If that headline got your attention, you’re not alone. In its first two days on YouTube, Sarah Silverman’s video (warning: adult language) of the same name has had 114,000 views. But in the coming days, the video will likely both hit the 1M mark and become a feature in this week’s discussions online and off. (Hat tip: JDubRecords)The core idea is as simple as the headline. If the Vatican liquidated its billions of dollars’s worth of assets, world hunger could be eliminated. Of course, this being Silverman, the video is additionally peppered with inappropriate comments about how the commercials for hunger organizations make her want to “get them [the emaciated hungry people] out of my apartment” as well as irreverent suggestions about how the Vatican should buy a complex of condos with a water slide, and then, with the leftover money, end world hunger. “You preach to live humbly, and I totally agree,” Silverman lilts, “so now maybe it’s time for you to move out of your house that is a city.” Silverman, always the equal opportunity invoker of images and ideas guaranteed to offend someone (if not everyone), promises conspiratorially that if the Vatican does this, “any involvement in the Holocaust…bygones.” Check out the video, and after the jump, an analysis of some of the comments left by fans and detractors.Beyond the content of the video, the comments on the YouTube page are particularly interesting. Commenters range from those who think Silverman’s treatment is a brilliant idea to those who find it distasteful – some are even critical for her blowing the punchline in the video’s title. (A mistake which we repeat here in the above headline. Sorry.) One commenter says, “A world without the Christian church? Good luck,” while another “completely” agrees with Silverman. “If Christ would be living right now, he will be the first one to sell every single peace of treasury to feed poverty. But, as it has happened since the beginning of Christendom, church has committed so many mistakes and has gone so far away from the words of Christ …” Predictably, some condemn her for her flip attitude toward both hunger and the church, while others call her out as a Jew who doesn’t care about the church. “If a Catholic American had suggested selling Jerusalem or Israel to feed the poor, the good Lord knows the Jews would have destroyed her/him with the magic “anti-Semitism” label, but somehow, it has become okay to hate on Catholics and Catholicism. I’m Greek Orthodox, but I abhor such normalisation of disrespect for a particular group.” One commenter took it a step further [all punctuation/capitalization retained from the original comment]: “Hey Sarah…since you are a JEW. Sell Israel to the Palestinians. You could sell it to them “Wholesale”. I am sure the Arabs would buy it from you Sarah. but don’t “Jew” them out of it…lol.” But among the 723 comments on the video, there are also several people who see a truth within the comedy. “I love all the hostility thrown back at Sarah for her making the simple proposition that Christians should act like Christians. I’m a protestant and I’d be thrilled if my church (Methodist) or any other protestant church cashed out and gave to the hungry and dying. This level of human suffering is inexcusable in this day and age. Our palaces to God are full of our shame.” What are your thoughts on the church’s responsibility – and our personal responsibility – to addressing world hunger? Are interfaith initiatives like OneSabbath enough?
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posted October 12, 2009 at 6:57 pm
True Jesus challenged the rich man to sell all and give to the poor AND then follow him! But Judas had the same idea of selling everything and giving to the poor but Jesus said stated that we will always have the poor with us.
You obviously don’t appreciate the work of the Church. Dismantling the church would not benefit humanity.
You also overestimate the wealth of the Vatican. It may be in the millions but not billions of dollars. Even if it were true, a few billion dollars will not end world hunger.
posted October 12, 2009 at 8:40 pm
@Rich:
True… Judas had the “same idea”, but remember, his motives were far from righteous: “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?’ Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a THIEF, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.”
The Catholic church, in all its wealth and treasures, have strayed from the difficult path of Jesus. And that is: To love Jesus, live humbly, AND love your neighbor as yourself.
posted October 12, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Oh, that passage was from John 12:4-6
posted October 12, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Maybe we should sell Hollywood. Just think the mansions of Tom Cruise, Brad & Angelina et all probably dwarf the assets of the Vatican. And let’s face it; nobody does holier than thou quite like Hollywood.
posted October 13, 2009 at 3:31 am
The Vatican is not something you “sell.” I think Sarah Silverman ought to start by selling her high def TV, selling all her posessions, etc. If she is going to ask someone else to do it, she ought to bite the bullet herself. This is one of the most annoying videos I’ve seen in a long time.
The Vatican, for those who don’t know, is valued only so highly because of its culture value and for its centrality in the Catholic Church. One cannot simply “sell” this and give it to the poor. If it were so easy to take money from one context and push it into another with no red tape, Bill Gates and HOLLYWOOD movie starts could have ended world hunger long ago. It simply is not a matter of money.
It is a matter, rather, where all people should do what they can to help their neighbors when times are tough, no matter who your neighbor is.
posted October 13, 2009 at 10:21 am
You’re a dope. You VASTLY underestimate the wealth of the church. The Vatican Library and Museum have HUNDREDES of BILLIONS in artifacts, writings, and works of art. Items over thousands of years old, previously deemed priceless, would now have a price. And not just the Vatican but all of the churches in Rome have priceless works… and the Egyptian Obelisks all over Rome belong to the church, brought there in 10 B.C. Sell all that shit.
posted October 13, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Worth a try…but then where would Benny live? He’d lose his castle…and have to live in a regular house like other folks.
(
posted October 13, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I never said that the Catholic Church wasn’t worth a lot of money. I was simply saying that you can’t just sell priceless artifacts of history. Certainly, you could sell them on the black market or such things, but then you would lose all the cultural history and artifacts of the Catholic church. These are things that scholars and others study to try and make sense of things like Medieval history, etc.
Secondly, what I meant was even if you sold the billions of dollars worth of material within the church, you would then have to turn and pay thousands of people to redistribute the wealth. I am all for ending hunger in the world, but this vast redistribution would be expensive, and it wouldn’t change anything.
Money doesn’t change things, people do. You would need thousands of willing buyers, thousands of willing participants to give all that “money” to those in those situations, and that requires a lot of planning.
All I was saying was that Silverman is oversimplifying things to think you can just sell one thing and then give it to another group of people.
posted October 13, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I think there’s no question Hollywood could do a lot more than it is doing right now for world hunger. Imagine how far the budget of, say, Transformers 2 would have contributed to solving international poverty and medical crises – way more than it contributes to American or world culture. Does any actor (Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, or anyone else) really need $50 million a picture? I think it’s clear to anyone that Sarah Silverman, a comedian, is noting the excessive wealth of the Vatican in opposition to the extreme state of poverty and hunger worldwide. I like to think she’s not saying “sell the Vatican” as a literal prescription for a cure, but “where is our money going, and are our dollars – and our faith structures – doing all they can?”
posted October 14, 2009 at 11:27 am
Maybe Sarah should encourage the International Jewish bankers to stop pillaging national economies and stop finiancing wars. Then maybe we might be a tad more prosperous and peaceful.
posted October 15, 2009 at 12:25 pm
My commentary:
“Sarah Silverman’s modest proposal for the Pope, and what I propose for Sarah”
http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/10/sarah-silvermans-modest-proposal-for.html
posted October 16, 2009 at 11:18 am
I agree for probably the very first time with Sarah Silverman, but She could have left out the valgarities and the point would have been stronger. I do ask myself why do these places have so much, when there are so many with so little. Then I again I do not understand why L.A. is broke with all those stars, singers, actors, etc… living there. Wait!!! Yes I do, it is called, SELFISNESS, what is mine is mine and you can’t have it!!!!!!!!!
My mother taught me to share what I have, not important how little it may be, but I think quite a few folks forgot this lesson… if they were taught it in the first place.
posted October 17, 2009 at 11:53 am
You couldn’t sell the Vatican because it’s unmarketable in its present condition as a World Historic Site. Rather, let’s have Steve Helmsley, CEO of Unitide Health Insurance to donate 5% of his rapacious take-home pay and with Helmsley’s earnings alone we’d have $12,500,000 dollars a year to contribute to offset world hunger. They could keep on working with their pirate’s loot rate of pay and each CEO could give that much or more or less each year till world hunger was solved.
posted November 23, 2009 at 8:21 am
you don’t even deserve Dear,
You are a very sad sack of S……………… and have a nasty mouth, just like all the churchs that give to the poor so does the Catholic Church. Maybe Ms. Silverman you should practice what you preach, and give up your place for the poor. Or go out there and help them.
To talk to a Pope like that, your not working for heaven, thats for sure.