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Bold Moves the Church Should Make for Freedom
Long the counterweight to the state’s “public” functions — parochial schools, charity hospitals, etc — the American Catholic Church is uniquely positioned to advance the cause of liberty against Leviathan. Unfortunately, she has also become deeply entangled with the bureaucracy in ways that threaten freedom of conscience for all Americans, not just Catholics. There are three constructive ways the Church can resist the forces of tyranny: relinquish her tax-exempt status, remove her priests as agents of the state in marriage, and refuse tax dollars for her charitable organizations and activities.
Tax-Exempt Status
Patrick Madrid is a noted Catholic apologist, author, and host of Catholic Radio’s Right Here, Right Now program. On a recent show, he advocated that the Church forfeit her tax-exempt status in order to more freely exercise her right to free speech. And, yes, she has that right, just as corporations do. She is an incorporated body: the Body of Christ.
The Church has an essential voice on morality and the benefits of virtue that accrue to the public good and affect public policy. Fear of losing her her tax-exempt status muffles — and arguably mutes — her voice. Even an issue as central as abortion has, in my experience, never been preached from the pulpit and is rarely mentioned in sermons. In the 2008 election, my parish’s message the weekend before the election was on “social justice.” The weekend after the election, someone (although not the homilist) spoke on abortion.
That was the only instance I can recall in my nearly 14 years at this parish when abortion was openly addressed in the sanctuary. Sure, the phrase, “we believe in the right to life from conception to natural death” is spoken, but it’s a verbal gloss that misses the heart of the matter. A neutral observer might hear the Church’s message and notice how well it comports with the (Democratically-controlled) government-approved position of the day. From an insider’s perspective, it’s the very antithesis of the free exercise of the Church’s rights and, more important, duties to the truth.
The Catholic Church is a wealthy, propertied institution in this country. Loss of tax exemption won’t be without its consequences, and I admit to taking a 30,000-foot view of the issue. I don’t know how severe the consequences might be. But the Church is called to embrace the cross for the greater good. I’m with Patrick Madrid on this one. Let’s forfeit tax exemption and see where boldly proclaiming the Gospel leads.
Marriage
In a simpler, more virtuous, more culturally homogeneous time in this country, it made sense for priests and ministers to act as the state’s authority in performing marriages. With the rise of same-sex marriage — which I don’t wish to argue here — and other non-traditional arrangements forthcoming, having priests officiate for the state makes the Church vulnerable to anti-discrimination challenges. This one would seem a no-brainer: have officers of the state perform the legal ceremony, and leave the sacramental ceremony to the priests.
My insider’s information seems to indicate that the American Church is balking at “going the way of Mexico” on marriage. My response is: sometimes you have to fall back before you can advance. If we’re having trouble keeping the lights on because we have to pay our taxes, we can’t afford to litigate the meaning of marriage in court. Let’s divorce our priests from the state before the dissolution agreement gets more expensive. And, anyway, the culture is too degraded to retain the church/state synergy on this issue.
Accepting Taxpayer Money
The most frightening separation from government the Church can make — and probably the most liberating — is to stop accepting tax monies to fund her charitable organizations. Christ’s admonition to care for the poor is at the very heart of the Church. The concern with rejecting government funding is whether private donations can make up the difference. No one knows for sure.
However, the steep price paid for this deal with the government devil has become painfully apparent. By allying herself with the government and the Democratic Party that champions it, the Church has exchanged her very soul for a pot of porridge. Catholic Charities was known to steer money to ACORN (I don’t know if that’s been fixed, only that I and others have complained). Obamacare and the Obama Administration are downright hostile toward the Church — not neutral — and the Church should now be disabused of the notion that it and the government have the same goals in mind for the poor. One of them wants to ease suffering and steer people toward heaven; the other wants to use the false promise of an easy life to steer people toward the “D” column of the ballot.
Conclusion
This host/parasite relationship desperately needs to be ended before someone dies. The Church is already withered by it, and the poor are having their lives sucked out of them in order to sustain the Democrats in power. The Church should not be complicit in the arrangement.
Image Credit: Interior of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, DC. From Flickr user Beechwood Photography.
Published in General
I need to think about this. Since Mormons have a more separate arrangement with the state yet accept this one, we’re perhaps a good test case for whether or not the exemption affects church behavior. We took a big stand on marriage here in CA but less in other states, but I think this was more about public opinion blow back than taxes. It’s a really tough problem for churches to not be seen as antagonistic to gay people but rather as defending an established institution that is the cornerstone of the family. I suspect we’d give up the exemption in a heartbeat if we thought it would grant us more independence, but right now the problem is a shallow public understanding of many different issues related to marriage, family, religious freedom and a lot of other important things. With time we see the negative consequences, but by then we might very well have destroyed the opportunity to get back what we have lost. In other words, public opinion as manipulated in a shallow way by the left is our biggest problem. The tax thing–small potatoes by comparison. So no, I don’t think in our case it greatly affects the direction of the church.
Sure they should take responsbility. Do you think living on welfare provides a lavish lifestyle? Ever been on welfare? My father went completely blind at mid life (early thirties) and could not work and my parents had three small kids. We were off and on welfare on top of his small disability. There were no luxueries. Not a single penny in the bank, barely making it month to month. And we were better off than most since my father had some disability.
So when you talk about consequences, what exctly do you mean? Take away food off their table, a roof over their heads, medical care?
And so when Church clergy meets such people face to face and understands their condition, what makes you think they would side with Republicans? Especially if they don’t understand economics? In Matthew 25:31-46, it doesn’t say whether those that need food and clothing are to blame for their condition.
This is precisely why I believe the Church should disentangle from government and the party of government. She cannot go to Caesar and enlist him in her mission without expecting strings attached.
I know some clergy who still support Obamacare, even after the overt hostility to the Church and her teachings enacted through the contraception mandate. This affects not only the institutional Church, but her members. I’m angry that our government requires me to pay for coverage I don’t need and believe is immoral. But, that our own leadership would be willing to sell us out this way feels like a betrayal. In contrast, if progressive Catholics feel betrayed by the Church’s opposition to abortion, then they’re not very Catholic, are they?
What I’m arguing for is a de-politicization within the Church. Teach and preach the truth. It’s our mission to serve the poor — not government’s.
Yes, on the tax exemption issue (I haven’t heard him speak to the other issues and don’t know his position. These are my thoughts.), it does. He’s in the media. He has to live within the constraints daily.
Reading through some of the synopses at I Heart Radio and I noticed the phrase “because of the Church’s tax exempt status….” certain ideas must be carefully expressed. Reading between the lines, I’d say what this means is some truths are “out-of-bounds.”
Unfortunately, one of the goals of so-called “same sex marriage” proponents is to force religious institutions to perform such ceremonies. They want to rub our noses in it and force us to go against our beliefs, using the tax code to do it. We must fight against this evil.
For the record, I have no problem with civil unions, but I am dead set against changing the definition of marriage just to accomodate the desires of a small minority of folks who want to wreak havoc on an institution that has served humanity for centuries.
Oh sure, marriage today has really deteriorated with easy divorce and so forth, but that’s no reason to change the definition to accomodate homosexuals, or the desire to strive for staying married instead of bailing out at the first sign of trouble.
I think you’ve started an important conversation here. As for tax-exemption, I don’t know about your church, but the denomination I attend probably spends more in left-wing para-political advocacy (such as group allying with anti-Israel campaigns and bedfellows with openly marxist groups operating in South America and advocating here). If the church (mine, anyway) disentangled itself from all the political operatives that it has invested in, I imagine the savings would be of the same magnitude, or larger, than we’d lose in being sheltered from taxes.
Worse, being in an Anabaptist denomination, there is a long-standing tradition of absolute separation from the secular state and any body whose terms of reference are not motivated by the gospel. Perhaps it’s time to call (some of) our denominations back to their official positions on such matters.
That’s interesting and a big contrast with Mormons. We have a lay ministry and a major welfare system that includes “Bishop’s storehouses” that are like mini grocery stores, where volunteers distribute food to needy people. But the idea is always to help people get off of welfare if at all possible. So in the congregations there are people who counsel about finding jobs, improving skills, budgeting and the like. There’s even a church employment agency. Those who get welfare are asked to do work for the church. We do not hire janitors for our churches for example, because people who get church welfare are expected to do that work. Congregational leaders, called Bishops, also constantly work with people to help them learn to take care of themselves. It doesn’t work perfectly, but the message always is that help is available, but you are expected to paddle your own canoe. And, not surprisingly, hardly any Mormons lean left!
I tend to agree. I also think you can’t expect to win the poor with just sticks and no carrot. The reality is that when the game is rigged in a way that seems to reward irresponsibility over responsibility, it’s not a surprise when otherwise responsible people lose hope and end up drifting into irresponsibility not through selfishness, but through sheer despair. Too often, the combination of current welfare benefits plus huge barriers to gainful employment seems rigged for incentivizing dependency. The poor are not uniquely flawed in responding to incentives the same everyone else does.
As the Institute for Justice is really, really great at pointing out (and conservatives in general could learn a lot from them), the same bureaucratic hurdles that drive middle-class entrepreneurs bonkers drive lower-class entrepreneurs into complete nonexistence. The same threats to property rights that cause middle-class people’s property to be insecure cause poorer people’s property to be nonexistent.
Selling the poor on the good economic freedom and property rights has to offer them is a tricky sell, but not, as the Institute for Justice shows, an impossible sell. And it shouldn’t be an impossible sell, unless you believe the truth is an impossible sell.
Are you LDS Merina? Does LDS maintain a Church welfare system? We Catholics have charities, but to my knowledge it’s informal, such as a soup kitchen. We have no ability to push people toward finding jobs. Welfare is run by the government. I don’t recall how the Cathlic Church felt about welfare reform back in the 1990s that mandated jobs for able bodied, but I do not think they are against able bodied people being pushed to find jobs. Actually the “dignity of work and a job” are part of Catholic lingo, if not doctrine. The other complication which should be stated is that here in the northeast the majority of people on welfare are inner city people who have developed a sub culture that relies on welfare. Do you live in Salt lake City? I don’t think I saw any inner city in my travels through there.
We agree.
The Church is in the business of dealing with beings who are comprised of body and soul. Ergo, regular expressions of concern for those who lack the ability to keep body and soul together or, per Jesus, “Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in hospital or prison.” The Church is intended to deal with the complete person, and not a limited subset of a person.
The issue actually revolves around the bishops who often sound more like Democrats than the apostles’ successors. Sounding like a Democrat is a bad thing if one’s diocese is intended to be Catholic and it is a great misfortune for the sons and daughters of the Church of that diocese for that to occur.
We’ve watched too many things swirl down the drain due to politics or an attempt at serving “identities” when the sure answer might be gleaned out of scripture (which is a Catholic book), the Catholic Catechism, or the encyclicals of the popes which give applications to the answers.
We’ve watched Catholic colleges and universities become subsumed by the culture around them. One wonders how the vagina monologues could be considered in a Catholic setting, and then is reminded that wherever that filth is offered is not Catholic anymore. The Catholic bishops are largely silent. What are they telling Catholics who see this?
We’ve watched Catholic hospitals offer services incompatible with Catholic teaching, and then watched Catholic bishops practice silence in the face of this failure.
If no longer accepting the bribe means that the bishops, the college presidents, and the hospital directors are free to run Catholic institutions as Catholic institutions, good, because the judgment won’t involve how many government shekels were secured, it will be how well the moral law was implemented in dealing with those around them, and how Christ-like these servants were in their lives.