Opposed to Taxes that Support Warfare, Should a catholic Pay taxes?

[Keith_W_OR_USA]

If a Catholic is opposed to warfare of any kind should they pay taxes to the State that is conducting warfare, especially illegal warfare? Catholics often will protest if their tax money is going to support abortions, why doesn’t the Church protest against States that illegally invade other countries? Your thoughts are welcome.

 

[sw85]

If a Catholic is opposed to warfare of any kind should they pay taxes to the State that is conducting warfare, especially illegal warfare? Catholics often will protest if their tax money is going to support abortions, why doesn’t the Church protest against States that illegally invade other countries? Your thoughts are welcome.

Yes, you are always obligated to pay taxes to temporal authorities. We know this because of the direct commandment of Jesus Christ Himself.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Taxes to the State (not individual US state, but nation-state) support more than just warfare. If your country has a method to influence how tax money is used (elections, petitions to the governement, etc.) than we should use those methods first before withholding taxes.

 

[1ke]

If a Catholic is opposed to warfare of any kind should they pay taxes to the State that is conducting warfare, especially illegal warfare? Catholics often will protest if their tax money is going to support abortions, why doesn’t the Church protest against States that illegally invade other countries? Your thoughts are welcome.

The Church is clear that we obliged to pay our legally levied taxes. Catholics can protest how the money is spent, and can use the voting and legislation process to make changes.

 

[bmullins]

Jesus was very clear on his teaching that they should pay taxes to Rome. Rome was definitely not a peaceful nation.

 

[markomalley]

If a Catholic is opposed to warfare of any kind should they pay taxes to the State that is conducting warfare, especially illegal warfare? Catholics often will protest if their tax money is going to support abortions, why doesn’t the Church protest against States that illegally invade other countries? Your thoughts are welcome.

Interestingly, the Holy Father had an idea about this in his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (60):
One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State. Provided it does not degenerate into the promotion of special interests, this can help to stimulate forms of welfare solidarity from below, with obvious benefits in the area of solidarity for development as well.
Of course this would be almost impossible to administer, but the theory behind it is good. I, personally, utterly oppose any of my taxes being used to support abortion, artificial contraception, homosexual adoption of children (including foreign aid that supports those activities overseas). I also do not like the idea of my taxes going to support nationalized health insurance (which I believe to be a grave evil in accordance with Quadragesimo Anno 79) and in many other areas along those lines.

So if you oppose national defense, you should, according to this concept of “fiscal subsidiarity,” be able to designate that your taxes not go to that purpose and I, being a supporter of strict subsidiarity in the social arena and being a supporter of pro-life, should be able to designate that my taxes not go to support purposes that violate my principles.

The trouble is that money is fungible.

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And, by the way, just because the Holy Father floated that idea does not mean that he would support tax evasion on so-called moral grounds. A desire to avoid cooperation with evil would not stand up to scrutiny, even by a moral theologian.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

The Church is clear that we obliged to pay our legally levied taxes. Catholics can protest how the money is spent, and can use the voting and legislation process to make changes.

Just to appease my own curiosity, supposing that one existed under the rule of a government which 1) offered no legitimate recourse for its crimes AND, 2) was committing grave atrocities, such as the typical “boogeyman” of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union… in such a case, would the same thinking apply?

Another example I wonder about is the time when there were totalitarian Protestant monarchs that persecuted and murdered Catholics (not the same didn’t happen in reverse), but what would be the thinking there?

Finally, what about rebellion against tyranny? So, for example,the African freedom fighters who resisted colonial imperialism or the American revolution against Britain, etc?

Certainly it wouldn’t make much sense to say that a group of people could be justified in armed rebellion while at the same time they weren’t justified in withholding taxes, right?

Thank you for your information.

Also, I would like to read more about the Church’s interpretation of “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” because I’m thoroughly confused as to how anyone interprets that as a definitive statement. My intuition**** is that Jesus was being purposefully ambiguous by saying that.

**** = and by no means am I saying that my intuition should be the arbiter of scripture, but rather, when my intuition clashes with the Church, I think I’m justified to inquire as to how the Church reached the opposite viewpoint. Coming to a better understanding of the Church’s position and why it reached that position could never hurt, right?

 

[crazzeto]

Render on to God what is God’s, render on to Ceaser…

 

[KenChute]

Even though Obama has expanded tax payer funded abortions, we have to pay taxes. Just elect politicians who don’t spend our money as insanely as Obama

 

[RCIA4]

I joyfully pay my taxes… I would pay my taxes up until the government took my last penny

 

[sw85]

Just to appease my own curiosity, supposing that one existed under the rule of a government which 1) offered no legitimate recourse for its crimes AND, 2) was committing grave atrocities, such as the typical “boogeyman” of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union… in such a case, would the same thinking apply?

Another example I wonder about is the time when there were totalitarian Protestant monarchs that persecuted and murdered Catholics (not the same didn’t happen in reverse), but what would be the thinking there?

Finally, what about rebellion against tyranny? So, for example,the African freedom fighters who resisted colonial imperialism or the American revolution against Britain, etc?

Certainly it wouldn’t make much sense to say that a group of people could be justified in armed rebellion while at the same time they weren’t justified in withholding taxes, right?

Thank you for your information.

Also, I would like to read more about the Church’s interpretation of “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” because I’m thoroughly confused as to how anyone interprets that as a definitive statement. My intuition**** is that Jesus was being purposefully ambiguous by saying that.

**** = and by no means am I saying that my intuition should be the arbiter of scripture, but rather, when my intuition clashes with the Church, I think I’m justified to inquire as to how the Church reached the opposite viewpoint. Coming to a better understanding of the Church’s position and why it reached that position could never hurt, right?

Legitimate authority is ALWAYS to obeyed, provided its commandments do not conflict with natural or divine law.

This means revolution is ALWAYS forbidden, and also that paying taxes is ALWAYS mandatory.

It simply does not matter if the government then uses that tax money to do evil.

 

[markomalley]

This means revolution is ALWAYS forbidden

I don’t know who’s been teaching you, but they got it wrong.

From the [Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...e_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#The right to conscientious objection):

1. The Church’s social doctrine indicates the criteria for exercising the right to resistance: “Armed resistance to oppression by political authority is not legitimate, unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is certain, grave and prolonged violation of fundamental rights, 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted, 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders, 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution”.[824] Recourse to arms is seen as an extreme remedy for putting an end to a “manifest, long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country”.[825] The gravity of the danger that recourse to violence entails today makes it preferable in any case that passive resistance be practised, which is “a way more conformable to moral principles and having no less prospects for success”.[826]

Or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian freedom and liberation – Libertatis conscientia, 79:
These principles must be especially applied in the extreme case where there is recourse to armed struggle, which the Church’s Magisterium admits as a last resort to put an end to an obvious and prolonged tyranny which is gravely damaging the fundamental rights of individuals and the common good.(119)

Or Pius XI’s instructions to Mexican Catholics during their persecution in Nos Es Muy Conocida (On the Religious Situation in Mexico):
28. If the practical solution depends on concrete circumstances, We must, however, on Our part recall to you some general principles, always to be kept in mind, and they are:

1. That these revindications have reason [the ratio] of means, or of relative end, not of ultimate and absolute end;
2. That, in reason [ratio] of means, they must be licit actions and not intrinsically evil;
3. That, if they are to be means proportionate to the end, they must be used only in the measure in which they serve to obtain or render possible, in whole or in part, the end, and in such manner that they do not cause to the community greater damages than those they seek to repair;
4. That the use of such means and the exercise of civic and political rights in their fulness, embracing also problems of order purely material and technical, or any violent defense, does not enter in any manner in the task of the clergy or of Catholic Action as such, although to both appertains the preparation of Catholics to make just use of their rights, and to defend them with all legitimate means according as the common good requires;