I did mention museums and galleries in my post, Jim. Selling to the highest bidder is almost always private hands these days: witness galleries trying various crowd funding techniques to save important works for the nation.

All I am really saying is we should explore other alternatives before risking artworks disappearing into a vault somewhere.

As to whether the Catholic Church is inherently too wealthy: that's a different topic. It is, in my view, at the very least far too centralised wealth.