Catholic Church Says It Will Stop Charity Work If D.C. Passes Gay Marriage Law

[Havard]

*Thank you…why this thread worded that way, then? lol

Second, I don’t understand the ‘‘religious exemption?’’ Why is the Catholic Church going to be denied grants? I guess I don’t understand. *

The title of the article was “Catholic Church Says It Will Stop Charity Work If D.C. Passes Gay Marriage Law”, so that explains the thread title.

As to the religious exception, basically the city council is saying “You have to provide benefits to gay couples if you want our social services contracts” and the Church is asking for an exception based on religious beliefs.

 

[whatevergirl]

The title of the article was “Catholic Church Says It Will Stop Charity Work If D.C. Passes Gay Marriage Law”, so that explains the thread title.

As to the religious exception, basically the city council is saying “You have to provide benefits to gay couples if you want our social services contracts” and the Church is asking for an exception based on religious beliefs.

ah! Ok. Benefits? In other words, Catholic Charities (organizations) must provide ‘healthcare benefits’ to gay couples who are employees? Thank you for your patience in explaining this to me.

 

[StillWondering]

How many same-sex married couples ARE there in the Church? None? So how is this even an issue??

I’m incredibly disappointed in the Church; this isn’t a stand for morality, it’s the selfish action of a spiteful control freak.

Mathew 25:41-45
41"Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44"They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45"He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

I’m not one to read things into the Bible, and I don’t see where Jesus attached any strings to charity, or that those who refuse to help the needy based on ‘moral grounds’ are excused. Whatever reasons they give, the bottom line is they aren’t helping people in need. Period.

Miz

If God says do not eat this fruit because it will kill us. And we say but my wife’s tummy is hungry, I’ll just get the fruit to feed her since feeding her is what God would want me to do. Do you think God will be happy with us and would she die? How about if God says you can eat any fruit from this garden except this fruit? But your own tummy tells you want that fruit. It’s begging for the fruit. Is it justified for you to go ahead and eat the forbidden fruit? We all know how this story ends.

God is telling us that certain things are immoral. Are we supposed to do immoral things for moral ends? Nope. Basic rule: the end does not justify the means.

All we can do is do moral things with the moral means we have.

 

[taylorc]

They don’t seem like a charity if they rely so heavily on public funds. Most charities rely “solely on the generosity of private donors”. It just rubs me the wrong way to find out that the government finances private groups.

 

[Havard]

ah! Ok. Benefits? In other words, Catholic Charities (organizations) must provide ‘healthcare benefits’ to gay couples who are employees? Thank you for your patience in explaining this to me.

Exactly.

 

[Havard]

They don’t seem like a charity if they rely so heavily on public funds. Most charities rely “solely on the generosity of private donors”. It just rubs me the wrong way to find out that the government finances private groups.

Maybe you’re thinking about private foundations? Public charities, which are distinct from private foundations, often rely on government grants.

 

[taylorc]

Maybe you’re thinking about private foundations? Public charities, which are distinct from private foundations, often rely on government grants.

I’m talking about private charity(which totally voluntary) as opposed to taxpayer funding(which is coerced). I don’t think taxpayers should be forced to fund organizations other than the government they pay their taxes to.

 

[GoodKingW]

I’m talking about private charity(which totally voluntary) as opposed to taxpayer funding(which is coerced). I don’t think taxpayers should be forced to fund organizations other than the government they pay their taxes to.

This is usually how it works. The local and federal government earmarks a certain sum of money each year for specific sorts of charity. The federal government then dumps a lot of that earmarked money into state coffers, based on current requests and previous levels of need. The way this money is distributed is heavily regulated. The downward flow of money is often necessary because of various laws protecting states rights and also in recognition that the locality in question has a better understanding of local needs than the federal government.

The state then uses some of those funds to provide aid to citizens, but largely this money, in addition to money from state and county taxes, goes to private charities via grants, bonds and the like. Heavy regulations (now at both the State and federal level, and sometimes the county and city level as well) attend these funds and aim to ensure that the funds provided are used for the intended purposes.

The reason it works this way is that it (a) helps the same people it would have helped, supposedly, if the aid had been granted from a federal level or from the state, (b) creates local business opportunities for these private charities,and (c) has more streamlined, efficient organizations addressing the citizens’ needs rather than a state or federal bureaucracy.

Most major private charities function with hefty state and/or federal subsidies, whether they be local grants, federal or local bonds or funds from both sources (tax credits, for example, are provided by the federal government, and awarded by the local). DC, for example, awards a little over $8M in contracts to the Archdiocese. The Archdiocese spends a little of $10M of its own money on charity work. The reason for the collaborative charity works is many fold including, but not limited to, reasons of economy of scale (DC can only earmark x amount to spend on a social need, which could really use 2x amount of dollars… having Catholic Charities take a grant of x to handle this is an easy way of achieving your goal), reasons of law (grants sometimes come with special exemptions normally only afforded to government programs, which exemptions allow the charity organizations to effectively administer aid in a manner otherwise prohibited), and reasons of efficiency (it makes more sense to have one person overseeing a certain charitable effort than two or many).

 

[Leela]

*Thank you…why this thread worded that way, then? lol

Second, I don’t understand the ‘‘religious exemption?’’ Why is the Catholic Church going to be denied grants? I guess I don’t understand. *

The Church isn’t going to be denied grants. The Church will refuse grants and opportunities to serve the poor rather than provide such benefits as the ability of homosexual spouses to buy into their health care program. The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor.

 

[Charlotte408]

The Church isn’t going to be denied grants. **The Church will refuse grants **and opportunities to serve the poor rather than provide such benefits as the ability of homosexual spouses to buy into their health care program. The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor.

no, whatevergirl, the extent of the issue is bolded.

The church will continue do provide charities and service to the poor, as they have ALWAYS done. The will just not use city grants to do so, because the city is stating that if ANY organization is using THEIR money they have to adhere to THEIR laws regarding homosexuality.

The church condemns homosexuality as immoral, and therefore will no longer partake in those grants if it means that they HAVE to participate in immoral practices.

Basically they are asking the church to ‘sell out’. And they’re not.

Talking to Leela on this is going to be like :banghead: because even after idk how many pages she just doesnt seem to get the concept. RE READ the article, please, before you keep spreading this ‘The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor.’ propaganda…

And as far as WHY the article is titled like that, is to imply that the church will STOP ANY AND ALL charities because of the homosexual issue. The media knows all too well that some ignorant people will read the title, and go no farther. Leela obviously fell into this trap.

 

[Charlotte408]

They don’t seem like a charity if they rely so heavily on public funds. Most charities rely “solely on the generosity of private donors”. It just rubs me the wrong way to find out that the government finances private groups.

Well dont let the CC be the one to irk you, theyre just out feeding people, clothing people, helping homeless…we may have our ‘views’, but were not out killin’ people…

Its other bad boys like PP, ACORN etc you should be worried about…

 

[Havard]

I’m talking about private charity(which totally voluntary) as opposed to taxpayer funding(which is coerced). I don’t think taxpayers should be forced to fund organizations other than the government they pay their taxes to.

I would generally agree with GoodKingW’s response, with the following addition:

What you are talking about would be called a ‘public charity’ per the Internal Revenue Code. Public charities may be entirely privately funded, don’t let the name fool you.

 

[Leela]

This is usually how it works. The local and federal government earmarks a certain sum of money each year for specific sorts of charity. The federal government then dumps a lot of that earmarked money into state coffers, based on current requests and previous levels of need. The way this money is distributed is heavily regulated. The downward flow of money is often necessary because of various laws protecting states rights and also in recognition that the locality in question has a better understanding of local needs than the federal government.

The state then uses some of those funds to provide aid to citizens, but largely this money, in addition to money from state and county taxes, goes to private charities via grants, bonds and the like. Heavy regulations (now at both the State and federal level, and sometimes the county and city level as well) attend these funds and aim to ensure that the funds provided are used for the intended purposes.

The reason it works this way is that it (a) helps the same people it would have helped, supposedly, if the aid had been granted from a federal level or from the state, (b) creates local business opportunities for these private charities,and (c) has more streamlined, efficient organizations addressing the citizens’ needs rather than a state or federal bureaucracy.

Most major private charities function with hefty state and/or federal subsidies, whether they be local grants, federal or local bonds or funds from both sources (tax credits, for example, are provided by the federal government, and awarded by the local). DC, for example, awards a little over $8M in contracts to the Archdiocese. The Archdiocese spends a little of $10M of its own money on charity work. The reason for the collaborative charity works is many fold including, but not limited to, reasons of economy of scale (DC can only earmark x amount to spend on a social need, which could really use 2x amount of dollars… having Catholic Charities take a grant of x to handle this is an easy way of achieving your goal), reasons of law (grants sometimes come with special exemptions normally only afforded to government programs, which exemptions allow the charity organizations to effectively administer aid in a manner otherwise prohibited), and reasons of efficiency (it makes more sense to have one person overseeing a certain charitable effort than two or many).

Thanks for taking the time to explain the process and how these sorts of charities work.

 

[Leela]

no, whatevergirl, the extent of the issue is bolded.

The church will continue do provide charities and service to the poor, as they have ALWAYS done. The will just not use city grants to do so, because the city is stating that if ANY organization is using THEIR money they have to adhere to THEIR laws regarding homosexuality.

The church condemns homosexuality as immoral, and therefore will no longer partake in those grants if it means that they HAVE to participate in immoral practices.

Basically they are asking the church to ‘sell out’. And they’re not.

Talking to Leela on this is going to be like :banghead: because even after idk how many pages she just doesnt seem to get the concept. RE READ the article, please, before you keep spreading this ‘The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor.’ propaganda…

And as far as WHY the article is titled like that, is to imply that the church will STOP ANY AND ALL charities because of the homosexual issue. The media knows all too well that some ignorant people will read the title, and go no farther. Leela obviously fell into this trap.

I don’t know what the deal is with the head banging on the wall and everything. In the above you seem to agree with everything I said, and I agree with everything you say above.

I never meant to imply that the Catholic Church will stop all charity work. Of course they won’t. They will just refuse to some opportunities for charity work and discontinue some current work.

The fact remains, they are choosing to stop doing this charity work (not all charity work, of course) to avoid providing a certain group of people participation in their charity’s employee health care program. There is a weighing of competing evils here, because the Church would certainly like to continue to participate in public charity funding, but dropping certain services for the poor seems to them to be worth doing to avoid helping gays afford health care. I’m left feeling a little WWJD? about this. I tend to think that Jesus would support doing charity work for the poor and also support providing health care to people regardless of sexual orientation, but I don’t claim to have any special knowledge on the matter.

So you can bang your head against the wall all you want. I’ve read the full article and the letter from the archdiocese and heard the arguments made here, but I still stand by my statement, “The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor,” and I think that is a shame.

 

[Corki]

I don’t know what the deal is with the head banging on the wall and everything. In the above you seem to agree with everything I said, and I agree with everything you say above.

I never meant to imply that the Catholic Church will stop all charity work. Of course they won’t. They will just refuse to some opportunities for charity work and discontinue some current work.

The fact remains, they are choosing to stop doing this charity work (not all charity work, of course) to avoid providing a certain group of people participation in their charity’s employee health care program. There is a weighing of competing evils here, because the Church would certainly like to continue to participate in public charity funding, but dropping certain services for the poor seems to them to be worth doing to avoid helping gays afford health care. I’m left feeling a little WWJD? about this. I tend to think that Jesus would support doing charity work for the poor and also support providing health care to people regardless of sexual orientation, but I don’t claim to have any special knowledge on the matter.

So you can bang your head against the wall all you want. I’ve read the full article and the letter from the archdiocese and heard the arguments made here, but I still stand by my statement, “The immorality of homosexuals receiving health care (gasp!) in this case seems to be more important that the immorality of dropping services the Church currently supplies to the poor,” and I think that is a shame.

There is no “weighing of competing evils here.” The Church always has more oppportunities to serve than it has resources. As Jesus Himself said, the poor will be always with us. But one of the cornerstone teachings of the Church is that one cannot do evil even if there is a good result. Chosing to deliver services to the poor without immoral restrictions placed by the city is not chosing one evil over another; it is avoiding an evil in order to continue to do good.

Please stop characterizing this as the Church not wanting to give health care to homosexuals. That is a complete red herring. The Church and her related organizations such as Catholic charities have always and will always provide health care to her employees regardless of sexual orientation. But she cannot morally extend spousal benefits to same sex cohabitators any more than she can to opposite sex cohabitators.

 

[Leela]

…
Please stop characterizing this as the Church not wanting to give health care to homosexuals. That is a complete red herring. The Church and her related organizations such as Catholic charities have always and will always provide health care to her employees regardless of sexual orientation. But she cannot morally extend spousal benefits to same sex cohabitators any more than she can to opposite sex cohabitators.

Why could the Church not extend health care benefits to opposite sex cohabitators?

 

[Corki]

Why could the Church not extend health care benefits to opposite sex cohabitators?

I said “spousal benefits”. Duh… it’s because they aren’t spouses!

 

[Leela]

I said “spousal benefits”. Duh… it’s because they aren’t spouses!

Is “duh” an example of the “Christian charity” I hear so much about?

Anyway, I understand that, but why could it not extend the same benefits anyway to any domestic partnership if it chose to? Of course they wouldn’t be called “spousal benefits” because…you know…Duh.

 

[Corki]

Is “duh” an example of the “Christian charity” I hear so much about?

Anyway, I understand that, but why could it not extend the same benefits anyway to any domestic partnership if it chose to? Of course they wouldn’t be called “spousal benefits” because…you know…Duh.

Sorry, it was a joke that didn’t translate well into cyberspace.

No, the Church would not give domestic partnership benefits either. The Church can no more sanction couples living together out of wedlock than it can any other moral evil (abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, etc.).

 

[Leela]

Sorry, it was a joke that didn’t translate well into cyberspace.

No, the Church would not give domestic partnership benefits either. The Church can no more sanction couples living together out of wedlock than it can any other moral evil (abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, etc.).

Did Jesus not heal sinners? Then it would seem no problem to provide health benefits to heterosexual couples living together out of wedlock or to homosexual partnerships.