| Vatican back in black, even as offerings fall |
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Posted on 07/10/2005 8:19:17 PM PDT by Salvation
| Vatican back in black, even as offerings fall |
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This has to be a mistake. A church this big has to have taken in more than 51.7 million dollars. With a billion people, that's only about a nickel a person a year. That can't be right.
What am I missing?
What you are missing is that Catholics do not have the ethics about tithing that you as Protestants do.
I salute you -- and all I can say is that we are learning. My parish collection for the first week of the month runs about #153 percent of the weekly total.
I believe that we met our monthly goals all but one month. Not too bad for a Catholic Church. (As I said above, we are learning to ask for the money!!)
I daresay that we are an exception, however.
My little country church gives at a level 30,000 times bigger than that, if it's talking about total Catholic giving in offering plates.
Surely they're just talking about Catholic's gifts to the Vatican.
There are very few people in America who could throw a nickel in an offering plate and not be sending an insulting message.
Most of a Catholic church's collection money goes to that church, some to the diocese. There's a special collection once a year (Peter's Pence) that goes to the Vatican.
Because if one tithes, it's not from the heart. I'd rather have money from the heart than a tax of sorts.
Our parish took up the collection a couple of weeks ago. We were right back to normal.
What you are missing is that the Church is not the monolithic structure you imagine it to be.
1. The fabulous wealth of the Catholic Church is a myth.
2. Parish collections go to benefit the parish.
3. Diocesan colections go to benefit the diocese: mostly to aid Catholic Charities, parishes failing to receive enough money, Catholic schools, and seminary tuitions.
Or rather it's not a myth, but it's not in liquid assets. Artwork, churches, land, sacred objects -- many invaluable, very few that could appropriately be sold.
Excellent points.
The point is the church neither has, nor can get, money, and hence, neither does it have the power which money represents.
A good example of this is my home LCMS district often had more liquid assets than the Omaha Diocese, which had more people. The Omaha diocese would get grants of land and other large items, while the Nebraska district of the LCMS would get more monetary gifts (in fact do to the laws of incorporation, real estate was often discouraged)
Offerings are usually higher for many non Roman Catholic churches, and it seems that the RC offerings don't "float" as much. IE, the stuff given on the local level don't get bumped up the line as fast or as often.
Just something I noticed between my parents and my in laws also.
Aside from architecture and art treasures which are, in a sense, a public trust maintained by the Church for our common use and enjoyment (that is, not set up for public tours for a cash admission charge!) --- and not readily convertible to liquid assets --- the annual income of the Vatican is quite modest. For instance, in 2002, the revenues were $245 million, the costs $260 million, a deficit of $15 million.
By way of comparison, the annual revenue for the city of Minneapolis, MN is about $1.25 billion --- four times as much as for the Vatican, which administers religious affairs for 1.1 billion members on 6 continents. That amounts to about 25 cents per Catholic. Not really princely.
Anybody who wants to open their own coffers for Mother Teresa's nuns who work with the very poor, might want to support their center in Bronx: Missionaries of Charity, 335 E 145th St, Bronx, NY 10451 - (718) 292-0019
I'm going to go check my coffer now...
Catholic contributions go first to the local parish.
Then there is a contribution for the diocese, which helps at the diocesan level with things like churches that don't finance themselves, such as small, more rural churches, helps to finance seminary students, finances local catholic charities.
Then there is the Peter's Pence, which is a yearly contribution to the Vatican.
Then there are a variety of causes which are done as special collections, such as Catholic Relief Services, various mission works, and so on.
The Catholic Church functions as and is financed as a distributed network. The base unit is the diocese, with its bishop.
Most of the money raised stays local.
And catholics do not come anywhere near to tithing in their weekly contributions, but with the abundance of special collections, building funds, diocesan drives, etc., they give more than their weekly regular contribution would indicate.
A Dominican priest gave me this advice once: Try to save ten percent of your income for doing charitable deeds. Half of that ought to go to the weekly contribution, and the other half to whatever other good works the Lord puts before you. I have tried to do that. My husband, who was raised Catholic, says he never donated so much before we were married. I feel I don't give enough, and would like to be more generous, but can't always do as much as I want.
Somehow or other, the Church muddles on, not nearly as rich as it looks, but still managing to try to do the Lord's work, and with some success.
I appreciate your responses. They seem to be in concert. You will understand my amazement, though, when I, the Methodist Elder of a small rural community, consider my people to be good -- but not great -- givers. At the rate they gave to the DENOMINATIONAL LEVEL last year -- not counting what we gave for local expenses and "district & conference" (diocese/archdiocese level) bishop's expenses -- we would still be AT LEAST 200 times higher on average than what it appears the Catholics are giving to the Vatican.
It fascinates me because the average gift of a billion Catholics to the Vatican works out to about a nickel. If the average annual income of poor Haiti is about 400 dollars a year, the 40 dollars is their 10 percent. Even a Haitian would have to give a paltry 1/10th of 1 percent of their income to the Vatican to achieve such a low level.
I'm surprised your popes don't all suffer from High Blood Pressure.
So what does the "denomination level" do with all the money they get?
Missions, staff, projects, etc. Probably the same stuff as the Vatican uses theirs on.
The pensions & health benefits are paid elsewhere at the diocese level.
Each year, as Catholics, my family tithes our gross income. Of that amount, 40% goes to the parish, 30% to the diocese, 5% to the Vatican, and the remaining 25% to various charities. Many of our fellow parishioners do the same. I don't understand what the problem is. In my experience, people give as they are able and it is unwise to judge them when we don't know their circumstances.
I'm simply looking at the stats reported above, particularly that one which says the Vatican offerings totaled 51.7 million bucks. In a church of a billion+ people, that says something.
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