I am going to dip my toes into the controversial topic that is The Vatican City and/or the Roman Catholic Church. To dive in completely, I would have to be a true expert on all of the goings on within The City, including but not limited to finances, charities, jobs, the Pope, etc.—and an expert I am not.

In fact, just poking around a little bit to find the answers I needed to some questions I had proved to be a difficult task—much of what I leafed through was speculation and opinion—not facts—and boy, was there a lot of opposing arguments on just about anything you could think of. I say opposing because for every “answer” I read, there was someone with an in-depth rebuttal just below, and on it went like that down to the end of the page. It was easy to get lost, and even harder to remember what it was I needed, because each reaction made me feel a wide variety of emotions. For that reason, I feel like you need to know that most of this article is more of an opinion—my opinion.

So, here is the video that sparked such an intense reaction from me:

This is obviously meant to be funny, and I did walk away laughing BUT I also could not stop thinking about the valid points Sarah made in between the jokes (she is a comedian, don’t take the vulgarity too seriously please). I don’t think I am suggesting the actual sale of the Vatican, but seriously its CEO, the Pope, lives like the ancient Pharaohs did, and The City, with its complete opulence and unmitigated riches, could definitely stand to spare some amenities.

The obvious argument to be inserted here is that the Catholic church is the greatest force of social justice on the planet, feeding and clothing more homeless people around the world than any other organization, period. Yet I didn’t know until earlier today that any donations received by Catholic charities are from the parishioners of the church, not as a direct contribution from the church itself. So why go through the church at all? What does the church stand to gain, beyond false recognition.

In the year 2000, The Vatican City had $422.098 billion dollars claimed in assets . This article from the Vatican on July 6, 2001 explains exactly how much the church earned and  disbursed that year.

For a state (yes, the Vatican city is the world’s smallest sovereign state) that is quite literally rolling in the dough, it does, in fact, have the highest crime rate in the world. The City had a population of about 492 people in 2006. That year, the country had 341 civil and 486 criminal cases. As if that weren’t bad enough, it is reported that over ninety percent of crimes go unpunished, so these statistics are only referring to convictions. This is complete craziness to me—why have an army of your own if you can’t even properly police the civilians in your census?

It stands to reason that maybe all the art in the museums can be relocated to others around the world, the Pope could very possibly find a new place to live, or like I stated above, buy an entire condo complex if he wanted—and the City could be liquidated to feed the world. It really isn’t such a bad idea. Jesus had no desire to be wealthy, it wasn’t something he thought he needed. I wonder what he would think about the people who work in his name living so comfortably while millions around the world are starving to death. I doubt he would be happy.

Peace Y’all!

Jenn