Pope Francis condemned the “very strong, organised, reactionary attitude” in the US church and said Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the US Catholic Church, saying they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
Francis’ comments were an acknowledgment of the divisions in the US Catholic Church, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.
I would settle for taxing them.
I think a better option would be stripping the tax exempt status from the ones that politik from the pulpit. Actually enforce the law we have now instead of being afraid of looking like we’re persecuting them. Hell, they all have that complex already anyway.
Taxing them all would just open the floodgates.
It’s very inline with the church’s teaching to pay taxes.
Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and give to God the things that are God’s.” The men were amazed at what Jesus said.
There is no religious conflict at all with taxing churches.
You gave one example for one religion. I don’t necessarily think taxing churches is a bad idea, but I don’t think that’s a great argument for it.
This is in a thread about a sect of Christianity. I am not aware of another religion that uses the word church. The dictionary definition is christian house of worship. Jewish Synagogue. Islamic Mosque. Hindu Temple. Norse Hof. Greek and Roman temples.
Talking about taxing churches is about a tax on Christian houses of worship. There is no Christian religious rule against it, which means that it would be a stretch for anyone to claim that the government is violating the first amendment.
I assumed you meant churches as all places of worship. If you meant you want to only tax Christians, then I completely disagree with you.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
These assholes should deal with a real flood for once.
I dont think the churches that just sit and read a book are really deserving of a “flood”. I also wouldn’t call taxes a flood though, so I’m not opposed to that.
Not good enough. They need to strip that status even from the ones that don’t.
Would definitely be a step in the right direction. I’d even be ok with exceptions for the tiny churches in small towns.
I agree but only because they tend to have budgets so small that they aren’t worth taxing.
At the risk of interrupting the circlejerk here, most churches have tiny budgets that aren’t worth taxing, and run by clergy with very little pay. The other side of that is the established ones sit on land in the center of towns that has been in their hands for decades or centuries: they may not be able to afford the property taxes.
On the other hand, if you were thinking of modern televangelist millionaires, by all means tax their income. I don’t know where to draw the line and it’s probably good to be conservative about it, but some of these people really seem to have crossed it already
If you allow taxing churches you open the door for Republicans to just tax every church they disagree with, and I’m pretty sure you can figure out how that will go.
I don’t understand the problem.
The problem is there will still be untaxed churches and all of those churches will be evangelical churches that promote the Republican party.
All the others will be taxed out of existence.
I believe the intent of the first comment was all churches would be taxed.
That’s just not how government works in practice, however.
While true, how the us government works in practice currently cannot be a barrier for ideas. I mean that it isn’t working at all
I’d argue being a policy realist is an absolute necessity, rather than a “barrier for ideas.”
I am a volunteer climate lobbyist in a deeply red constituency, so I very much live a life bound by practicality.
My rep I lobby most often has solar panels and drives an EV and votes against climate change proposals unless we can sell them as “job creation” so he can sell them to his constituents.
The messy details absolutely take precedence over what we’d like.
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You are aware that the entire reason taxing churches was a big deal in the 18th century is that we’ve already seen what happens when taxing churches is made political, right?
Do you know this is a topic with historical precedence, in a situation in which it is laughably easy to predict what a certain party would do with this power?
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Oh the horror