What I find is wrong with the catholic church

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I plan on attending RCIA in the fall but there is one thing that I learned growing up as a protestant that is wrong with the Catholic Church.

Why is the church spending money on churches

When they could be spending it on helping people.

I mean I know the catholic church helps alot, but there is no denial a lot of money is spent on building extravagant churches when they could be alot more humbling.
 
I am not that articulate, but I have this as an answer:

Matthew 26 said:
[6]
And when Jesus was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, [7] There came to him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured it on his head as he was at table. [8] And the disciples seeing it, had indignation, saying: To what purpose is this waste? [9] For this might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. [10] And Jesus knowing it, said to them: Why do you trouble this woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

[11] For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always. [12] For she in pouring this ointment upon my body, hath done it for my burial. [13] Amen I say to you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memory of her.
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The grandeur of the cathedrals, basilicas, and churches are not for ourselves, but for God. For He alone deserves the best that human hands can produce.
 
choliks said:
I am not that articulate, but I have this as an answer:

The grandeur of the cathedrals, basilicas, and churches are not for ourselves, but for God. For He alone deserves the best that human hands can produce.
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I might, however, add that the best doesn’t have to be ornate or grand. In some poor parish in another continent, the best that the parishioners could offer and afford is a simple small church.
 
You see, I’m not that articulate. I still want to add something to what I’ve posted.

How the church is constructed may also vary if it belongs to a religious order or congregation. Orders like the Franciscans and Benedictines usually have very austere churches and chapels.
 
Tx3bro said:
I plan on attending RCIA in the fall but there is one thing that I learned growing up as a protestant that is wrong with the Catholic Church.

Why is the church spending money on churches

When they could be spending it on helping people.

I mean I know the catholic church helps alot, but there is no denial a lot of money is spent on building extravagant churches when they could be alot more humbling.
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We need more than food to be fed… A beautiful Catholic Church can be a work of art and something that inspires. The National Shrine in Washington, D.C. is called a Hymn in Stone. There is meaning behind every oratory and chapel there. And it was built with money from donations from across the world. IIRC the mosaic ofTriumphant of the Lamb in the upper church was largely funded by poorer Slavic countries. These donors were unlikely to ever see the Shrine but they offered what they could to honor God. These churches, and all the beauty they contain, belong to all including the poor.

A simple church can also inspire but I don’t think that is what you were referring to.
 
Tx3bro said:
I plan on attending RCIA in the fall but there is one thing that I learned growing up as a protestant that is wrong with the Catholic Church.

Why is the church spending money on churches

When they could be spending it on helping people.

I mean I know the catholic church helps alot, but there is no denial a lot of money is spent on building extravagant churches when they could be alot more humbling.
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Some thoughts:

The Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization on earth. No government, no other religion, not even any other Christian group could ever hope to come anywhere near the physical, intellectual and emotional mercy and goods freely given by the Catholic Church. We already spend truly gargantuan amounts of money, manpower and time on providing the needy with whatever they need. I am confident that the amount of resources we spend on deliciously beautiful churches is dwarfed by the resources we spend on the poor and oppressed.

Having beautiful churches is not bad. It is a good thing. We take what God has given to us in terms of material resources and we use them to build (hopefully) glorious monuments to Him to house our worship of Him.

Beauty, in general, is a good thing. It comes to us from God. Everything He made is beautiful. It reminds us that we are not just souls and calculating computer-esque brains trapped in meat machines. Our bodies matter. Our senses matter. We are body and soul. If we stress either too much and the other not enough, we become chronically imbalanced. If we stress the body too much, we become corrupt and worldly. If we stress the soul too much, we become cold, stoic and unintentionally heartless. We are an integrated whole and we can’t neglect either part.

Lack of beauty is one area where, for example, modern Evangelical Christianity gets it very wrong. They either do not believe beauty is important or they believe that it is dangerous and therefore are suspicious of it.

It’s not like we sit around all day and think about nothing but whether we should use Carrara marble or granite for the new high altar, or whether our vestments should be watered silk or satin silk, or whether we should use the gold or the silver chalice today at Mass, or whether we should buy the new bishop a ring with an amethyst in it or a diamond. No. There is a place for that and we do it, but we spend far more resources feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and praying for the sinner.

The idea that we spend all our resources on external beauty and none on helping the unfortunate is simply wrong. A poor, ignorant, pregnant couple can be just as helped by the beauty of their local parish church as by the food and shelter they are given.

Some well-meaning person will always say, “The Pope should not live in a palace,” or something. Then we tell that person, “If the Pope didn’t have a palace, we’d build him one.” Truth is, we generallylike these things.

So can this be abused? Yes. But it usually isn’t. Trust me, we have our priorities in order.

My 2 cents.
 
The Catholic Church runs the largest and probably most effective charitable organizations in the world. However, that is not the primary function of the Church. The most important functions of the Church are to make saints and offer right praise to God. A reverent, beautiful, and prayerful environment facilitates people towards the goal of becoming a saint. Finally, with the real presence in the Eucharist actually being God, in his flesh and blood, he is actually present in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a way that he is not present in any protestant church. That same God, who is truly present at the Mass, deserves the best we have to give.
 
Matthew 26:6-13
Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,
a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of costly perfumed oil, and poured it on his head while he was reclining at table.
When the disciples saw this, they were indignant and said, “Why this waste?
It could have been sold for much, and the money given to the poor.”
Since Jesus knew this, he said to them, “Why do you make trouble for the woman? She has done a good thing for me.
The poor you will always have with you; but you will not always have me.
In pouring this perfumed oil upon my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.
Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be spoken of, in memory of her.”
  1. The Catholic Church always has been, and remains, the largest charitable organization on the planet, by a wide amount. Much of the Vatican’s wealth has been donated to it by the great artists of the world for the glorification of God. Even that art which has been commissioned by the Vatican was still done for the glorification of God, because as Christians, we realize that the things of this Earth are fleeting. We give our best to God, but in the end, money doesn’t really mean anything. It’s our relationship with God. Jesus is saying in the passage from Matthew above that one can honor God with fine things AND help the poor at the same time.
  2. The people actually living at the Vatican are not living a magnificent lifestyle. In fact, the pope’s apartment is quite modest. It consists of just ten rooms. The layout includes a vestibule, the library, a small studio for the papal secretary, and the pope’s private studio, from which he blesses the crowd every Sunday. The other rooms include the pope’s bedroom, the medical studio (which has surgical equipment, in case he’s attacked, just like Air Force One has), his private chapel, a small living room, a dining room and kitchen. Further, the pope does not actually own any of this. It’s no different than asking the question of whether the President of the United States lives in too much opulence because he gets to use the White House, Air Force One, Marine One, Camp David, and so on. All of these things serve a purpose, and NONE belong to him. They belong to the people, which let him use it.
 
  1. The Vatican also serves as a museum for many of the world’s great treasures. As such, it protects them in museums. In reality, these objects have no objective value, because they cannot be sold. For example, let’s say the Vatican was to give up all of it’s wealth. How, precisely, would you sell off the Sistine Chapel? Is there really anything else you can do with it? You can’t give it to a private collector, or build a Starbucks, or something. That said, let’s do an experiment. Let’s say that the art that it WOULD be possible to sell at the Vatican is worth, say, a trillion dollars. That would indeed be a large sum of money. Now, let’s sell it all and donate the money to the poorest one-third of the world. The Catholic Church would then be able to give those two billion people exactly… $500. That’s it! Now, while the average income of those 2 billion impoverished people is around $300 per year, and while this would help them for a very short time, in about a half a decade, they would all likely go right back to being poor, and the world would have lost access to many of the world’s greatest treasures, as they’d be in private hands. Is the United States of America fabulously wealthy because it has the treasures of the Smithsonian Institution? I mean, wouldn’t it be better if they sold off all of those artifacts and donated the money to the poor? Of course not.
  2. The Vatican, like many great churches, dates to the late Middle Ages / early Renaissance. A cathedral was actually one of the best investments a medieval town could make. Despite their great expense, a large cathedral could take hundreds of years to complete. It could become an industry unto itself. Large cathedrals employed thousands, and generated huge amounts of highly skilled jobs… jobs that were sorely lacking in the period. When the cathedral was complete, they would still need to be maintained, so many workmen would still remain. The pilgrims that would come to visit the cathedral needed to be fed, clothed, and housed, and this provided a virtual tourism industry, bringing in much needed revenue to both the church and the community. Churches were also the only medieval centers of learning, and every major university in Europe split off from a cathedral. If you had a cathedral school in your town, opportunities for trade would skyrocket, since learning about math, geography, cartography, astronomy, business, and law was all required by merchants. Further, most towns only even needed to have one large church, since there were no denominations. Everyone was Catholic, so all the effort could go into one splendid building rather than many smaller ones. Almost all medieval cities with a cathedral were FAR better off than their counterparts without them. This is why the cathedral is often called the greatest innovation of the Middle Ages.
  3. There is an old legend (which is probably true) that in the late 10th century Grand Prince Vladimir, seeking a national religion to help unify his lands and peoples, sent out envoys to inspect the various faiths of the surrounding nations. Accordingly, they attended the Muslim rites of the Bulgars, the Catholic mass of the Germans, and the Orthodox liturgy of the Greeks. When they returned and were questioned by their Prince as to which of the religions they thought the best, they answered boldly that whereas they found neither joy nor glory in the ceremonies of the Bulgars and the Germans, when they entered the sanctuary of the Greeks, they did not know whether they were in heaven or on earth. “For on earth,” they explained, “there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty” (the Primary Chronicle). Vladimir accepted their testimony, and the Russian Orthodox Church (which in 1988 celebrated its Millennium) was born.
That idea of splendor, awe, and the sacred (more successfully accomplished by the Orthodox in the story above since Germany was a backwater at the time) is what is trying to be captured at the Vatican. If you come away with “it’s almost as if God is dwelling among men” at the Vatican, then you got the point.

The Biblical basis for this idea comes in part, from Revelation. It also is the successor to the Levitical priesthood, which also had splendid things, such as the Temple of Solomon.
 
At a funeral recently the non-Catholic christian beside me made the comment that the service was lovely but she could do without the bells and smells and rigmarole. She was basically complaining about the Catholic traditions used in the funeral rite.

I responded, “Take it up with God, because he’s the one who dictated what an offering, sacrifice, and holy spaces would look like in the Old Testament. He spells out what materials are to be used, how they are to be used, which colors, where they would be placed, what sequence herbs and spices are to be meshed together and for what purposes. The Catholic church maintains, preserves, and follows God’s instruction.”

Spend some time reading and reflecting upon Exodus 25-31. It is remarkable how much detail God put into his instructions.

I agree with the previous posters who put the ornateness of any holy place in the proper perspective of honoring God according to his guidance, and yes, if a parish has little to give in this regard, they give the best that they have nonetheless.
 
Do you remember hearing the Christmas story when you were little of how Mary and Joseph could not find lodging in Bethlehem the night that Jesus was born? They knocked on doors and there was no place for Him? Didn’t you think that you would like Him to come to your house, stay in your bed? How you would share your toys with Him, maybe read Him your favorite story?

That’s the heart behind the people who have built Churches. They are people of faith, who have love in their hearts, who are grateful for the blessings they’ve received. They built the best that they could to make a place for the King of kings. Maybe when He was born in Bethlehem, there was only clean straw to lay the Saviour, but if they could make a place, it would be nicer than that. Jesus is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the blessed sacrament, in the tabernacle. He is the Prisoner of Love, residing here with us, never leaving us. “God is with us!” we say at Christmas in the Divine Liturgy, and it’s true. What a gift! It’s where Heaven comes down to earth! The source of our joy.
 
Should craftsmen and artists and musicians be denied a fair living wage? Just as the Church takes money from the faithful to spend on grand projects, people are being paid to work on these things. The Church has been the foremost patron of the arts during history. Each parish keeps a few people on staff and supports their family by paying a salary. Catholic book stores and catalog outlets create commerce by selling religious articles. Dry cleaners get paid to clean vestments and linen. Utility companies are paid to keep the lights on in the buildings. Dioceses pay salaries for priests and orders support their religious brothers and sisters. Someone entering the priesthood or the religious life is generally guaranteed a comfortable living for the rest of his life. Catholic schools exist to educate the young and provide jobs to teachers and staff. The Vatican and other sites of pilgrimage enjoy a thriving economy due to tourism, sharing the benefits with the surrounding towns and cities. I visited Barcelona and the cathedral there charged for entry, the Sagrada Familia charged pilgrims to ride its elevators and support its construction, and an amusement park at Tibidabo enjoys a mutual relationship with a beautiful church, Sagrat Cor.

Is the Church not exercising charity by stimulating commerce in these ways? I do not see it as a lot of money flowing into the Church so much as vast sums flowing through her and being put to use for the common good. Others have mentioned the overt works of charity done. Parishioners are free to earmark their contributions for St. Vincent de Paul or other programs that exist expressly to help the needy.

I have been watching Downton Abbey and some good points are made that the estate does not just exist as a jewel in the crown of the super-rich, it drives the economy and provides jobs for the villagers and servants. Unlike an Edwardian estate, the goods of the Church are open to all of us to enjoy and benefit from. The next time you enter a church, be thankful that it is bright and warm. Donate a couple bucks and pick up a donut, because it’s for the greater good and all ad majorem Dei gloriam.
 
Who are we to deny, or ignore, the sacrifice, and love, that a devout Catholic of another century put into making God’s house as beautiful as it could be?
 
God is truely present in the Catholic Churches. God is worthy of more than we can build for him. He is worth the sacrifice we make to build a beautiful Church. People were called by the Holy Spirit to build these homes. Let us not be judgemental, and spit on the work of God. Since God is our father & we are his children, it is your home too! Welcome to life with the King. Be it a Cathedral, or modest Chapel.
 
Catholic Charities (though it is not a contest) provide more relief than all other charities

and Catholics honor God with the Church s I feel the reverence in a Catholic church, in the beauty and architecture that God gave people the ability of, and its all the more Glorious when we use it to honor God.
 
"Why is the church spending money on churches

When they could be spending it on helping people."

I believe your answer is right there in scripture. There is Martha and Mary as someone already mentioned. But also this, from Matthew:
Code: 
  6Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, 7a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. 8But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste? 9“For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” 10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me. 11“For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me. 12“For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial. 13“Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.”
Never underestimate the power of evangelization that a beautiful church building provides. Unlike Protestant churches, most of our “try” to be open during waking hours (not always possible in some areas, but the Church tries to do this). I for one spent countless hours in Catholic Churches during my long conversion process. The beauty of a church building is not there without purpose.
 
That is a truly valid question, and here’s the answer. The Catholic Church owns more charities than any other institution, and more hospitals also,and all the people helped by these institutions never have to pay back. We don’t just help people of our faith. We help everybody. We have nice churches because usually all the Catholics of an area pitch in to help build one. they are not required to, but most do it out of the kindness of their heart. I hope this clears up any questions, and welcome to the faith! I will pray for you!
 
If you have a problem with us building our places of worship in a manner befitting the Almighty God, then you should also take up complaint with Almighty God, for he required His Ark and His Temples to be built to His exact specifications, and to a level of extraordinary extravagance for the time. Should we not give to God our first-fruits, our best? The Church has always helped the poor and needy, and will continue to do so, just as we will honor God by building His dwelling places in a manner befitting Him (or so we should at least attempt).
 
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