CNS STORY: Sell the Vatican? Nigerian archbishop calls the idea 'stupid'

ONAIYEKAN-SILVERMAN (UPDATED) Oct-19-2009 (540 words) xxxi

Sell the Vatican? Nigerian archbishop calls the idea 'stupid'

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Sell the Vatican to help the poor?

U.S. comedian Sarah Silverman might think it's a great idea, but a Nigerian archbishop called the suggestion offensive and "stupid."

Africans from poor countries admire the Vatican, and have no desire to dismantle it, Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja told reporters at a briefing on the Synod of Bishops for Africa Oct. 16.

"The few poor people who come here have never said, 'Oh, why don't you sell this and give us money for food.'" They always say, 'What a beautiful place.' They admire it ... maybe because man does not live by bread alone," the archbishop said.

The poor of Africa certainly don't expect the Vatican to sell its art and buildings -- and anyway, "who's going to buy it?" he added.

"I think the joke is not only offensive, but in bad taste and stupid. What they should be asking is: What is the Vatican doing about poverty in the world?" he said.

Silverman, in a recent video monologue laced with profanity, jokingly called on Pope Benedict XVI to "move out of your house that is a city" and use the proceeds to feed the hungry. Among those denouncing the comedian was the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which called the video "another assault on Catholicism."

Archbishop Onaiyekan said the public might have misperceptions about the pope's living quarters. The Vatican is not the pope's "mansion," but a set of office buildings, he said. As for the papal apartment, he has seen it and it's "very straightforward and simple," he said.

He said the question of economic justice has come up in a more serious way at the African synod.

"Poverty in the world has to be dealt with by justice. There are other big buildings that need to be moved and sold -- all those big structures, all those unjust financial and economic structures in the world. Those are the things to move, so that the poor can survive," he said.

"The irony and sadness of it is that we know what to do. And it can be done ... but we don't have the political or spiritual will to do it," he said.

Msgr. Timothy Verdon, a U.S. art historian who lives in Italy, said that when people suggest "selling the Vatican" they misunderstand the nature of Vatican City's art and property.

The Vatican is not a collection of valuable artifacts that can be sold off by the piece, but part of the living tradition of the Christian faith, he told Catholic News Service Oct. 19. Religion gives meaning to the items, and Catholics generally appreciate that, he said.

Msgr. Verdon said the magnificent art and architectural works in Vatican City are not the personal possessions of the pope or of the people who run the Vatican, but belong to all humanity. Nor do they exist for the glory of the church as an institution, but for the glory of God, he said.

While saints like St. Francis had a special charism of poverty, that cannot automatically be applied to the papacy or the Vatican, he said. There is a place for splendor and beauty in religion, he said, because of their capacity to inspire.

END

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