Re:Vatican Uses Donations for the Poor to Plug Its Budget De...
by danShumway on Wednesday December 11, 2019 @05:57PM
(#21767684)
Coming from a religious (non-Catholic) background it seems obvious to me that tithes pay the salaries of people working for the church.
I don't think that people who are surprised by this are ignorant or that they should know better. Probably they just have a different background. But "non-Catholics misunderstand how Catholic church works" isn't exactly breaking news.
Unless there is a notable portion of the Catholic church that didn't already understand this? That would surprise me, but it's possible I'm out of touch.
As a Protestant I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to arguments that the size, age, and formal nature of the Catholic church might lead to otherwise innocuous funding structures being more problematic in practice. But if you want to make that kind of argument, I think that would need to be part of a much longer, more nuanced conversation, and it likely isn't going to fit into a single-page article.
I don't think that people who are surprised by this are ignorant or that they should know better. Probably they just have a different background. But "non-Catholics misunderstand how Catholic church works" isn't exactly breaking news.
Unless there is a notable portion of the Catholic church that didn't already understand this? That would surprise me, but it's possible I'm out of touch.
As a Protestant I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to arguments that the size, age, and formal nature of the Catholic church might lead to otherwise innocuous funding structures being more problematic in practice. But if you want to make that kind of argument, I think that would need to be part of a much longer, more nuanced conversation, and it likely isn't going to fit into a single-page article.