Catholic Church's nonprofit status challenged in Maine

[tm30]

Simple. They’ll just blame the Church for letting those people die. The Church is rich enough – if they wanted to, they could fund the hospitals, soup kitchens, etc. This is just the Church’s way of getting back at the people who wanted the Church to pay its fair share.

Am I being too cynical?

Nah. At that point the diocese would simply release their balance sheets to demonstrate the massive deficits in running a hospital with income/real estate taxes hanging over the Church. If there’s no money, there’s no money.

Of course there will be the obstinate who would say exactly what you posted, but reality bites, and it will bite hard if the tax exempt status were revoked.

BTW, it would probably mark the end of Catholic schools, too, since it’s already nearly impossible to pay for staffing at a reasonable wage in parochial schools.

 

[tm30]

So what if the Catholic Church loses its tax exempt status? Our pastors would be free to preach on what is right and what is wrong and they wouldn’t live in the shadow/fear of the government any longer.

Look at it this way. Do you think God is pleased that so many of our priests cower in fear of what they can say on Sunday because they are afraid of losing the Church’s tax exempt status? It’s not as if the Church in China or Africa is worrying about their “tax-exempt” status. That “benefit” is only available to Americans. So the real question that should be asked? Are the clergy afraid that we will not be able to fund our Church if we do not have a tax exempt status in America? If the answer to that is yes, it shows a lack of faith in what God can do and provide for His church. The second question that should be asked–will people not give to the Church if they can’t deduct it from their taxes? I really hope the answer to that is no. As far as I know, I don’t give money to any charity because I can deduct it at the end of the year—it is nice that I get to deduct it but it is not the main reason I do it.

Priests can talk about these subjects all they want from the pulpit without risking the tax status. The problem isn’t fear of the gov’t. The problem is fear of the congregation.

 

[gam197]

Sorry for posting a duplicate thread as sometimes I miss the original thread.

I am just glad that the Church has taken a stand. They usually don’t allow any signatures gathering at churches but just talk from the pulpit about the churches’ doctrine on the issue or or few churches may have some postcards in the back of the church that can be sent into the legislators or governor prior to the bill passing.

There is no big push by the church and to prove that there has been in the last 35 years on any issue will be extremely difficult because it hasn’t happened in NE.

In MA in the past when they collected signatures at stores, etc., the signature gathers were harassed and blocked so let’s hope they can get these signatures as they only have 90 days.

 

[AlwaysAsking]

It STARTS with going after tax exemption.

My understanding is that the government triumphed over the Mormons this way in the 70s. They had a racist prohibition from blacks becoming pastors or whatever. The government threatened to revoke their tax exemption because of the institutionalized racism and suddenly there was a revelation that it was okay for blacks to be leaders.

That’s why the gay community singled out the Mormons in the California Proposition 8 debate… it was a threat.

Personally, I would LIKE to support civil unions for gays because I don’t believe the government alone has the ability to make a ‘real’ marriage. But the problem is, once gay marriage is legalized it opens the door for activist couples to sue the pants off of every church in the phone book when they discriminate against gay couples by refusing to offer RELIGIOUS ceremonies.

This will come to pass, I have no doubt. I don’t have a problem with civil unions or taxing churches; not really. I have a problem with Satan using the gay community to drive Christianity into legal and financial exile.

 

[aggiecatholic05]

Interesting…are you saying that the poor (non-taxpaying citizens) don’t have a right to question the system? This is my point regarding the tax-exempt status. If one must pay taxes in order to participate in political dialogue, then we should remove all non-taxpaying citizens from the ability to vote.

Do you agree? No? I didn’t think so…

that is an excellent point. one the left will ignore since statistically the poor tend to vote for them.

 

[JReducation]

Interesting…are you saying that the poor (non-taxpaying citizens) don’t have a right to question the system? This is my point regarding the tax-exempt status. If one must pay taxes in order to participate in political dialogue, then we should remove all non-taxpaying citizens from the ability to vote.

Do you agree? No? I didn’t think so…

No, that’s not what I’m saying. I used the term in a different way. I was using it in a more popular way, meaning the common man.

Hope this clears it up.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[rlg94086]

No, that’s not what I’m saying. I used the term in a different way. I was using it in a more popular way, meaning the common man.

Hope this clears it up.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Understood. Since almost 50% of the “common man” don’t pay federal taxes anymore, they aren’t so “common” anymore.

I hope you agree that limiting freedom of speech should not be attached to non-profit status.

 

[Michael_C]

If you think the removal of “tax-exempt” status is imminent, have you checked with your local government to see what the annual taxes would be on your church, if your church had to pay taxes?

Is money a reason for the Shephards to keep quiet? It’s nothing compared to the threat of being fed to beasts as the early Church fathers were.

 

[JReducation]

Is money a reason for the Shephards to keep quiet? It’s nothing compared to the threat of being fed to beasts as the early Church fathers were.

Money is not the real issue here, but pastoral care is. For example, Catholic Charities is the largest provider of free services to the poor in this country. Catholic schools are the cheapest private schools available. Parishes provide a significant number of services and ministries to the largest population in a given area. More people get services from parishes then they do from any other community service agency. Some parishes serve as many as 3,000 families. Multiply that number by at least four persons per family. As it stands, many parishes lack priests because they can’t pay the salaries, even though secular priests pay their own taxes, FICA, auto insurance, automobile and maintenance.

Dioceses provide health insurance and retirement for their employees, including their priests. Religious orders serve parishes for half the cost of secular priests. They support their senior members on their meager salaries, pay for the education of young religious, provide for their own healthcare. Parishes provide them with automobiles and insurance as part of the contract between the religious order and the diocese.

Catholic hospitals cost less to run than community and secular private hospitals and they provide quality care to millions of people a year. Nursing homes also provide care for less money than secular nursing homes and do a better job than many.

These are just some of the many ministries that cost trillions of dollars to run. These things are not cheap in the USA, as they are in developing nations around the world. In other countries, such as Canada and some European countries, the state funds many Catholic services, excluding parishes. We do not have that kind of funding in the USA.

If the tax laws changed, that could potentially cripple many Catholic ministries. Some laws, such as abortion and gay marriage are already crippling some ministries.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Priests can talk about these subjects all they want from the pulpit without risking the tax status. The problem isn’t fear of the gov’t. The problem is fear of the congregation.

Why do you think that is? Popularity, money, or what? I have often wondered about this.

 

[JReducation]

Why do you think that is? Popularity, money, or what? I have often wondered about this.

I think that there is something to be said about the congregation. It’s not always positive. I know that many religious orders are pulling out of parishes, because their younger members are telling their superiors that they can’t deal with the parishioners.

Oftent they find themselves in situations where the parishioners will misquote, misunderstand, accuse them out of context, charge them with being intolerant. They often find themselves in no win situations, too conservative for some and too liberal for others. When you try to discuss some of these issues from the pulpit, some people accuse you of preaching politics. I know this happened when parishes tried to get signatures to stop FOCA.

As a result, younger religioius are asking their superiors to assign them to ministries that are more in keeping with the vision of the founders of the religious order or religious congregation.

When you miniser in a parish and spend half of your time doing damage control or solving crises, it takes time that your community and the holy rule expect you to spend in silence, solitude, community prayer, community recreation, community chores and duties and study. Mos religious communities were not founded to run parishes. They do this as a favor to the bishops and the laity in a diocese. Now many of them are going back to missions, youth ministry, street ministry, itinerant preaching, cloistered life, work among the poor and other ministries. They are returning the parishes to the bishops. They felt they were in no win situations.

A good example of these are two very popular groups of Franciscans: The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. The original religious men were former parish men. They wanted to go back to live the Franciscan life as Francis has designed it. They found that they could not live Franciscan life in parishes. They asked for permission to branch off into new Franciscan communities that do not serve in parishes.

The laity has to be more patient and more supportive of their parish priests. If there are disparities, it is important to ask questions, but it is equally important to remember that not everyone has the answer. Not having the answer does not make a priest or religious a bad person.

Often, we will have to work together to find the answers.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF