OK, because this has come up too many times, I need to write about it. There are young people and old alike that think the Church is extremely wealthy and that all the lands, including the Vatican, should be sold and the money given to the poor. There are some who do not think the bishops should wear mitres or have rings with precious or even semi-precious stones.
Well, where do I start? First, the Institutional Church is a physical Church and not the "invisible Church", a phrase I referred to before as heretical, on this blog. Christ is Man and God and He created a hierarchical structure which is real, one can smell, touch, see, etc.
We are physical and spiritual entities. We are human.
Second, the Church is not wealthy. Having property does not make one a wealthy person, contrary to popular belief. In fact, the upkeep of property can positively be a drain on resources and cash.
Third, the aesthetically real experience frequently leads us to God, and God deserves the best we can offer of art and architecture. Only Puritans, or Calvinists, to be exact, disdain the Beautiful. God is Beauty. Our small, pedestrian minds and hearts should be raised up to God through Beauty. See my long January posting on this fact.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/thoughts-on-beauty-and-tridentine-mass.html
Fourth, Christ Himself said the poor are always with us, period, as they are our responsibility. However, ghd poor are not an institutional problem. That is socialism. We are to take care of our brothers and sisters in Christ, not an institution. And, Catholics fail on this point miserably. In fact, the very people who have been criticizing the Pope or the bishops for their miters and such, are the ones who do not involve themselves on a daily basis with the poor. God wants us all to respond in the best way we can, but to loudly proclaim that the Church should divest itself of religious symbols which include the signs of the Church Triumphant, is just plain heresy.
I can partly understand this false argument when young people who are over-zealous see the Church as some sort of treasure house of riches, but for older, middle-aged persons to go on about this seems blatantly stupid.
