Coffee Talk Follow Up
Posted by Danielle Bean in Faith on Monday, November 24, 2008 9:30 AM
In last week’s Coffee Talk discussion, Bridget posed the following question:
We are struggling with the decisions our parish is making right now and how they are spending their money. Several people in key leadership positions (not the priests) are not teaching Church doctrine. We were wondering about giving our tithe to a mission overseas instead of to our parish. Do we have a moral obligation to tithe to our parish first?
We sent this question along to Canonist Dominican Father Juan-Diego Brunetta who answers readers’ questions about official Church practice in a Faith & Family magazine column By the Book. He is the director of Catholic Information Services for the Knights of Columbus.
Father was kind enough to give us this answer to Bridget’s question:
Canon 222, paragraph 1 indicates: “The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate, and for the decent support of ministers.”
Furthermore, canon 1261 states: “The Christian faithful are free to give temporal goods for the benefit of the Church. The diocesan Bishop is bound to admonish the faithful of the obligation mentioned in canon 22.1 and in an appropriate manner to urge its observance.”
The questioner uses the word tithe: I am assuming that this is not a biblical tithe of 10% of income. It seems to me that if the parties will continue to worship at the parish in question, they must be mindful at least of their obligation to support the parish for the above mentioned reasons—included in the divine worship and works of the apostolate categories would surely also be the practical expenses associated with each, e.g., electricity, heat, gas, water, etc. If they were to decide to reduce their contribution they would still need to be mindful of these legitimate needs of the parish. Surely they are not required to give all of their tithing to the parish, but there is an obligation to support their own parish that they cannot ignore.
Canon 212, paragraph 3 directs: “[The Christian faithful] have the right and even at time duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful…with reverence toward their pastors and attentive to the common advantage and the dignity of persons.”
Therefore, the author of the question should also be frank with the pastor about their decision to reduce their normal tithe to some nominal contribution (in accord with c. 222) because of the questionable teaching of some of the lay leadership. The Pastor needs to know 1) that these parishioners are not pleased with the lack of sound teaching, 2) that the parishioners are aware of this lack and are seeking some kind of response, and 3) that the parishioners will be reducing their financial contribution because of their dis-ease with the direction of some programs.
The pastor, for his part, should respond with charity and respond in accord with c. 528 which explains his role as “being obliged to make provision so that the word of God is proclaimed in its entirety”, “Lay members are instructed in the truths of the faith” and providing “catechetical instruction” (clearly in accord with those truths). Other obligations are enumerated in cc. 528-530.
—Fr. Juan-Diego Brunetta, O.P.
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