Pope Condemns Overcrowding While Vatican Vaults Remain Stocked
While it's touching to see the Pope acknowledge the plight of the incarcerated, one might wonder if the Vatican's own overflowing coffers could offer some practical solutions beyond spiritual comfort. With centuries of accumulated art, real estate, and financial assets — reportedly estimated in the tens of billions, if not more — the Church's vast wealth seems to remain strikingly un-dispersed
when it comes to systemic social issues. (Apparently, some forms of overcrowding are more urgent than others.) It's a familiar script: leaders decry symptoms of systemic failure while carefully avoiding any suggestion that their own institutions, or the immense resources they control, might play a role in alleviation. Imagine the impact if even a fraction of the Vatican's art collection's
estimated market value was redirected to, say, actual prison infrastructure or rehabilitation programs, not just thoughts and prayers. But then, who would guard the priceless Caravaggios?