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ironphoenix) wrote2010-07-29 11:25 am
ironphoenix) wrote2010-07-29 11:25 am
Church and State
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goldsquare: an excellent opinion piece on the complex and difficult relationship between religious and government institutions in the US. The legal arguments are specifically American, but the underlying question is universal.
Even the question of what should, from a purely religious point of view, be the criteria for membership in a religion is a very difficult one for me. On a fundamental spiritual level, I take the words "Catholic Church" very much at face value, and open the doors very wide indeed, but how that relates to human institutions is ... fraught.
goldsquare: an excellent opinion piece on the complex and difficult relationship between religious and government institutions in the US. The legal arguments are specifically American, but the underlying question is universal.Even the question of what should, from a purely religious point of view, be the criteria for membership in a religion is a very difficult one for me. On a fundamental spiritual level, I take the words "Catholic Church" very much at face value, and open the doors very wide indeed, but how that relates to human institutions is ... fraught.
no subject
*nod* Voting with one's feet sends the message pretty clearly... that sounds like a fair outcome to me. The person or people who spent the money without understanding the donors' intent didn't do a very good job, although they didn't do a criminally bad one, and so their organization lost out as the donors walked. The organization should deal with them as with anyone who doesn't do a good job, if it's still around to do so!
My parish has perhaps half a dozen FT paid staff equivalent positions, I think: a priest, a pastoral associate (religious administrator might be the best translation of that), a finance director, and a few folks who cover admin and maintenance. I think the rest is volunteer-based.
Churches are struggling to make ends meet; for example, St. Brigid's Parish collapsed financially1 and the building has been converted to a center for the arts. There are a lot of people leaving the churches, and a lot of lawsuits from the abuse that was inflicted by these organizations, so the financial picture is often bleak.
1: The less charitable among us may be quietly gloating... my parish and St. B's were at odds for many years as two downtown parishes with very different views on homosexuals in the church. They weren't as bad as Phelps' gang, but they said and did some nasty stuff back in the day. Our policy has been for a long time to accept people as they come, sexual identity and all.