The Observer, reaching way outside Texas, calls on the Vatican to crack open its $73 billion gold mine. The author is triangulating off Leo XIV's recent "Magnifica Humanitas." The problem, or the reality, is tseveral-fold, without excusing Rome. First, not all of its assets are liquid. Second, at $73 billion, not trillion, that's one-tenth of what Elmo Musk or Bozo Bezos are worth, at least on paper. And, that's just the richest of plutocrats, not the whole schmeer. Third is that the author is privileging the United States, and possibly Mexico, when il papa rules Catholics around the globe.
Fourth, you're asking a man who wears ruby-colored, and perhaps ruby-edged slippers while carrying a gold crozier to do this?
Fifth, many of the assets that would be liquified to get to this point would be bought by plutocrats. That said, if the Vatican were to sell, say, the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that alone would bring more than $73 billion.
Sixth, you're asking a religious leader who runs a body that still opposes women in leadership, still opposes women's reproductive freedoms and other things, to show the world "magnificent humanity" through money alone?
And, I didn't even mention the priestly sexual abuse scandal that Leo's predecessor left smouldering.
The piece seems somewhat simplistic.
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