Pope issues new rules governing Church charitable agencies [CWN]

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zab: I’m not understanding your point in Post #22. Please clarify.
 
Art 9:3
It is the duty of the diocesan Bishop and the respective parish priests to see that in this area the faithful are not led into error or misunderstanding; hence they are to prevent publicity being given through parish or diocesan structures to initiatives which, while presenting themselves as charitable, propose choices or methods at odds with the Church’s teaching.
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Does this mean we won’t see the white envelope with the red trim in our offertory packet again next November since millions have been funded by the anti-poverty arm of the USCCB to social justice causes which also push abortion and contraception?
 
iloveangels said:
I’m also not sure what you’re getting at with the St. Vincent de Paul thing.

UNDER OBAMACARE – a program of the US government:
If St. Vincent de Paul has employees they’ve hired, they will either need to: a) scale back to less than 30 hours a week work (go part time), OR b) pay the expensive fines, OR c) take insurance that covers abortion (aka go secular), OR d) get an exemption.

To get an exemption, they have to do the following:
  1. have the “inculcation of religious values” as their primary goal, AND
  2. employee primarily Catholics, AND
  3. serve primarily Catholics, AND
  4. have already qualified as a non-profit under certain sections of IRS tax code.
These are things the US government has decreed, not the Church.
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The US government is foolish. Perhaps you are right that this new statement by the Pope is a response to that. This rule by the goverment will change what Catholics can do to practice charity (their religion), sadly.
Art. 1. - § 1. The faithful have the right to join in associations and to establish agencies to carry out specific charitable services, especially on behalf of the poor and suffering. To the extent that these are linked to the charitable service of the Church’s Pastors and/or intend to use for this purpose contributions made by the faithful, they must submit their own Statutes for the approval of the competent ecclesiastical authority and comply with the following norms.
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Since the SVdP Society gets money from the parish collection plate, they seem to qualify to have to meet the norms. That’s what I was wondering.
**Art. 10. - **§ 3. In particular, the diocesan Bishop is to ensure that charitable agencies dependent upon him do not receive financial support from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching.
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That to me meant that a chapter of SVdP (or similar group) **might **not be able to accept a donation from local groups in the city in which they reside, except from Catholic parishes. I didn’t mean the federal government.
Art. 7. - § 1. The agencies referred to in Article 1 § 1 are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.
§ 2. To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity. To this end, he is also to provide for their theological and pastoral formation, through specific curricula agreed upon by the officers of various agencies and through suitable aids to the spiritual life.
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I wondered who this meant, only paid people, or volunteers, since the group I’m thinking of locally is all volunteers. If volunteers, then what type of person is excluded?

I just want to know how the Pope’s statement will affect my parish. Someone else pointed out that maybe certain money collections that the parish makes yearly will disappear. I agree pruning is good. I just want to know what pruning that will mean. I often end up answering questions about what the Church has done, so I like to have some clue to be prepared. 🙂
 
Tigg said:
Does this mean we won’t see the white envelope with the red trim in our offertory packet again next November since millions have been funded by the anti-poverty arm of the USCCB to social justice causes which also push abortion and contraception?
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No, it means the CCHD will not be able to fund causes that push abortion and contraception. In a perfect world, this will never happen again. In the imperfect world, it means that we still will have to deal with one wolf at a time in the fold. Now however, we have the mandate from the Holy Father to stop such funding and now we know that he is paying attention to see that we do. Also, such policy can not be institutionalized.

This ruling does not dissolve our mandate for social justice.
 
Tigg said:
Does this mean we won’t see the white envelope with the red trim in our offertory packet again next November since millions have been funded by the anti-poverty arm of the USCCB to social justice causes which also push abortion and contraception?
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One can only hope, yes. And people need to know what’s going on too.
 
Pug said:
The US government is foolish. Perhaps you are right that this new statement by the Pope is a response to that. This rule by the goverment will change what Catholics can do to practice charity (their religion), sadly.
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Your religion is not charity. Your religion involves the worship of God first and foremost. Charity is a consequence of your religion, but you can practice charity in many ways and you do not need government money to do it!!!
Pug said:
Since the SVdP Society gets money from the parish collection plate, they seem to qualify to have to meet the norms. That’s what I was wondering.
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I don’t know the answer to that one way or another. Probably some one should do some research and find out.
Pug said:
That to me meant that a chapter of SVdP (or similar group) **might **not be able to accept a donation from local groups in the city in which they reside, except from Catholic parishes. I didn’t mean the federal government.
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I don’t know why people couldn’t donate privately if they are so inclined. That doesn’t really have anything to do with employee insurance plans.
Pug said:
I wondered who this meant, only paid people, or volunteers, since the group I’m thinking of locally is all volunteers. If volunteers, then what type of person is excluded?
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Volunteers are not affected by employee insurance plans from the agency they volunteer for.
Pug said:
I just want to know how the Pope’s statement will affect my parish. Someone else pointed out that maybe certain money collections that the parish makes yearly will disappear. I agree pruning is good. I just want to know what pruning that will mean. I often end up answering questions about what the Church has done, so I like to have some clue to be prepared. 🙂
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Perhaps those collections will disappear, yes, but no one here knows for sure. If you have sort of an average parish structure, your parish structure is probably not going to be disrupted much, particularly if there’s no food bank, soup kitchen or elementary school attached to it.
 
pnewton said:
No, it means the CCHD will not be able to fund causes that push abortion and contraception. In a perfect world, this will never happen again. In the imperfect world, it means that we still will have to deal with one wolf at a time in the fold. Now however, we have the mandate from the Holy Father to stop such funding and now we know that he is paying attention to see that we do. Also, such policy can not be institutionalized.

This ruling does not dissolve our mandate for social justice.
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PNewton,
Do you want to show me where the words “Social Justice” appear in Scripture, because I must have missed that sentence.

Go ahead and use Biblegateway: biblegateway.com/
Fetch it up and show me the verse where those particular words (“Social Justice”) appear, please.
You can use any translation you like.
 
iloveangels said:
PNewton,
Do you want to show me where the words "
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It doesn’t, just like the word “pope” and “trinity”. So what? Do you subscribe to sola scriptura? If not, then why ask such a question? FYI - The Catechism does teach this concept in section 1928 forward, if anyone is interested.
 
ringil said:
I really don’t think that comment is necessary or even especially meaningful.
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The poster was simply being candid. The pastor of a St. Vincent
DePaul charity in Baltimore was for gay marriage, runs a social justice community group that would bring Obama to tears and reading his website you would have to strain to see Christ mentioned anywhere, let alone abortion. People are no longer silent about the 800 lb Gorilla in the room and that’s a good thing.
 
pnewton said:
This ruling does not dissolve our mandate for social justice.
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Who said it dissolves social justice? It simply puts social justice in it’s place. Social Justice without evangelization, is not Catholic.
 
pnewton said:
It doesn’t, just like the word “pope” and “trinity”. So what? Do you subscribe to sola scriptura? If not, then why ask such a question? FYI - The Catechism does teach this concept in section 1928 forward, if anyone is interested.
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So give me a quote from the Catechism with exactly those words. “Social Justice” just like that.
 
Scalia said:
Who said it dissolves social justice? It simply puts social justice in it’s place. Social Justice without evangelization, is not Catholic.
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It’s actually not social justice; it’s charity. And you are correct. Without evangelization, charity is not Catholic.

There is nothing religious about being just another social service organization among many.
 
Scalia said:
Who said it dissolves social justice? It simply puts social justice in it’s place.
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There was an above statement that they wondered if this would end a collection that occurs in November.
Social Justice without evangelization, is not Catholic
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That is not quite what the Holy Father said. He spoke of an evangelical witness, not that all charity had to evangelize. Specifically, he wrote:
  1. To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity.
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It is the witness, the testimony, of charity that reveals our faith. This is why charities can not contradict Catholic teaching. It hurts our witness to what we believe.
 
pnewton said:
That is not quite what the Holy Father said. He spoke of an evangelical witness, not that all charity had to evangelize. Specifically, he wrote:
It is the witness, the testimony, of charity that reveals our faith. This is why charities can not contradict Catholic teaching. It hurts our witness to what we believe.
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The reason I pointed out the words “Social Justice” is that they are used together like that in the culture to mean a whole cluster of things, many of them non-Catholic.

Catholic charity includes witness to faith in every case, yes. It must or it’s not Catholic charity. Even when it includes no explicit preaching, witness to the truth is present, and if asked those working must not deny the truth of faith.

Otherwise, it’s just secular social work and that’s not what we’re supposed to do, and it’s certainly not what the tools have been given to people by the Church for.
 
iloveangels said:
Your religion is not charity. Your religion involves the worship of God first and foremost. Charity is a consequence of your religion, but you can practice charity in many ways and you do not need government money to do it!!!
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Government money? I wasn’t talking about government money. I wasn’t talking about money itself, either (other than the fact that our parish takes official collections for St. Vincent de Paul so that might mean the motu proprio applies to them). I do not view charity as a consequence of religion. Perhaps you use words differently than I do. Perhaps the word “charity” to you usually signifies money spent on certain things. That is not how I typically use it. Perhaps “religion” to you means only thinking and not acting. I don’t know. I surely know that words can tangle a discussion and that “religion” is one of them, so I’m sorry I used the word, but I’ll explain a little since I already made a muddle:

The government has the force to interfere with charitable behaviors, many of which do not involve money. In my opinion if it does that, it is stepping on the toes of religion, among other toes. A charitable behavior might be to instruct the ignorant. Another might be to clothe the naked.

Someone mentioned scripture, so perhaps that could help:

James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Volunteers are not affected by employee insurance plans from the agency they volunteer for.
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I’m asking about what the motu proprio said, not obamacare. I’m asking if the motu proprio affects volunteers or just employees.
Perhaps those collections will disappear, yes, but no one here knows for sure. If you have sort of an average parish structure, your parish structure is probably not going to be disrupted much, particularly if there’s no food bank, soup kitchen or elementary school attached to it.
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Ah, the school, yes, that I suppose could be affected by Obamacare (but I wasn’t thinking of Obamacare). Is the motu proprio supposed to affect parish schools? We also give out food through the society of St. Vincent de Paul.
 
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