Dearest ATC,

In no way is it my intention to ridicule or intentionally offend anyone with religious beliefs. I would, however, very much like to pose a particular question which I feel will open a proverbial and interesting can of worms...


For a brief moment in time, let us imagine that you awake one morning to discover that, for reasons unknown (and hypothetically of course), you have been chosen as the new Pope for the Catholic Church. You now have complete control over all affairs of the church stretching across the globe. Quite a lot of power don't you think?
Now, let us suppose that on your first afternoon attending to your role, you access the church financial records and to your amazement find that the Catholic Church has more than thirty (30) BILLION dollars spread across a handful of sheltered accounts.

All things considered, there's no real surprise - after all most people understand the Catholic Church to be quite wealthy and of course the money has to be kept somewhere.
Okay, here's where the fun begins


As part of your new position, you decide to embark on a whirlwind tour of third world countries, seeing first hand the problems that so many people are facing. The problems of starvation, of disease, lacking education, physical abuse and negligent governments. It saddens you deeply, but you understand you are but one person and can hardly wave a magic wand to change the world.


You return to your desk, flick on the computer, and take a look at the church accounts once again. Then you explore the vast real estate that is owned across the world. With a heavy heart, you find yourself faced with a decision to make.


For your brief appointment as the Pope of the Catholic Church, do you decide to release the 30+ BILLION dollars and instigate as much change as humanly possible? For example, flooding poor countries with food and agriculture tools, medical facilities to tend to the sick, education to build upon the changes and shelter for the millions that are without homes. Or, after much pondering, do you decide that the financial stability of the church is more important in the long run, so that the message of God can continue to reach across the globe?


The reason I find this scenario/question so interesting, is that if a person decides to spend all of the money and to sell of the real estate so that the poor can begin to build a new future, then that person is in fact operating from a higher moral platform than the actual pope is right now. In effect, by choosing to spend the money regardless of the effect upon the church, the person would (I believe) be doing the right thing, the GOOD thing. Now, if a person unknown would make such a decision if suddenly given the power, what does this tell us of the current Pope and leaders of the Catholic Church? To put it another way, if Jesus or someone of equal historical character were to sit with you while you make your decision, which one do you think he would be happier to see? What would you do?


Personally, I don't believe in religion but am not arrogant enough to say I know for sure what happens after we die. I do know, however, that if I were to wake up tomorrow to find out I was the Pope for a day, the money would be gone in a flash. I couldn't even begin to list all of the magical things that could be done with the money. And if there's anybody out there that would do the same then I believe it says a whole damn lot about whoever is in charge of the church right now.


So I guess it's something to ponder, that a humble average citizen might have a stronger moral compass than the Pope. After all, if the money is there, and it is, how could you sleep at night knowing that children and fathers and mothers are dying for reasons that can be stopped?

It strikes me as mortifying that millions of people across the world follow and worship the Pope, and yet so many of them would do so much more if given the chance. That fact alone tells us that there is no divinity in the man at the head of the church. He is just a man, not specially chosen in any way, absent of religious wonder or power, whose relationship with God is not strong enough to warrant the use of billions of dollars to spread water across the deserts. A silly man in a hat to be sure, and a very rich man to boot. One of Gods chosen? I doubt it.
If you or I would do such wonderful things with the money, then we have a greater understanding of life than the leader of the biggest church in the world.
What would you do?

p.s. As I stated earlier, I'm not religious in any way shape or form. Personally speaking I detest the church and most of what it stands for. I would hate, however, for this thread to lead to a simple display of church bashing. As fun as that might be (!!!) I find it far more interesting to hear the views of fellow ATS members, and so I look forward to your replies.

The Catholic church is one of the biggest scam artists of the last two millennium so don't expect any time soon for any money out of their bank to be donated to help anyone other than themselves, at least on a global level. They help people on a small scale, and for the most part churches at a local community level contribute to the local areas, but for the big boys in the vatican to just open up and say "show me the money!", NOT gonna happen.

Btw, it's really hard to read a wall of text, and most people are very inclined to skim or skip altogether, so you might want to break it up a bit more, you know, paragraphs would be nice....

King

I'm not religious by any means, but I find the hypothetical concept interesting.

I, without a doubt, would give the money to those in need, even if it meant that the continuation of the Catholic church was in jeopardy (then again, easy for me to say as I'm not Catholic). I believe that Jesus spoke an enlightening message, a message of love and respect, compassion and helping those who don't have the means to help themselves.

To me, the truest Christian is a human being who embraces love, compassion, and understanding to all individuals without pretentiousness, greed, hatred, judgement, or nefariousness. When it all comes down to it, Christ is love, nothing more, nothing less. To promote love is to promote the teachings of Christ -- the ultimate message a human being can promote.

Hmm that brings up this question. If they had such money, why would they hoard it?
The only reasons I can think of would be for power, greed. or use as some kind of leverage. And last time I checked all three are non Christian acts.

You know its not about people or churches or money or greed or self, its about Jesus.
People are not Jesus, not even a little bit,
To think they are is a sin.
Joyce Myers wont fly anything but first class, she said she deserves it. She actually deserves far less.

Jesus was an itinerant who healed people and forgave sin, dont confuse dumb Christians like me, Myers and a silly selfish greedy Pope with Jesus. You misunderstand the whole purpose of Christianity

Its a business simple as that. The catholic church is a multinational corporation with a product that costs nothing. Talk about the margins on that!

The easy thing to do as pope is to melt down all the gold chalices and replace them with plastic ones. How much cash would that generate? I have now got the image of the pope in the Pawn brokers in my head now.

Of course give the money away, its an easy choice.

Cant see many religious folk defending the church on this one, not unless its in riddle form or a quote from the bible.

I ran a search for "catholic charities" and all I got was the sound of crickets in the background.
Those greedy Catholic bastiches! Not doing anything for the needy!

(P.S - I'm not catholic.)

Your question is relevant to Catholics, but not so much to "the religious"... nor to me, as a Christian.

The answer is pretty simple.
The church should never, EVER retain money. Whatever goes in should always, ALWAYS go out. The church on earth is here for two purposes: to preach God's Word, and to care for the needy.

Doing otherwise is simply wrong.

Because if you can keep a people poor, you can keep them uneducated.

And if you can keep them uneducated, on top of being poor, you own their ***es.

Hi,

Here are the problems with this thread, it's not serious and it has no depth. It's like teenagers sitting around asking each other if God can create a rock so heavy he can't lift it.

Before you can even begin to answer the OP's hypothetical, there are questions that need to be answered that the bashers on this thread are ignoring.

1) Is that an actual estimate of the wealth of the Church?

2) How much money does the Church need to pay it's bills, such as salaries, rent, retirement benefits, electricity, etc.?

3) How much does it cost to keep the doors open on the hospices, orphanages, food banks, soup kitchens, hospitals and other charities that the Church runs world wide?

4) How much of the OP's proposed wealth is earmarked for debts of the Church, which would be immoral to give away?

The OP is a cute way to get everyone on board the 'yeah, those greedy bastards!' train, but the lack of any relevant data makes the discussion worthless.

Eric

BTW, no one worships the Pope.

Eric