1st Class: The Clergy?

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In one of my classes, we’re studying the French Revolution.
It begins with the “old order” of the three estates - the social order of the time:
  1. First Estate - THE CLERGY
  2. Second Estate - Nobles
  3. Third Estate (the majority*)- Diverse group, peasants, urban workers
The textbook says the clergy enjoyed wealth, and they didn’t pay taxes. The Church owned 10% of the land in France.

How could bishops and priests have so much money, as they are figures of Christ’s Church? What was going on?

I could expect that, in certain times of history, bishops and priests enjoyed prosperity and wealth (as the Church was sometimes secular) – but the TOP of this social order!?

My teacher had a certain “tone” in her voice about the Church. She didn’t directly say anything bad about the “traditional” order and the Church, but she had this look. . .
 
catholic1seeks said:
In one of my classes, we’re studying the French Revolution.
It begins with the “old order” of the three estates - the social order of the time:
  1. First Estate - THE CLERGY
  2. Second Estate - Nobles
  3. Third Estate - Diverse group, peasants, urban workers
The textbook says the clergy enjoyed wealth, and they didn’t pay taxes. The Church owned 10% of the land in France.

How could bishops and priests have so much money, as they are figures of Christ’s Church? What was going on?
Click to expand...
Calling the clergy the ‘first estate’ was a mere courtesy in a (nominally at least) Christian country allegedly under God. It’s not like the Bishop of Paris was crowned king, signed laws into force or set tax rates for the country, after all.

The REAL ‘first estate’ were the nobles. They would’ve very nearly owned the other 90% of the country. And would’ve been much MUCH less numerous than the clergy and religious as well, and also paid little or no tax.

AND were much less likely than the Church to be employing their wealth usefully - remember there was no welfare and really no public education or health, so the Church was running almost all of the schools, hospitals, orphanages and so on.

You want to talk REALLY obscene wealth, obscenely wasted, the nobility are the ones to point the finger at.

Now I wonder what percentage of the population actually would’ve been priests, nuns and monks at the time? It would’ve been many many times higher than today. Possibly even as high as 5%, if not 10% of the population.
 
catholic1seeks said:
In one of my classes, we’re studying the French Revolution.
It begins with the “old order” of the three estates - the social order of the time:
  1. First Estate - THE CLERGY
  2. Second Estate - Nobles
  3. Third Estate (the majority*)- Diverse group, peasants, urban workers
    The textbook says the clergy enjoyed wealth, and they didn’t pay taxes. The Church owned 10% of the land in France.
How could bishops and priests have so much money, as they are figures of Christ’s Church? What was going on?

I could expect that, in certain times of history, bishops and priests enjoyed prosperity and wealth (as the Church was sometimes secular) – but the TOP of this social order!?

My teacher had a certain “tone” in her voice about the Church. She didn’t directly say anything bad about the “traditional” order and the Church, but she had this look. . .
Click to expand...
Our country has anti-clerical (especially Catholic), anti-European, and anti-monarchy roots. That is reflected in how we are taught history.
 
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