• Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Except they have billions in stolen art and could liquidate it at any point. If not trillions, actually.

    Nobody knows exactly what Vatican has but Porphyry Basin in the Vatican Museum is estimated to be worth 2$ billion alone (it was commissioned by Emperor Nero).

    Vatican could literally end the world hunger with their treasure hoard.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Vatican could literally end the world hunger with their treasure hoard.

      No they couldn’t. They’d end up making a bunch of warlords into billionaires while the regular people would go on starving. The only way to end world hunger is grassroots economic development and education (especially for women). You can’t do that by dumping billions of dollars into those countries. The problem is very tricky and the work is long and arduous.

    • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Their art collection is so massive, containing such crazy rare items, many cannot have a price tag as they are literally priceless. It’s impossible to calculate its value due to the extreme rarity, or because anything like it to compare it’s value to is also in the Vatican collection.

      When they sell 1 priceless art item, they can sustain themselves for a year. They have hundreds of thousands of those items, if not millions.

      Saying the Vatican goes bankrupt sounds like “Elon Musk struggles to pay for his groceries”.

      Sounds to me their massive stream of money is declining and they want to scare people into giving them more money.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Though if the idea that high value art is actually a money laundering/moving scheme is true, this might not be the case. The idea is that no one or few people actually want to spend millions on art but pretend they do as a front to spend millions on something else.

        They could probably save some money by reducing the “cover up pedophile priests” item in their budget.

        • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The collection of the Vatican doesn’t consist of weird modern art paintings but of historical important pieces. Private art collections of Roman emperors, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rodin, etc. Not some fake money laundering value because some Chinese tech CEO spent way too much money on it but true historic value backed by scientific research and historic manuscripts, which hold value on their own. Any museum would sell children’s organs to be able to get their hands on a single piece. I’ve been to the Vatican myself, I’ve seen one single wing of many, completely filled with the most impressive art pieces, stacked together like they don’t have enough room to store everything properly. The British museum is innocent compared to the amount of stolen priceless art pieces the Vatican has.

          And they they are on the brink of bankruptcy, because “people aren’t giving them enough money anymore”… “Because of the current pope”. I guess for the first time we have a pope doing something right.

          A corporation which thrives on one source of income alone: gifts. And now the infinite money stream is declining. What was it, Christians say when bad shit happens… Ah yes, I remember, “God works in mysterious ways”. Or translated for people who do not believe in imaginary friends and fairytales: shut up and deal with it.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Just pray. If your God is the creator of the universe, it’s pretty likely he can handle the situation once you let him know.

  • jollyroberts@jolly-piefed.jomandoa.net
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    5 days ago

    Bullshit. They own more land than damn near any other entity on the planet. The whole celibacy thing was so the priest could not take the church owning and give them to non-church kids.

    Hurting for money? Sell some land. Then pay for the abuse lawsuits some more.

  • TingoTenga@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Good for them, I guess?

    "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

    • Devorlon@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      But, but The eye of a needle was a market with a small gate and if you only had a reasonable load on your camels then they could pass through so it’s actually ok for rich people to exist /s

      • Blu@sopuli.xyz
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        5 days ago

        That cope from Conservative Christians™️ is always funny. Similar statements show up in the Talmud. A large animal passing through the eye of a needle was a common idiom in Jewish culture at the time to demonstrate impossibility.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          I wish they had just said, “look bro, I don’t even need an idiom. I’m just going to tell you. If you’re rich, you’re going to Hell. You can’t exploit people and hoard resources and be in God’s good graces at the same time. Just being rich means that you’re ok walking by misery and not helping. Bro, you can’t have it like that.”

  • Alpha71@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Well it’s a good thing they have all that priceless art they can sell…

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      They could always start selling indulgences again!

      In fact, they could even expand beyond the traditional Catholic market. Even Muslims get into Catholic heaven if they’re willing to cut a big enough check! Maybe you can get some atheist billionaire to buy a $1 billion “just in case” indulgence.

      • LordGimp@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        They don’t need to sell anything. They’re sitting on the horde of Rome’s wealth along with all the nazi gold the church took in during WWII. They have the wealth to easily pay their debts but would rather enter into bankruptcy than actually pay them.