Financially Troubled Parts of Europe Consider Taxing Church Properties
September 14, 2012 8 Comments
Alcala de Henares, Spain — Cash-strapped officials in Europe are looking for a way to ease their financial burden by upending centuries of tradition and seeking to tap one of the last untouched sources of wealth: the Catholic Church.
Thousands of public officials who have seen the financial crisis hit their budgets are chipping away at the various tax breaks and privileges the church has enjoyed for centuries.
But the church is facing its own money troubles. Offerings from parishioners have nosedived, and it has been accused of using shady bank accounts and hiding suspect transactions.
Now, along come officials like Ricardo Rubio.
Rubio, a city council member in Alcala, is leading an effort to impose a tax on all church property used for non-religious purposes. The financial impact on the Catholic Church could be devastating. As one of the largest landowners in Spain — with holdings that include schools, homes, parks, sports fields and restaurants — the church could owe up to 3 billion euros in taxes each year.
“We want to make a statement that the costs of the crisis should be borne equally by every person and institution,” said Rubio, a 36-year-old former accountant in his first term in office.
Similar efforts that target church coffers or powers are underway in neighboring countries. In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Monti has called for a tax on church properties or on those portions of properties that have a commercial purpose. In Ireland, the minister of education is fighting to end church control of many of the country’s primary schools, and the government has slashed in half the grants it gives poor families for first Communions. More than half the city councils in Britain have eliminated state subsidies for transportation to faith-based schools, leading to a precipitous drop in enrollment…
Read more from what is a generally negative article in The Washington Post here. All doom and gloom…
About Fr Stephen Smuts
They will not touch the Church.
Why should the Roman Catholic Church be responsible for the self-inflicted situation that these profligate, unrepentant, immoral Marxists find themselves in?
And yet, we must always be ready for martyrdom. For me, it ought to come in an active manner, not a passive one.
It used to be the Turk that threatened Christendom. But that was an external threat. Now, let us find our latter-day Lepanto and have the courage of the Holy League to fight to the death against the barbarian.
Our Lady of Victory, Pray for Us!
As it was Aquinas who I believe said to the then pope, sadly the church cannot with her silver and gold, say rise up and walk!
And for the Church to resound Her Integrity and Live Her Truth so as to be able… to “say rise up and walk”, She must always resemble her Poor and Humble Bridegroom, Jesus Christ!
I felt sooner or later that this news was forthcoming…but I fear only an undercurrent of an impending tsunami…of catastrophic proportions we have yet to experience – in the USA as well!
ALL Chistians can no longer ‘sit on the fence’ – God placed us here on this Earth – in this time in history and so we will – Individually – have to give an accounting of our ‘spiritual burden’!
Amen!
“Our Lady of Victory, Pray for Us!” Right On! I posted on another site a few months ago that we need to return to asking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary as OUR LADY OF VICTORY for assistance in this time of need. Current events point to this even more today! Watch the news.
Of course I doubt ‘Irishanglican’ believes in the intercession of Our Lady or the Saints. As for your quote IA it is true but neither will all the wealth of the Church, or churches, synagogues mosques or temples save the nations. Greed will simple prevail as in the sad days of evil King Henry the VIII who destroyed the True and Authentic Catholic Church in England.
Our Lady of Victory intercede with Your Son Jesus the Christ for our sins and save us from ourselves.
IHS
No, as a Protestant Anglican Evangelical, I don’t pray to saints, or the Virgin Mary. I take it quite literally that St. Paul teaches in 1 Tim. 2:5, that Christ alone is the “one mediator”…”between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” We can see this great truth also in the Letter to the Hebrews! Again, Christ alone is the great High Priest, “according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Heb. 5: 10)
We DON’T pray TO saints or the Virgin Mary. We do NOT worship them. We do NOT adore them. (Really for a former Catholic you’re incredibly ignorant of the doctrine of the Church you left). We ask them to intercede, to pray for us, to Jesus Christ the only mediator. After all, I can ask YOU (or anybody) to pray for me, right? So, why couldn’t ask someone who is in Heaven to pray for me?
+ PAX et BONUM
@Henri: Your being funny, we all know that the word “pray” is used! So please don’t beg the question and issue! ‘Holy Mary Mother of God “pray” for us sinners…’ And to “intercede” is to pray! I won’t reiterate the biblical position, that prayer is always and only to GOD!
And btw, I love Mary too, as the Theotokos, but I still only “pray” to our triune God! (Eph. 2:18)