Comments on: The Catholic Church’s Finances

By: Crowhill

Crowhill — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:47:18 +0000

The church should not have “opaque finances.”

It’s one thing to ask the faithful to trust the church on spiritual matters, where the church can at least make a claim that it has special insights / divine protection from error.

The church can make no such claim about finances, so standard rules of prudence should apply. In this context that means the Catholic Church’s finances should be open and audited by an independent entity.

By: Catholic Finances, Continued » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog

Catholic Finances, Continued » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:20:15 +0000

[...] on the Economist report about the Catholic Church’s finances in the U.S. (Matthew Schmitz highlighted the story earlier today.) Gray argues that the piece shows a “lack of understanding of what the Church is as an [...]

By: Mike Melendez

Mike Melendez — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:13:36 +0000

The Economist’s editors have already indicated they do not understand the Catholic Church in other articles. One, in particular, expressed surprise that the Pope believed in a “personal God”. A reader’s letter, that they did publish to their credit, summed it nicely: “Let me let you in on a little Vatican secret: the Pope is Catholic.”

Given that, perhaps this attempt at objectivity is the best they can do and a decent contribution to what the Catholic Church needs to bear in mind at all levels. If only the editors didn’t feel the need to compare the Church to a large corporate entity and had avoided the tendentious title.