Tithing for an adoption?

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JustAnotherThou

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Sorry if this topic has been covered before, I searched and didn’t see it.

DH and I are trying to adopt. We are stuck with the cost of adopting. I would prefer to adopt through a Catholic agency, although we are also looking at Foster Care to Adopt due to the cost (this option is basically free). We would like to eventually adopt at least 2 children so we might do both routes.

We do Tithe to the Church generously (well we think), last year it was 16.7% of our gross income, the year before was around 12% (this just counts all the collections through the mass collection envelopes, it does not count the items we buy to support the schools, Alter Rosary, etc.). We would never consider not tithing. Although, we are in a friendly debate on if we took partial or all of our tithe and applied it to a Catholic Adoption agency would that be against the Church’s tithing recommendations? I had heard somewhere that you can give 5% to the Church and 5% to another charity? I am not sure that is correct. We do not make a great amount of money so if we took half of what we tithe now it would take us about 2 years to save the amount needed to adopt through Catholic Charities. If we applied all of our tithe it would take a year.

Any suggestions???

A short VENT!!! When my parents adopted me in 1971 from Catholic Charities it cost them a grand total of $150. Today it would cost us a minimum of $15,000 (ours will be more because of travel time for the Social Worker and we live about 100 miles from the closest Catholic Charities office. :confused:
 
Let me PM you with the blog of a woman I know who is not only the adoptive mom of 3 so far, but is very creative with funding the Catholic adoptions.
 
There is NO rule regarding how much you give to your parish and/or diocese versus other charities. You do not **have **to give a certain percent to the parish. Period.

The fifth precept of the church states only that we must “contribute to the support of the Church”. It names no amount, it doesn’t say that supporting the Church is restricted to supporting your parish (after all Catholic Charities is part of the Church too), and it does not say all support must be monetary. Time and talent are equally important methods of supporting the Church.

So, of course you should continue to support your parish, but you should in no way feel restricted or bad for giving more to CC and less to your parish for a time if that is what you feel you need to do.
 
1ke said:
There is NO rule regarding how much you give to your parish and/or diocese versus other charities. You do not **have **to give a certain percent to the parish. Period.

The fifth precept of the church states only that we must “contribute to the support of the Church”. It names no amount, it doesn’t say that supporting the Church is restricted to supporting your parish (after all Catholic Charities is part of the Church too), and it does not say all support must be monetary. Time and talent are equally important methods of supporting the Church.

So, of course you should continue to support your parish, but you should in no way feel restricted or bad for giving more to CC and less to your parish for a time if that is what you feel you need to do.
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Agreed… “tithing” (literally 10%) is not required by the church.
 
We realize it is not required, I did think they had recommendations (least I was told that). We do also donate a lot of time to our parish, such as cleaning, opening in the mornings, saying the rosary, meals for funerals and to the priest, etc.
When we married we decided that financial tithing was an important part of our faith and marriage.

FYI: I am on the same page as you. DH is not as sure, he seems on the fence. He has admitted that he does not think that our parish will have the lights shut off if we don’t tithe for a year.
 
JustAnotherThou said:
We realize it is not required, I did think they had recommendations (least I was told that). We do also donate a lot of time to our parish, such as cleaning, opening in the mornings, saying the rosary, meals for funerals and to the priest, etc.
When we married we decided that financial tithing was an important part of our faith and marriage.

FYI: I am on the same page as you. DH is not as sure, he seems on the fence. He has admitted that he does not think that our parish will have the lights shut off if we don’t tithe for a year.
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Why not talk to your pastor about your situation!?
Being able to adopt a little child and bring LIFE into the parish is also a HUGE blessing for the entire parish!!!
 
I see no problem at all with reducing your tithing in order to adopt sooner. You’ve already stated that you support your church by other means (volunteering, etc.) and if you continue this and reduce your tithing to 5% or much less, I think you are still definitely fulfilling your obligation. It’s not like you are taking the money and using it on something less noble than supporting the church–you will be using it to try to adopt one of God’s little ones…what is more charitable or Catholic than that?

God bless you both! 👍
 
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