“Why does the Church have all those gold cups and fancy paintings?”

In defense of beautySHEA: This remains the substance of the charge to this day: that the evangelical counsel of poverty is contradicted by the art, the gold, the finery, the gorgeousness of the Catholic artistic and cultural tradition and that the only true Christian is more or less walking barefoot in the snow like St. Francis. Its power was felt in Dominic’s time by the people in southern France, who compared the austere lives of the Cathars with those of the corrupt clergy and voted “Cathar” in droves. It retains an enormous amount of power today when, in addition to the gorgeousness, there is also the inevitable corruption that always afflicts any aggregation of homo sapiens, including ordained homo sapiens. In short, a bishop — living in a mansion with fine wines and premium cigars — who covers up the abuse of children is a powerful argument against the Faith.�