I just saw this video for the first time last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bObItmxAGc Sarah Silverman irreverently (and hilariously) beckons the Pope to sell his Vatican City and use the 500 billion dollars or so to build himself a nice, reasonable condo for him and his friends, and use the rest to feed every human being on earth. Here are the questions: 1. Could it work? Is it feasible? Could the city be sold, even in partitions? Could the money go to feeding those who need it? 2. Would it be adhering to what Jesus taught for the Catholic Church itself to sell its posessions and give the proceeds to the needy? 3. Would it ever, in a million years, happen? If it sold, the buyer would likely be Italy. @ Thatius - not everyone would need to take part in the money. We could feed those without access to good nutrition for years and years. Jesus told us not to store up treasures on earth. We should, he implies, act as though the end will be tomorrow. The Vatican City provides nothing that couldn't be obtained elsewhere. The church is, at most, 1650 years old. Age is irrelevant. What is more important, an old, old city or humanity?
Religion & Spirituality - 7 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
WWJD?
2 :
No, the Pope is an evil Sith lord, he wont do that.
3 :
that vatican is not a city it is a country so yes you can sell it but who would by it. and who would sell it
4 :
I'll answer the questions as you have listed them. 1. I wouldn't trust anything that leaves Sarah Silverman's mouth. But though it wouldn't be flawless, it'd be do-able. 2. It would be what Jesus would want, yes. Compassion and love for each other is all Jesus ever wanted, though there are many people who imagine Jesus wielding a chainsaw for some odd reason. 3. No, man loves money, we are all vulnerable to greed. The Pope is a man, maybe he is holy and chosen by the Almighty, but he is just a man, and I prefer to pray to the one who made me.
5 :
1. Plausibly, but you would only be able to give every human on earth a little under a hundred dollars. But the city could not be sold I'm afraid. Vatican city is a country and anyone who bought a country would have a lot of problems for doing so and any country that would buy it could very well provoke a holy war. 2. I guess so, but being a person who believes it's best to be charitable in ways that will help long term it goes against MY teachings. 3. ABSOLUTELY NOT. The Church is next to 2000 years old and Vatican City is its epicenter. To dismantle Vatican City would be to break a 2000 year old practice.* *Vatican city isn't 2000 years old but Saint Peter was the first pope.
6 :
Good question. Better than you might think..... Hope you read all this. Vatican wouldn't even have to be sold.... just the paintings alone in the churches are worth more than that. But, back to your question. Would it work? No. Why? Simply because all these who are now fed would make more babies, until the spaces were again filled up with starving children.... there have always been starving children all over the world. When a family produces 9 kids, they starve, or are intellectually compromised to the point of damage to their intelligence. Children who do not get enough to eat as babies, do not develop mentally. Plain, hard, cold fact. In Kenya right now, the average girl has her first baby at 14, with 13 more pregnancies in her life, and 9 live births. (Yup, you read that correctly.) In the bush, away from cities where there is no medical care, half of those 5 will die before age 1. Of those remaining, half will die before age 5. A Kenya women, living in a tribe with no medical care will be lucky to raise two children to age 16. But with medical care,( and most can now get it) about all of them live, being saved from milaria, and various other childhood diseases. (in 1960, the population of Tanzania was 4 million. It is now more than 20million, in just 50 years. Typical of Third World countries.) The planet doesn't need more children, nor more people. It can barely support the ones it has. In the final analysis, even Genetically Modified Foods has a limit. There are right now 6.7 billion perople on this planet, going to more than 8.3 is less than 30 years. Unless we find a way to stablize population, selling anything to feed anyone is putting a bandaid on a cancer. Sadly, no one, no government, and no worl leader, nor any national leader ever talks about limiting births... only China. And its efforts have in essence failed. If the family opted to have a child, and the fetus proved to be female, it is often aborted, since the family wants a boy to grow up and support them in a high paying job. This has been the policy in China for decades. The effect? Lots of men will never marry. And unmarried, ungrounded men make for riots. Look who makes up the Taliban, and Al Quaeda.... almost every single one, an unmarried man between the ages of 17 and 40 . The world doesn't need to feed any more people. It needs effective birth control, and a promise to its older citizens to have worry free elder years, so that they find no need to have 8 children, hoping one will turn out well enough to support them all. This problem exists all over Third World countries. And they do not allow birth control, nor abortions. A Kenyan girl would stand in line a month for pills, which any American can get for freeeee at planned parenthood. Abortions are not available.....Worse, none of these countries will accept any outfit pushing birth control. Go figure. So, no, her idea wouldn't work. (whoever she is.....) Would it ever, ever even happen. No There is an old saying..."When the patio is being flooded by a faucet which it turned on, quit mopping, and turn off the faucet." It is the same principal.... ya gotta turn off the faucet.
7 :
Yet... Sarah Silverman has sold her belongings to do the same? Why do people continue to insist that others do things which they are not willing to do themselves? I find that odd. Anyhow, Vatican City is it's own country... so her suggestion is obviously ignorant. How to you sell off a country and all of it's inhabitants? Answer: You can't!!! Furthermore, this logic is outright stupid. Let's say I had a billion dollar home, and I sold it... guess what? $1B goes by pretty quick and people can eat for awhile, but this will not solve the problem of global hunger. It's this close minded train of thought which only allows people to look into the near future and not long term. The RCC does more, long term for the impoverished than any other organization in the world... and she's been doing this for almost 2000 years. NO other organization can even think of saying they do this.
