Why I think that the Catholic church should lose it's tax exemption status

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

First of all I am not picking on only the Catholic church, however I think that it is the best example as it is both wealthy, and it is familiar to me. I think all of these statements should apply to all religious institutions. I do support their charity branches, although I think these should be financially separated from the body as a whole and these alone should get a tax free status.

1. It is immensely wealthy and grew so primarily out of indulgences (i.e. saying "give us money or your soul shall be delayed on it's trip to heaven"), which are mentioned in no holy scripture, canonical or apocryphal. I believe this exploitation to be amoral thieving.
2. The only requirements for entry to heaven in Abrahamic religion are the following of certain rules, and the acceptance of God as the universal creator and care-taker. Money is not required for this.
3. The money could be put to better use than the maintainance of churches and employment of priests. Homeless shelters would be a much better use of such beautiful architecture than a church, as there are not spatial requirements for prayer.

This is not intended to be a religion bashing thread, I have no problem with religion and think that if it provides comfort it's doing a good thing, however I do believe wealthy and powerful religious institutions are a problem.

[HissingNewt]

Indulgences were something like 500 years ago, right? In addition, none of those are actually reasons (as far as I know) for an institute to lose tax-exempt status in the US (and it probably follows similar lines in most other western countries). But yes, the money could be used better by going towards homeless shelters. That doesn't mean beautiful churches should not be built, though.

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

Those may not be great reasons for an organization to lose its tax exempt status, but in this case there is is little reason why it deserves to keep it's status. It's a potential source for funding in almost every western nation, and it continues to grow wealthy as in many circumstances it acts as a business and almost all secular businesses are taxed, and I do not believe these enterprises are any different to any other.

As for the indulgences, I think they stopped in the early twentieth century, however there are still cases of similar sources of income i.e. Austria's Catholic tax, which is mandatory for all Austrian Catholics

[lord o kelly]

this thread is bull
Its easy to see you have no ing idea what the hell you are talking about. I work in and with Catholic churchs and while they may have pretty architecture the actual priests devote almost their entire lives to their following. This is especially true of Friar orders. They are not getting rich by any means. The friars I know only eat bread and drink water for every meal while last thanksgiving they gave away close to $10000 in food to a line of poor people so that they could properly celebrate thanksgiving.

And while you personally may be against architecture as a way to express your devotion to god, I along with millions if not billions of others see it as an important tool in expressing our love for and to glorify god (this coming from a student of architecture).

As for indulgences see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent
The Austrian tax is a Tithe tax, and is a relic of how the state can collect your tithe to support the church. This happens in many other non- catholic countries that allows it to support their own churches. I believe this is also present in Denmark and some other northern European countries and supports other churches- I.e. the Lutheran church and other protestant churches.

So basically you are full of . and this should be in the EMM or PA

[reavertm]

Yes it should lose tax exemption status, certainly here in Poland. It's ridiculous some people (and actually wealthy organisations) are awarded with such a privilege just because they're supposedly embracing Catholic values - who the f* cares?
Yes I know, all people are equal, but some are more...

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

Big deal friars live in poverty by Western standards. They are a minority in the church. The institution as a whole is a religious Microsoft (in both wealth and it's eagerness to kill off it's opposition), and just because Austria isn't the only nation with a tithe tax, and the Catholic church isn't the only religion to collect it, doesn't make it a good thing. Also I am not against architecture, I am quiet fond of it, and I do not hate it to make myself look holy as I am not religious. About the council of Trent, it did not get rid of indulgences, it was an attempt to get rid of abuse of them. In my eyes indulgences are still robbery.

[KaerMorhen]

Yes it should lose tax exemption status, certainly here in Poland. It's ridiculous some people (and actually wealthy organisations) are awarded with such a privilege just because they're supposedly embracing Catholic values - who the f* cares?
Yes I know, all people are equal, but some are more...

wishful thinking I guess, leave CC as a whole for a while and just take a look at unHoly Rydzyk empire - this guy and his unHoly agenda simply steal money from people and state - everybody knows about that and nothing happened so far to stop it.

[Basil II the B.S]

There is no reason at all in favour of Catholic Church tax exemption.

[Manco]

Lord o Kelly of course conveniently ignores that some of these friar orders are multi-million dollar profit organisations, despite their lofty claims of poverty and sobriety.

[Stavroforos]

I can't argue the details of the Catholic Church's economic situation, but the Orthodox Church should definitely be taxed, at least here in Greece.

[sephodwyrm]

Taxing an institution, whose income usually come from donations from the adherents, is equivalent of taxing the adherents. And the adherents are already paying a secular tax. What they do with their own money is their business, really.

Afterall, if you tax the Catholic Church, what they're going to do is come up with more schemes to ask for money from the adherents. Guess who shores out the money in the end? Definitely not the Church.

[Dr. Croccer]

1. It is immensely wealthy and grew so primarily out of indulgences (i.e. saying "give us money or your soul shall be delayed on it's trip to heaven"), which are mentioned in no holy scripture, canonical or apocryphal. I believe this exploitation to be amoral thieving.

Which ended half a millennium ago. There are dynasties which didn't last as long.

2. The only requirements for entry to heaven in Abrahamic religion are the following of certain rules, and the acceptance of God as the universal creator and care-taker. Money is not required for this.

People aren't forced to pay for Catholicism. One could choose to donate, and much of that money goes to charity.

3. The money could be put to better use than the maintainance of churches and employment of priests. Homeless shelters would be a much better use of such beautiful architecture than a church, as there are not spatial requirements for prayer.

The Catholic already is one of the biggest organisers of charity. End tax exemption and the church will be forced to pay a far greater share of their income to support themselves. Tens of thousands of people who depend on Catholic charity will lose it.

[Sir Winston Churchill]

The Catholic Church does not force people to pay money to attend mass, nor does it even suggest that unless you donate to the church your soul is any less likely to reach heaven. The only money the Church gets are donations from followers of the Church, and last I checked people had the right not to donate, so any money they give is their choice.

Now alot of churches in the US at least were not recently built, the one that I used to go to in my town when I was still a Catholic had been around since 1850, so your assumption all money donated to the Church goes into extravagant building projects is wrong, instead it is for maintenance of a past generation's extravagance. And payments to priests is kind of important, and it's not a salary either because it could easily change with the times. It's simply there to provide a holy man with an income to live on, unless you believe people who work for the church should get free food and shelter along with utilities. And while they're not that well funded, and I agree that much more of the Church's money should go to charity, some money does go to charity groups.

This pretty much spells out non-profit, and for that reason they should not be taxed. Unless of course you do want people to have to pay money to go to church that is...

[43rdFoot]

This guy beat you to the punch on most of these things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

[xcorps]

First of all I am not picking on only the Catholic church, however I think that it is the best example as it is both wealthy, and it is familiar to me. I think all of these statements should apply to all religious institutions. I do support their charity branches, although I think these should be financially separated from the body as a whole and these alone should get a tax free status.

1. It is immensely wealthy and grew so primarily out of indulgences (i.e. saying "give us money or your soul shall be delayed on it's trip to heaven"), which are mentioned in no holy scripture, canonical or apocryphal. I believe this exploitation to be amoral thieving.
2. The only requirements for entry to heaven in Abrahamic religion are the following of certain rules, and the acceptance of God as the universal creator and care-taker. Money is not required for this.
3. The money could be put to better use than the maintainance of churches and employment of priests. Homeless shelters would be a much better use of such beautiful architecture than a church, as there are not spatial requirements for prayer.

This is not intended to be a religion bashing thread, I have no problem with religion and think that if it provides comfort it's doing a good thing, however I do believe wealthy and powerful religious institutions are a problem.

So flawed.

1. It is immensely wealthy

So is the Church of Scientology. And the Red Cross. And The Gates Foundation.

2. The only requirements for entry to heaven

So you are an advocate of government determining which religious dogma are valid and which are not.

3. The money could be put to better use

Unless YOU personally donated any of that money, it's not any of your affair how it's put to use.

This is not intended to be a religion bashing thread,

Just a Catholic bashing thread eh?

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

So flawed.

Unless YOU personally donated any of that money, it's not any of your affair how it's put to use.

This church is not reliant on donations for it's finances. It for a while has been reliant on it's many investments.

So is the Church of Scientology. And the Red Cross. And The Gates Foundation.

2. The church of Scientology and others have nothing to do with it. It shouldn't be put alongside charities either as they are completely different to it.

So you are an advocate of government determining which religious dogma are valid and which are not.

3. It's got nothing to with government determining which dogma is valid. My first post stated that I used the Church as an example, rather than asking governments to pick on only one group.

[Denny Crane!]

I don't really support taxes but if I'm getting taxed they should damn well be taxed.

[Heathen Hammer]

All religious organizations should be taxed.

[Cooraan]

This church is not reliant on donations for it's finances. It for a while has been reliant on it's many investments.

This is only true for the few large churches. There are thousands of small churches around the country that are dependent on their donations.

[xcorps]

3. It's got nothing to with government determining which dogma is valid. My first post stated that I used the Church as an example, rather than asking governments to pick on only one group.

What you posted here:

2. The only requirements for entry to heaven in Abrahamic religion are the following of certain rules, and the acceptance of God as the universal creator and care-taker.

is dogma. You use this as a reason why a church should be taxed. This means that the government has to examine the dogma, determine that it doesn't meet government standards, and then declare that Catholocism isn't a religion based on the tenets of that religion. It's a clear violation of the First Amendment.

This church is not reliant on donations for it's finances.

You haven't expounded on your point with this statement. It's still flawed.
The Catholic Church is a religious organization. It's finances are none of anyones business.

It shouldn't be put alongside charities either as they are completely different to it.

You cannot make a reasonable case for removing the Catholic Churches tax exemptions. You might be able to make a case for removal of tax exemptions for ALL churches, but not one specifically.