Chateau Lloyd

Recent revelations regarding American governmental expenditures have highlighted a long-running concerns among religious people, and Catholics in particular: what is the moral price for getting state funding?

It has long been reported in Catholic media that Catholic charities have been willing to violate Church teachings in exchange for government cash, but the stoppage of funding through USAID has highlighted the problem.  The bishops may lament the result layoffs, but the laity want to know how much was skimmed off the top and what exactly was done with the money.

Liberal Catholics refuse to confront the problem directly, instead claiming dubious moral authority based on selective use of the Scriptures.  Setting aside their hypocrisy in using proof texts regarding immigration but forgetting them when it comes to sexual morality and the culture of life, there is simply no excuse for accepting the sinful strings attached the money.

What used to be the mainstream press is running interference for them, but as the recent election showed, only a minority of people rely on that for information.  The most engaged Catholics - the ones most likely to donate - use independent media and online newsletters, and these organs have been fiercely critical of the Church's leadership.  Put simply, taking taxpayer funds is making a Faustian bargain.  In the first place, it corrupts the moral authority of the Church by compelling violations of doctrine, such as funding birth control, abortion, sodomite pride and legitimizing unlimited migration, including violent criminals.

It also enervates the laity, teaching them that tithing is not necessary because the government is picking up the check.

Again, the usual arguments are being trotted out about 'greater good' and being pragmatic, but the looming shutdown of USAID has indicated that the promised gain sometimes doesn't show up, just the sin.

This has also kicked of a needed debate about Catholic theology regarding the hierarchy of love and the odd modern need to help strangers while neglecting family.  I am not the only one noticing that my parish and diocesan newsletters regularly point to critical shortages for the local food bank while also noting how many foreigners - almost certainly here illegally - are being supported.

As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of human behavior could point out, you get more of what you pay for, so the Catholic Church's charities are creating incentives for lawbreaking that creates significant costs for the faithful.  While some allege some sort of sinister long game, I think it's a combination of misguided sentiment and good old fashioned bureaucratic empire building.

This episode has echoes of the collapse of the Catholic Church in Europe, particularly in Germany, where the cozy Church-state relationship has cratered Mass attendance but provided lucrative careers in charities that for the moment are flush with cash.  In the long term, however, both are doomed to weaken, and this knowledge is probably why the German clergy are so determined to mimic their Protestant neighbors, despite the obvious fact that they are in even worse shape.

At its core, the problem is that much of the Church leadership has lost the plot.  They have forgotten that their mission is to save souls, and feeding the hungry and clothing the poor are but a means to that end.  By becoming complicit in sin, the whole point of the exercise is lost.