That’s the difference between requiring tithing in order to not lose your family for eternity (Mormonsim), and not requiring tithing in order to fully participate in all rites and blessings (Catholicism). … In fact, each Mormon is required to attend a personal interview once each year with their bishop, where they are asked many personal questions, one of them being whether or not they are a full tithe payer…
And yes, Catholics should give more, but at least it’s not forced. The Church does encourage Catholics to tithe, giving 5% to the church and 5% to charities of their choice, but no one ever asks for that personal information, and it has no bearing on whether one can fully participate in the rites of the Church. In the case of Mormonism, tithing is required and the full amount must go to the church. If one wishes to donate to other charities that’s above and beyond the tithe to the church.
Mormons are not the only religion that make large financial demands of their adherents. The Baptist church across the road from my house insists upon seeing its members’ tax returns, to ensure that they are tithing. The “better” churches — the ones downtown that the local elites attend, that very often have “First” in their names — also have large financial expectations of their members, especially when it is known that these members “have money”. In fact, growing up (I was not raised Catholic), one reason we didn’t go to church — aside from faith just not being a priority in our family — was that the “better” churches, the ones downtown that didn’t holler, and shout, and roll in the aisles (as for the latter, some did, some didn’t), the more “sophisticated” or “reserved” churches, had financial expectations that we couldn’t meet. The more “working-class” churches were seen as being “rednecky” and uncouth. So we just didn’t go anywhere.
I will say, though, that as having been a parent of a child in a somewhat prestigious (in their own eyes possibly moreso than in actual fact) Catholic school, there is
definitely the expectation that you will either donate large, or else work your hindquarters off in service to the school. I did neither — I didn’t have it to give, and I had a very demanding career that didn’t pay much and that left me, at the end of the day, desiring nothing so much as my easy chair and my bed, to rest for a few hours before getting back up the next morning and doing it all over again. (I tried working with the Scouts on weekends for awhile, as much to foster my own son’s interest in it as anything else, but that didn’t last.) My lack of donation and lack of participation, in retrospect, does not seem to have been received well.
Gone are the days when Catholic schools were “just where you went” if you were Catholic, charged little if any tuition, delivered a solid basic education instead of aspiring to be “all things to all people”, didn’t act as magnet schools for the wealthy of all faiths and none, and had an abundance of priests and religious to teach for very low pay (in the case of the religious, simply room and board with a minimal personal allowance).
