not take the criticism when it comes from Protestants espousing libertarianism and voluntarism in religion, politics, and economics. If they think that such problems will be resolved by the charity of the rich then they are fools. I know them not to be fools. In which case they are merely duplicitous and complicit in remediable social ills.
The idea that the assets of the Catholic Church are sufficient to end world hunger and poverty and provide for the social welfare and educational needs of the world’s population is fanciful. It also makes one suspicious of the economic literacy of those who express such an idea. It works as a cheap debating point, but is idle in those terms. It works as a tool which allows people of anti-Catholic persuasion to criticize Catholicism. It is basically underhand name-calling, in other words. This is not how economics and social organisation operates. I have heard conservatives criticize socialists for making similar arguments to the effect of the rich having enough money to feed the world, referring specifically to the buildings of the UK royal family and other such things. Socialism is not about simply expropriating the assets of the rich and giving them away to the poor; socialism entails the transformation of social relations and recalibration of the economy so as to abolish exploitative class relations that generate these social disparities.
The Catholic Church, through a number of initiatives, is involved in working on the ground to end world poverty and world hunger, to provide shelter, and to expand education. The Church does this through organisations such as Catholic Relief Services. CRS works with organizations around the world to help poor and vulnerable people overcome emergencies, earn a living through agriculture and access affordable health care. Pay a visit to their website to find out more.
Here is the CRS mission statement:
Faith: Faith is our foundation. We have faith in the people we serve and our shared ability to build a more just and peaceful world.
Action: The desire to serve is not enough. We must act collaboratively to bring about real improvements in peoples’ quality of life and genuine engagement in building peace and justice.
Results: Demonstrated through measurable outcomes, our actions must be effective in alleviating human suffering, removing root causes and empowering people to achieve their full potential.
CRS acts to promote human development by responding to major emergencies, fighting disease and poverty, and nurturing peaceful and just societies.
‘We put our faith into action to help the world’s poorest create lasting change.’
The statement concerning the Guiding Principles of Catholic Relief Services is instructive, entailing an explicit commitment to the social and interconnected nature of human beings. This unity of personality and commonality is intrinsic to Catholic social teaching and highlights the unity of the two aspects of human nature – individuality and sociality. That unity is inclined to go missing in libertarian philosophies of life, to the detriment of each and all. In fact, that missing interconnection opens the space for the Social Darwinist menace of individualism.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
SACREDNESS AND DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON
Created in the image of God, all human life is sacred and possesses a dignity that comes directly from our creation and not from any action of our own.
RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Every person has basic rights and responsibilities that flow from our human dignity and that belong to us as human beings regardless of any social or political structures. The rights are numerous and include those things that make life truly human. Corresponding to our rights are duties and responsibilities to respect the rights of others and to work for the common good of all.
SOCIAL NATURE OF HUMANITY
All of us are social by nature and are called to live in community with others — our full human potential isn't realized in solitude, but in community with others. How we organize our families, societies and communities directly affects human dignity and our ability to achieve our full human potential.
THE COMMON GOOD
In order for all of us to have an opportunity to grow and develop fully, a certain social fabric must exist within society. This is the common good. Numerous social conditions — economic, political, material and cultural — impact our ability to realize our human dignity and reach our full potential.
SUBSIDIARITY
A higher level of government — or organization — should not perform any function or duty that can be handled more effectively at a lower level by people who are closer to the problem and have a better understanding of the issue.
SOLIDARITY
We are all part of one human family — whatever our national, racial, religious, economic or ideological differences — and in an increasingly interconnected world, loving our neighbor has global dimensions.
OPTION FOR THE POOR
In every economic, political and social decision, a weighted concern must be given to the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. When we do this we strengthen the entire community, because the powerlessness of any member wounds the rest of society.
STEWARDSHIP
There is inherent integrity to all of creation and it requires careful stewardship of all our resources, ensuring that we use and distribute them justly and equitably — as well as planning for future generations.
CRS are a social and a global organisation, believing in a collaborative approach to addressing the collective forces that impinge upon the lives of human beings the world over.
OUR WORK OVERSEAS
‘working in solidarity with our global neighbors to achieve lasting results.’
The world is an interconnected web of neighbours. There are no walls and fortresses here, and no deified ‘I.’
HOW WE WORK
We use a holistic approach called integral human development to help people reach their full potential in an atmosphere of peace, social justice and human dignity.
This long-term, dynamic process facilitates collaboration across civil society and the public and private sectors.
We engage people at every level—individual, family, community, regional, national and international—to promote transformative and sustainable change.
You may check out the work that the CRS does in emergency response and recovery, agriculture, health, education, water security, microfinance, justice and peacebuilding, partnership and capacity, and youth here
Catholic Relief Services is one of a number of Catholic organisations which mobilizes people, invests resources, and puts numbers of people on the ground working in the fields of humanitarian care, relief, and education. I don’t intend to go through an exhaustive list of these organisations and their works, they proceed on the lines above. I know CAFOD most of all, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, an international development charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
‘We reach out to people living in poverty with practical help, whatever their religion or culture. Through our global Church network, one of the largest in the world, we have the potential to reach everyone. And we campaign for global justice, so that every woman, man and child can live a full and dignified life.’
You can read of its extensive and effective activity across the world on its site here:
‘We work with some of the most hard-to-reach communities across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, helping the poorest and most marginalised people.
We work wherever the need is greatest, with people of all faiths and none.’
The Catholic Church has a long and rich tradition of co-ordinating charity to the poor and operates numerous charitable organizations. This tradition goes back to the early Christian Eucharist, with the office of deacon being started for this purpose. It continued throughout the Middle Ages, in the days before universal education and healthcare, with the Church the central institution in giving alms to the poor. A major rupture in this tradition in the UK came with the Protestant Reformation, with the individualization of economic activity and privatisation of poverty, characterised by a withdrawal of social provision and obligation and a harsh climate towards the poor. The Catholic Church has continued to affirm a social ethic in both principle and practice to this day, something that puts it at odds with the libertarian culture of capitalist society. With respect to the anarchy of the rich and powerful that characterizes global capitalism, now taking bastardized form as reconstituted commonality via authoritarian nationalism and populism, the Church stands clearly opposed.
I shall now provide a list of Catholic organisations working across the world to improve living conditions and quality of life for millions of people. Please bear in mind when reading this list that it is the Church and its teaching that inspires, mobilizes, and organizes these efforts on the part of so many. And bear in mind that if the Catholic Church was to downsize by selling off its assets, it would cease to be the inspirational organisation it is. If the Pope did sell ‘at least half’ of Church property, it is conceivable that the Church would be only half as effective in mobilizing individual and collective effort for social relief and remedy, not to mention spiritual succour. But I suspect that that dismantling of collective purpose and organisation is precisely the intent, bringing religion in line with the disembedding and disconnection that characterises the capital system in general.
LIST OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES
Aid to the Church in Need
Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic pastoral aid organization, which yearly offers financial support to more than 5,000 projects worldwide.
Ascension
Ascension is one of the largest private healthcare systems in the United States, ranking second in the United States by number of hospitals as of 2019. It was founded as a nonprofit Catholic system. In 2018, it was the largest Catholic health system, with 165,000 employees, 151-hospitals, and $552.69 million in operating revenue.
CAFOD
The Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD), previously known as the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, is the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales. It is an international aid agency working to alleviate poverty and suffering in developing countries. It is funded by the Catholic community in England and Wales, the British Government and the general public by donations.
Catholic Charities USA
Catholic Charities is a network of charities with headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2005 Forbes magazine ranked it as the fifth largest charity in the United States in terms of total revenue. The organization serves millions of people a year, regardless of their religious, social, or economic backgrounds. Catholic Charities USA is a member of Caritas Internationalis, an international federation of Catholic social service organizations
Catholic Home Missions
The Catholic Home Missions is an organization founded in 1924 by the American Board of Catholic Missions (ABCM) with the aim of helping and supporting poor dioceses in the United States.
Catholic Near East Welfare Association
The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) is a papal agency established in 1926 and dedicated to giving pastoral and humanitarian support to Northeast Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and India. CNEWA operates specifically in areas of concentrated mass poverty, war, and displacement, providing human dignity and addressing basic needs for vulnerable populations. As a Catholic organization CNEWA utilizes the network of Eastern Catholic Churches and devoted religious sisters in order to provide the most effective and holistic humanitarian support regardless of creed or religious affiliation. As sisters with CNEWA have stated, "We don't help people because they're Christian. We help [them] because we are."
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 90 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. A member of Caritas International, the worldwide network of Catholic humanitarian agencies, CRS provides relief in emergency situations and helps people in the developing world break the cycle of poverty through community-based, sustainable development initiatives as well as Peacebuilding. Assistance is based solely on need, not race, creed or nationality.
Caritas Internationalis
Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. Collectively and individually, their claimed missions are to work to build a better world, especially for the poor and oppressed. The first Caritas organization was established by Lorenz Werthmann on 9 November 1897 in Germany. Other national Caritas organizations were soon formed in Switzerland (1901) and the United States (Catholic Charities, 1910).
CIDSE
CIDSE, which is short for "Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité" (French for "International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity"), is an umbrella organization for Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America.
The CIDSE Secretariat ensures communication between the CIDSE member agencies and the overall coherence of CIDSE's work by facilitating working groups, platforms and fora on the issues defined in the strategic plan. The CIDSE secretariat represents CIDSE at the EU and UN level, undertakes advocacy activities and other initiatives in collaboration with members. CIDSE is registered in the European Transparency Register.[1] CIDSE also has general status on the UN Economic and Social Council.
The Secretariat is organised into teams that coordinate various working groups in order to achieve its objectives:
Societal and ecological transformation;
Communities regaining control over the commons;
Facing climate change: just and sustainable food and energy models;
Change starts with us.
Apart from the themes of the working groups, CIDSE manages an international campaign for sustainable lifestyles titles Change for the Planet - Care for the People. The campaign encourages living simply by reducing overall energy consumption and making sustainable food choices in order for individuals to minimize their environmental impact, allow producers to gain fair livelihoods, and respect human rights.
Fidesco International
Fidesco is a Catholic non-governmental organization for volunteering to development projects in countries in the global south, founded in 1981 by the Emmanuel Community, following a meeting in the Vatican City with African bishops.
Volunteers who leave with Fidesco are singles, couples or families, young people, adults or retired, wishing in the name of their faith to work for the marginalized: this explains the name of FIDES - CO : faith and co-operation. They aim put their professional skills at the service of development projects, to help local populations or humanitarian actions.
Jesuit Refugee Service
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international Catholic organisation with a mission to accompany, serve, and advocate on behalf of refugees and other forcibly displaced persons, that they may heal, learn, and determine their own future.
Malteser International
Malteser International is an international non-governmental aid agency for humanitarian aid of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Developed in 2005 from the foreign aid service of Malteser Germany (founded 1953), and having the status of an independent eingetragener Verein since 2013, the agency has more than 50 years of experience in humanitarian relief. It currently implements around 100 projects in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Renovabis
Renovabis is a charitable organization of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, established in 1993 to help people in Eastern and Central Europe. Renovabis has spent about US$400,000,000 in private donations on 14,000 assistance projects in 28 countries.
Society of St Vincent de Paul
The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP or SVdP or SSVP) is an international voluntary organization in the Catholic Church, founded in 1833 for the sanctification of its members by personal service of the poor. Money, and many times donated items, are distributed to the poor.
Talitha Kum
Talitha Kum (or the International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking in Persons) is an organization of Catholic women established by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) in 2009. The group works to end human-trafficking and is based in Rome. The name comes from the expression found in the Gospel of Mark and is Aramaic, meaning, "Maiden, I say to you, arise." The organization is considered a Catholic charity, and operates as a network with many different groups.
I trust I have established that the Catholic Church is a substantial institutional force for humanitarian activity and social welfare across the planet. As emphatic as the above evidence of Catholic social activity across the world is, I have yet to make my point. Selling off the property of the Church would make a dent in world poverty and make a one-off contribution to the income of people. That contribution, when divided up, would not be sufficient to make much of a difference to the standard of living. Poverty and inequality would remain firmly entrenched and in place. What would be lost is the ongoing effort to relieve and remedy the structural causes of poverty and inequality. I leave you to work out the extent to which critics of the Catholic Church understand that. I would suggest that many do, but that many also conceal their real motivation. Socialists certainly argue for the global transformation of social relations. The populist end of socialism can be found making simplistic arguments to the effect of expropriating assets and distributing them equally, but this is based on superficial analysis and does nothing to alter the underlying capital relation, logic, and dynamic. This betrays a superficial understanding of socialism on the part of some socialists. Expropriating the expropriators is the easy part, and not actually what Marx argued, seeing as it involves merely changing the personifications of the capital relation should that relation be kept in place. That simplistic understanding is capable of correction. Libertarian critics coming from a religious angle on this are trickier to interpret. They may, too, merely be being shallow and superficial, indulging in a cheap radicalism for immediate effect. But that in itself is a superficial analysis. Libertarianism is committed to a methodological individualism that repudiates the notion of collective purpose and common good and seeks to replace these notions with individual self-interest and choice in all areas. The social ethic of the Catholic Church stands steadfastly against this atomization, and this makes it a target for libertarian critics. Such critics oppose the social ethic and its institutionalization and practice within the Church. And it is this that motivates their anti-Catholicism.
Let us take up the challenge. The Pope should sell the art, the buildings and architecture, and other assets, comes the demand.
The assets of the Church do not belong to the Pope, and so are not ‘his’ to sell.
Even if the assets could be sold, the money raised would be a drop in the ocean with respect to the resources required to address social, environmental, and educational issues on a global scale. There would be a limited one-off material boost but a loss of ongoing institutional provision. And, frankly, I expect that that institutional destruction removing collective organisational capacity aiming at social relief and remedy is precisely the intent. And asset-stripping, too.
The assets of the Church may be sold, but then what? The great art and architecture would be sold off and the money raised would be distributed to the poor. Then what? The institution would have lost its institutional power, its social and organisational presence, its tradition and history. This is the classic strategy of undermining a culture, an institution, a tradition, by depriving it of its commons and its roots. Sell the art and architecture to whom? The rich, of course! Who else could afford to buy such things? The rich would remain with us, concentrating even more of the world’s assets in its hands. This is asset stripping, the further aggrandisement of the rich and an extension of the enclosure that has characterised capitalism from the first. The ancient places of worship in Rome and the great art would then be in the hands of private collectors and the very rich. Does anyone imagine that many or most of these appropriators would be concerned to inspire, organize, and fund the social programmes and initiatives undertaken by the Catholic Church? They are free to do so now.
It is also worth correcting some of the other simplicities and stupidities (let’s call them for what they are, prejudices born of bigotry) contained in these demands. The art and architecture of the Vatican does not belong to the Pope, they are not ‘his’ to sell. "The Church," moreover, is not the Pope, nor even the Pope with all ‘his’ bishops. The Church consists of the 1.2 billion Catholics throughout the world. ‘The Church’ is all of us who belong to it. Yes, that sense of belonging is another thing that capital separates people from in the great disembedding, separating people from the ethical and spiritual commons as well as the political and material commons. Separation is the key figure of capitalist rationalization. The Catholic Church stands against it. It affirms a common purpose, a common good, and a sense of belonging on the part of each and all. It is not a principle that libertarians and individualists can comprehend. Hence the acidic and destructive purpose behind their attacks on the Church. Behind the demand that the Pope sell ‘his’ art, architecture, and other assets is the demand that the Church dissolve itself and in the process put an end to the idea of common purpose, common endeavour, and collective action in pursuit of the common good.
It won’t happen. Of all institutions, the Catholic Church has proven the most enduring and the most resilient to the depredations of capitalist atomization and marketization. I would suggest that this delivers an ethical and institutional lesson to radicals, progressives, socialists, and environmentalists in their so far losing battle with the capitalist class.
‘The Church’ is all of us who belong to it. The ‘assets’ of the Church belong to all of us and exist as a permanent commons – historical, spiritual, ethical, and cultural as well as physical and institutional – to draw upon. Unity is strength and so too is history. I vehemently resist those who seek to destroy, vandalize, and asset strip ‘the Church,’ their ill-intent is manifest, their radicalism fake, and their ethics base and tawdry. The Church is a collective institution of common purpose which sees the threat posed to society from rampant individualism and works actively to check and counter it with a social commitment and endeavour. The Church is its history and traditions, its people and practices, its institutions and physical casing bound as one. The Church is an implicit and explicit compact between past, present, and future, uniting the generations and establishing a proper and sacred place for prudence on Earth. Such an institution contrasts markedly with the capitalism which continues to uproot society, unravel communal bonds, and despoil the planet. The Church is its 2000 year old history and its ‘assets,’ as in all the things that those belonging to the Church as members have created in that time are part of its legacy. They are not assets as physical objects with monetary value to be sold off to the highest bidder, in other words. Their value cannot be measured in money. How revealing it is that critics reduce such a legacy to dollar value.
The art and architecture was created and has been sustained as part of a commitment on the part of worshippers to celebrate God. How revealing that some here see only a monetary value, as though art and architecture is produced on a conveyor belt to be sold and resources used for material relief. How very odd that religious critics not merely invert the relation between the material and the spiritual, but omit the spiritual significance entirely. Their concerns are surprisingly worldly. I’d go further, and argue that the problem with such ‘vision’ is not that it is materialist, but that it isn’t materialist enough. It sees the physical purely in terms of money. It is that impoverished mentality that breeds scarcity, poverty, and inequality in the physical sense.
I ask again, to whom would the art and architecture be sold? You know the answer, of course. The rich, who will be ever with us, and whose concern for the poor we can see around the world in the form of homelessness, hunger, poverty, and war.
How much would you pay for the Sistine Chapel? More to the point, could you and your beliefs inspire a work of the quality of the Sistine Chapel?
Away ye asset strippers!
There are very good reasons, both theological and socio-ecological, for the Church – by which I mean all Christians as well as its leaders, to live humbly, help the poor, feed the hungry, and to live lightly on the planet. My old school priest calls it living the Gospel. That’s how he did it, and he has been far from alone in the Church. But that constitutes a challenge to all people. I wonder if those buying the assets of the Church would be prepared to meet that challenge, and sell those assets on, and distribute the proceeds to the poor. And those wealthy persons who next buy the art and sacred buildings and architecture, I wonder if they would be prepared to sell it on and distribute the proceeds. To help the poor and the needy, you understand. I have an idea, why don’t the rich the world over just give their money to the poor and all live together as a common people sharing the Earth’s commons as one? No more rich engaging in what Gerrard Winstanley called the thieving arts of buying and selling. How does that sound? Poor economics? Like the demands you level on the Pope and ‘his’ Church, then.
I’ll take demands like this from socialists committed to social transformation, but not from religious and economic libertarians hell-bent on taking the commons to market to be flogged. Not least because such libertarians are not actually consistent in their libertarianism. They demand anarchy and acidic atomization when it comes to collective purpose and action for social welfare and environmental health. Their intent is divide people up and weaken collective sources of resistance in face of the market. At the same time, a substantial number are keen on militarism, turn a blind eye to corporate welfare (or openly justify it), and espouse a particularly odious form of religious nationalism. The wealth accumulated by churches of every denomination around the world, not just the Catholic Church, pales in comparison to worldwide military spending, which totalled more than $1822 billion or $1.8 trillion in 2018 (Stockholm, 29 April 2019). The five biggest spenders are the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, India and France, which together accounted for 60 per cent of global military spending. The USA remained by far the largest spender in the world. The $649 billion it spent on its military in 2018 is greater than the next eight largest-spending countries combined. ‘The increase in US spending was driven by the implementation from 2017 of new arms procurement programmes under the Trump administration,’ says Dr Aude Fleurant, the director of the SIPRI AMEX programme. Many Americans consider the USA a Christian nation. Many would question that designation, Christians and non-Christians alike. The USA accounts for 35.6 percent of total global military spending. I would suggest that selling off the assets – the patrimony - of the Church is not the best solution to end world hunger and solve world poverty. I would suggest that there are more effective and more profitable courses of action, one that involves the restructuring of power and resources in favour of the people of the world. I suspect that the rich would prefer to buy works of art, though, content to know that they have done their bit by providing a little bit of their wealth for others of conscience to give away. How clever you are! We never saw that ruse coming at all.
I have unfortunate news for religious leaders who think the Pope selling ‘his’ assets would be the solution to remediable social evils – it is a cheap shot used by atheists who make a big splash at the shallow end of the pool.
No one knows how much the Vatican is worth, but estimates place its value at around a billion dollars (liquid assets, not priceless works of art or land). That is a substantial amount of money. But in terms of the financial resources required to deal with the structurally caused social problems of poverty, homelessness, hunger, as well as deprivation in health and education, it is a drop in the ocean. Based on numbers alone, it seems that selling the family silver doesn’t cut it. I suspect those making the demand know this fine well. It is the kind of demand that catches the eye and has immediate impact. It is a cheap and shallow radicalism, but without substance.
For my part, I am glad not merely to ‘have’ these sacred works of art and architecture in our Catholic tradition, I am proud to be part of a Church that inspired work of such sublime quality. When others attain a similar level of inspiration, genius, and quality I shall have more respect for their demands. And then make clear just how radical those demands are with respect to the restructuring of power and resources and transformation of social relations on a planetary basis. I’m up for it. Are you?
The demands raise the question as to what the Vatican is doing to relieve and remedy poverty in the world. The answer, as I detailed above, is plenty. There can be no doubt about the great work the Vatican is doing to alleviate poverty in the world. Those who level demands on the Pope and ‘his’ assets without at the same time acknowledging this work are wearing ideological blinkers. We are entitled to suspect their motives. Their charges are motivated more by a concern to attack the Catholic Church than a concern to overcome poverty and inequality.
Is the activity of the Catholic Church sufficient to alleviate poverty and inequality? Here, I suspect not. That leaves us with two alternatives:
A libertarian Protestant apologetics for global capitalism as the best of all possible worlds (which begs enormous questions with respect to the poverty and inequality within the world);
A socialist transformation which unites each and all in Earthly communion.
If you don’t like Catholicism then try socialism for size! If you are serious about ending world poverty and inequality, that is. It is possible. The resources are most certainly there, and amount to so much more than the art and architecture of the Vatican.
In the end, I would advise against selling the Vatican and its contents to alleviate poverty. You would abolish Catholicism but not poverty. But I see how this fits the atomizing purposes of the libertarian right, those bidders of the rich who will be forever with us.
In the meantime, short of global socialist revolution, if you actually want to do something to help end world hunger, then try the Catholic Relief Services.
I wonder how many of the critics of the Church actually do something other than make cheap demands. Something effective, that is, beyond small-scale local activities. These problems are global in nature, and demand collective solutions.