General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you know why Catholics put money in the collection plate at Sunday mass? [View all]BainsBane
(53,031 posts)a recovering Catholic. I realize that's not the most authoritative of sources, but she is a well-educated, smart woman. I had a period of about 9 months in my life in the 1990s when I went to mass regularly, and at that time there were separate collections for the church and outreach activities for the poor. My understanding is that money remains with a diocese, which is a collection of parishes in a given area (city, county, etc. .. ). You must have read that a number of diocese are struggling to come up with funds to pay damages to victims of pedophilia. I can't imagine that's a big source of fundraising. Everyone thinks they haven't begun to get what they deserve. I'll be happier when every last one of them is in jail, including people like Cardinal Mahoney of LA who covered up the abuse. Why prosecutors don't apply RICO statues, I don't understand.
I'm sure there is far more information available than I'm aware of, though there is also a great deal of secrecy. There is reportedly a scandal brewing at the Vatican bank. I would not be at all surprised if serous maleficence is uncovered.
I do know from my background in Latin American history that the secular clergy (bishops, archbishops, and ordinary priests) and regular clergy (Mendicant orders like the Jesuits and Franciscans) have different lines of authority and different funding sources. The Jesuits fund their own order, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc. . . and do not get any support from the Vatican. There have been long historical conflicts between regular and secular clergy, the details of which would bore you to tears. Now when a mendicant priest like Bergoglio is appointed as Archbishop and then Pope, he becomes part of the secular clergy. The Pope is obviously supported through Vatican finances.
Tithing was once required in Catholic countries, and the Vatican certainly received some of that as, by the way, did the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns. Donations are entirely voluntary now, and most parishes have little money. Remember the vast majority of Catholics are in Africa and Latin America. Despite the historical wealth and power of the Catholic church, it's theology does not support the accumulation of wealth. Usury remained a sin for centuries. Some historians have pointed to the role of usury in the development of capitalism as a reason for the invention of the concept of purgatory and as part of what underlay the Protestant Reformation. In Latin America, Protestantism is often associated with financial upward mobility, particularly since some denominations assert that one's wealth is a reflection that someone is favored by God. The Catholic doctrine of social justice can be a huge turn off for some concerned with acquiring wealth by exploiting workers and the poor. And then of course others just ignore that part, like most American Catholics ignore the hierarchy's statements on birth control and gay marriage.
Sorry if the history seems like a tangent. Since I'm trained in that field and most of my knowledge of the church comes from history, I always think of these things in historical terms. The fact that the Church is centuries old, I think, makes some of that appropriate.
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