Oh, Really?

I recently read an article that misrepresented Catholic and Christian teaching. It made me mad. This occurred at the same time I was reading a particular Old Testament book that I found very convicting. So here is my diatribe. Get ready.

I'll start with my recent reading of Haggai, one of the shortest books in the Old Testament. Haggai is prophet, meaning he speaks God's word to people directly. He lived about 520 B.C., right after Jews had returned from their exile in Babylon. They lived through really bad times, they returned to their homes, and they got comfortable. They just start ignoring God's requirements of them.

Haggai confronts the religious and civil authority because the Jews were supposed to build a temple for worship when they returned from exile. They started to do this, but politics intervened and they stopped. But when the political climate allowed the rebuilding of the temple, the Jews never started the job again. Instead, they built up their own houses into showplaces, while God's temple-under-construction sat "in ruins." (Haggai 1:2).

I think I like this book because Haggai is direct and uses really great language in his speech. Read this book-it will take you about 7 minutes. Haggai says to the leadership, "You have sown much, but have brought in little; you have eaten, but have not been satisfied; You have drunk, but have not been exhilarated; have clothed yourselves, but not been warmed; And he who earned wages earned them for a bag with holes in it."  (Haggai 1:6).

What great images and word juxtaposition. The Jews have worked for their own kingdoms, not God's, which of course is in vain. It just ain't gonna work, to use language of my youth. 

The application of this passage to our lives, as Christ followers, should not go unnoticed. Even though we have some tough economic times, for the most part, this is still a time of great material wealth. Despite that, we find ourselves eating to excess and consequently being an overweight society, but never being satiated.  We wear high tech, expensive clothing but we are not spiritually warm. We live in big houses with nice toys in them yet we have tragic credit card debt. The formerly massive 401k accounts and recently nosediving investment portfolios of today are nothing more than the hole-ridden bags of Haggai’s time.

And yet, despite the relative material wealth we have amassed, the vast number of people who are supposedly a part of the “the Church” do not adequately, if at all, support the Church or the spread of Jesus' gospel.  The physical building of the temple in Haggai's time mirrors modern day efforts to build up the Body of Christ, which takes money. It means having some physical facility to hold worship and having money to support that facility and its ministries. All throughout Scripture, not just in the short book of Haggai, we read of people giving money (or being told to give money) to build God's kingdom.   

Yet we know that Catholics give far less than their Protestant counterparts. Why? Why do we think Scripture doesn't apply to us? What about the Old Testament tithe, the mandate throughout Scripture that people are to give 10% of their earnings to God and his Kingdom (if you don't believe me, type "Tithe" into Google and you'll have enough reading material, including scores of Bible passages, to last you for days).  In all of that, where does it say, "and God decreed that the tithe applies only to Jews and Protestants?" 

Catholics are often confused by writings of other Catholics, one of whom recently published that Catholics do not need to tithe. So, here's my argument for the Catholics out there who do not tithe or do not believe they have to tithe. You are wrong, and to the extent that you need formal pronouncement from your Church to tell you so, here it is. 

Giving is not optional; it is one of the six precepts of the Church. (CCC 4043). Nowhere does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say there is no obligation to tithe. But the Catechism is very clear on the authority of the Old and New Testament--all of it, not just some of it. The Old Law is preparation for the Gospel (CCC 1964), and the purpose of the New Law is to fulfill, refine, surpass and lead the Old Law to its perfection (CCC 1967). If anything, then, we are called to give more, not less, than 10%.

Church documents dating back to the First Century contain positive legislation of the tithe (letter of bishops assembled at Tours in 567; canons of Council of Macon in 585), and writings from as far back as the Fourth Century state the tithe is "divine law, instituted not by man but by the Lord himself." (C.14, X de decim. III, 30; Apostolic Constitutions XXX, 4th Century).  The Catholic Encyclopedia states that "[t]he payment of tithes was adopted from the Old Law, and early writers speak of it as a divine ordinance and an obligation of conscience.”  Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine, taught "tithes are required as a matter of debt, and he who has been unwilling to give them has been guilty of robbery. Whosoever, therefore, desires to secure a reward for himself, let him render tithes, and out of the nine parts let him seek to give alms."  

It's not just ancient or formal Church teaching that tells us to tithe. Priest and canon lawyer, Fr. Mark Gantley, JCL, recently wrote, "I find that most Catholics do not give very generously to their parish, certainly fall far short of the usual Biblical tithe, and are usually very unrealistic as to the costs involved in running a parish."

For much of history, the tithe was taken care of via civil law, with payments being directed through the civil authority to the Church.  That is no longer the case in modern times—this practice obviously had a tendency to result in abuses. The fact that abuse resulted, however, didn't somehow erase Scripture and its mandate.

Christ came to fulfill the old law, not abolish it. (Mt 5:17). We have been given the beauty of sacramental worship and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Do we really think we are allowed to give less money to the Church than the people of the Old Testament?

What would Christ say? Oh, wait, He already spoke on this subject. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required." (Lk 12:48).