Angry in the Great White North explains why a tax exemption for the Church is about doing the State a favour:
In my post about Slinger’s suggestion about how to deal the Catholic Church with the temerity to enforce her own rules within the walls of her own churches, I focused on how the attitude Slinger exhibits essentially puts politicians, and by extension, the State, above both the Church and above the people, answerable to no one.
To me that seems to be such an obviously bad idea that I thought the discussion could end there.
I didn’t discuss the issue of Slinger’s proposed punishment — taxation. To me, it is so clearly a bad idea that I thought I could pass over it without comment. But from the comments people have left on the blog (from both those who support Slinger and those who don’t), I get the feeling that just about everybody seems to misunderstand what the purpose of a tax exemption for the Church actually is.
The State is not doing the Church a favour by granting tax exempt status. It’s the other way around. The Church is doing the State a favour by accepting it.
Essentially the argument is this: if you tax the Church, she becomes a constituent like any other taxpayer, and will demand time with MPs and ministers to discuss this and that. The whole idea of a tax exemption is to minimize Church interference in matters of State, yet the punishment for becoming involved in one or two major issues being proposed by Slinger and others, that is, to start taxing the Church, guarantees future involvement in all issues, major and minor.
Leave it to liberals to craft a punishment that promotes the very behaviour it was supposed to deter.
Original: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
New “progressive-reality based community” interpretation: Congress shall make laws establishing the prohibition of Christianity and make no laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
“if you tax the Church, she becomes a constituent like any other taxpayer, and will demand time with MPs and ministers to discuss this and that. The whole idea of a tax exemption is to minimize Church interference in matters of State”
Has anyone told Bishop Fred Henry this?
*cough*
The best idea I heard in a previous debate on the topic was that everyone, not just churches, should be exempted from taxes. That thought warms the cockles of my heart, it does.
Can I be exempted from taxes as well?
I don’t really want to bother our MPs or become involved in state matters much either…
Really Angry, this was a pretty weak argument!
No more church welfare. I want to start my own ministry complete with imaginary beings and get sales tax, property tax and income tax exemptions.
Come on, in this age, for the catholic church to play heavy, is a joke considering the number of Catholics using the pill.
Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’
In Clair Hoy’s biography of Premier Bill Davis, he mentions that the first person who Brampton Billy informed of his decision to retire from provincial politics, was Emmet Cardinal Carter, ( former Archbishop of Toronto).
The biography sez that when Davis told Carter her was going to retire, Carter reminded him of his personal promise to extend full-funding to the Roman Catholic Separate School board, and if Davis refused to do that, Carter was going to ‘blacken the name of the Conservative Party from every church pulpit in Ontario’! (Bill Davis ‘caved like a five- dollar accordion, and told his staff to process the legislation for this, the following day. (But of course, this does not mean that the church interferes in matters of state- hell, no!)
Steve, you’re partially right. The Church (in Canada, particularly – not the whole thing) dropped the ball when they stopped using moral authority to promote Church teaching on birth control. Many Canadian bishops wanted (and still do) to be seen as progressive, and undermined the authority of the Church in this area to do so – they didn’t realize they were undermining their own authority at the same time.
Or did I miss that you were just Catholic-baiting – again?
Angry, I also found your argument on the weak side.
Without knowing legal reasons for charitable status, my guess is the following:
The churches, particularly Catholic and Anglican (historically), have over the years provided massive amounts of charitable work that society cannot monetarily replace (anyone care to know where our beloved education, health care, and social welfare systems started?). It seems a bit tokenistic, in fact, to only give them charitable status – next time someone wants to take away their charitable status, let’s first decide to reimburse them for the foundation they established for our country’s 3 most-vaunted public programs. And let’s stop the occasional forays into church-bashing. Cheers.
No not catholic-baiting, it’s just that mystical belief seems ridiculous to me. The tax exemption of any church/ministry doesn’t make sense. And the loss of it would help any town’s revenue.
Damn right, angry! What a sanctimonious jerk this guy is being. He is seriously actually trying to tell GOD’S HOLY CHURCH what to do….the church that JESUS CHRIST, famous for nice party tricks and less notably as THE SON OF GOD, founded. This is the difference between those that have faith and Godless liberals – those of faith trust in God, liberals think they ARE God.
Slinger seems to be nothing more than a sanctimonious Holier-Than-Thou grade-A Jackass.
And for the rest of you, get a grip – the church follows the authority of God – not the authority of Mr. Dithers. When did you people start thinking that separation of Church and state was to protect the state? It was created to protect the Church.
In the end, you can go worship at the altar of secularism and pray to Paul Martin and I’ll pray to God and go to Church, and we’ll see who ends up winning when we die.
Slinger’s venal diatribe is too transparent to matter to any except the most P.C. opiated lefty.
As for the Vatican I suspect any institution that has lasted 2000 years accumulating, diplomatic experience, power, and wealth and of course these are just the mundane aspects of the Church, would be formidable foe indeed.
Any politician belonging to what is in comparison to the Church a minor power at best would do well to think long and hard before going nose to nose with an institution that has real power arriving on
it’s doorstep to pay their respects at regular intervals.
“No not catholic-baiting, it’s just that mystical belief seems ridiculous to me. The tax exemption of any church/ministry doesn’t make sense. And the loss of it would help any town’s revenue.”
It doesn’t matter if it seems ridiculous to you -this is a church matter and it’s none of your business.
One of the previous posts had it right – fine, go ahead and TRY to tax the church. You’ll just have to recompensate us for all the social programs we’ve run – healthcare, educational, and community-development. You’d only be hurting your foolish sanctimonious self.
One further thing – I’d just like to see these fools TRY to tax the Church. We’d all kick up one hell of a Riot over that one.
In conclusion – you can’t fight city hall. What makes you think you can fight God?
Dante, is there sex in heaven?
And christian, why do you scream with the big capital letters? And what’s with calling people jerk and jackass?
Angels? I don’t think so.
The State gets into very murky territory when it fiddles about with religion. So why go there? I’m a Roman Catholic and I tend to be very suspicious of any attempt by the State to tinker with my religious freedoms.
Particularly as my family background is one long history of advancing from longstanding persecution as “Papists” to eventual acceptance as loyal British subjects.
If it came down to it, I’d prefer the Church to pay taxes rather than kowtow to the State; we’ve been there before and it smacks of the “official” Catholic church in China. What would be the point in creating such a divisive situation in our country?
As posters here have noted, tax churches and they’ll likely have to start reducing or even abandoning their services to the community. It would be a sad day if a sterling organization such as the Salvation Army was forced to curtail its good works to satisfy the demands of the taxman.
And it would be fascinating to scope out the potential cost to the State of assuming the costs of, say, running all the missions for down-and-out men that so many denominations do right now.*
Finally, be careful of making institutional comparisons with the US on matters of religion. Like it or not, the Roman Catholic Church has certain constitutional guarantees in Canada that are unique.
“Separation of Church and State” has traditionally been an American political construct, not a British/Canadian one.
* Interesting side-note: by dissolving the monastic orders and convents in a bloody-minded cash grab, Henry VIII created an entire underclass of beggars and indigent souls in England: all those poor who could no longer rely on the good offices of the Church for alms and medical care.
Ultimately of course, the English taxpayer was forced to take on that burden instead.
Not to worry!
There really aren’t any examples in history of centralised socialist governments confiscating property and punishing churchs into nonexistence.
“He is seriously actually trying to tell GOD’S HOLY CHURCH what to do….”
Excuse me, but you’re wrong. “God’s Holy Church” is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, not that fake one you’re spouting on about. I know this because I’ve been touched by his Noodley Appendage.
“It would be a sad day if a sterling organization such as the Salvation Army was forced to curtail its good works to satisfy the demands of the taxman.”
I don’t think they would end up cutting services. That’s a bunch that would redouble their efforts and manage to turn lemons into lemonade. While I’m not a Christian, there are Christians I admire and the folks at the Sally Ann top the list.
Serious question, though. If churches become businesses, what’s to say that their work for the poor can’t be put down as a business expense? (e.g. Advertising). They can’t take away that tax break without hurting Power Corp., CSL, and Magna at the same time.
I’m not completely in favour of church charitable status (and I am a fairly conservative Catholic). But my reason against it is because it causes some churchmen to speak less about the moral issues that they should be speaking about – for fear of losing their charitable status. You can be sure that more churchmen would speak out if charitable status wasn’t a club the State wielded against them.
I think you’re foolhardy to suggest that there would be a net gain in revenue by taxing churches, though. We already cannot assume the costs of education, health care, and social welfare – these 3 could bankrupt us alone. I remember reading about New York’s Cardinal O’Connor, who offered to school inner city kids if the state would just let him. He would have been able to do it for about 1/10 the cost of state-run education.
Driving through La Belle Province, one is constantly aware of the presence of the Catholic Church, as every little town has an enormous, imposing cathedral that can be seen from fifteen miles away.
If the wealth that was ploughed into these now often underutilized monstrosities had been invested in infrastructure and/or business, what are the chances that Quebec would not have become the welfare-dependent entity that it is?
“Well, I’ve been – I’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. You know, it seems as if he’s been lashing out, you know, destroying cities, annihilating places. And it seems like he’s been in a bad mood, you know. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting. You know, if you look at the people who love God now, you know, if I was God, I’d need to destroy something.” � Salman Rushdie
That might be the worst argument I have ever read. They are giving the church a tax exemption so they don’t have to deal with them? If a Conservative gave them a tax exemption, would you come to the same conclusion? I doubt it. P-A-R-T-I-S-A-N.
Separation of church and state keeps the state from infringing on the rights of the church. Rewriting scripture to suit present attitudes and forcing practices that are unacceptable to religion are but two examples. One step further and it keeps the state from imposing a religion on its citizens. If church and state are as one, what would keep the state from making it a requirement of citizenship to be a practicing scientologist?
Separation of church and state also means that religious leaders cannot impose their values on the state. They are free to suggest, wheadle, lobby and punish politicians via excommunication for not behaving properly, but by no means should they be silenced.
At one point religious organizations provided most social services; hospitals, schools, orphanages, food banks etc. The state has moved into all these areas. Generally i believe this has been spearheaded by people antagonistic to religion and who put their faith in State rather than Religion. They have just switched their allegiance and created this dependence on government and fostered the government as solution for everything attitude.
Next step in the gay rights movement is the taxation of religions antagonistic to gay rights. Separation of church and state does not mean silence. It just means they have to use influence rather than raw power.
Sounds like more free speech for all unless you disagree with what i say. Hypocrisy.
enough
Steve,
So here’s to the boys in the back room,
Those chemists who’s faith will not die.
They’re working their still
On a birth control pill
That’s 90% Spanish Fly!
Trudeaupia is certainly alive and well. First the cry that profits are ugly tax the corporations into the stone age. So the Corporations left.
But that wasn’t enough tax the rich they cried so anyone with an income over $50,000 was deemed rich and lost over half their income and so they began to leave.
Finally the Church is ugly and a myth. God dosn’t exist tax the Church they cried.
Sensing a theme here. Quebec is poor because it has taxed and spent itself into poverty.
If it weren’t first for a very weak CDN$ and then a rocketing Oil price Canada as a whole would be very poor and getting poorer. Nine out of ten provinces are deemed have not. But your say we are growing economically. NO we are not. We just sell more natural resources right now. But that too will end.
Prices go up to high people stop spending. Taxes go up to high people don’t invest.ergo no new business.
The schools teach God dosn’t exist. So I guess they are perfect and once they have pronounced God is dead they are the final authority.
Funny they happen to be a major recipient of those tax $’s.
The Government dosn’t want you to have faith or believe in God. They must be all things to all people it means more power more control.
I love astronomy but it gets me crazy at how many scientific theories these people pronounce as fact and then have to renounce or rejig a couple of years later. So much for the rigors of scientific process.
God is about Faith!
“Driving through La Belle Province, one is constantly aware of the presence of the Catholic Church, as every little town has an enormous, imposing cathedral that can be seen from fifteen miles away.
If the wealth that was ploughed into these now often underutilized monstrosities had been invested in infrastructure and/or business, what are the chances that Quebec would not have become the welfare-dependent entity that it is?”
This is tosh of course.
And I object to the implication that somehow Qu�bec’s “poverty” is entirely attributable to the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church has not been a significant player in the politics of Qu�bec since “la r�volution tranquille.”
What has made the Province of Qu�bec what it is today is a succession of secular, statist provincial governments which have flirted with separatism since the early Seventies.
They have built up a complex social welfare system with one hand while frightening off investment with the other.
Poor economics, I’d say.
One of the troubleing things we are facing today is religeous extremism—like dante.
And for Jeff Cosford, who said religeon is about faith—almost correct–it’s about ‘blind faith’.
Oh, and in case you’ve all forgotten, the Popes a Nazi.