Yesterday, 08:23 AM
XII. A Religion of Cash.
— 1. A religion of money is the name given to the Catholic religion by certain Protestant ministers. In concert with the scoffers of religion they charge our priests with selling holy things and trafficking on the credulity of the people, to the profit of their pockets.
It is a cunning charge. Nine out of every ten men are very sensitive whenever the dollar is touched, and to accuse the priests with love of money and intent to pilfer it from the poor, will go a great length to impair their ministry. Protestants know this; hence they repeat the charge over and over with an exceedingly bad faith, inasmuch as they should be the last to utter such an accusation.
It is not generally known that the place of a parson is a most profitable one.* The government in France gives fifteen hundred francs to a parson in the smallest villages, and a salary far larger to those in cities. Beside this emolument, they receive perquisites, which, although not regulated by a tariff, are none the less exacted by custom. Nor is their amount little. Fees for marriages and baptisms in Protestant churches amount to a round sum; bountiful remunerations are given for funeral services, etc.
Add to all this the never-ceasing subscriptions poured into the treasury of biblical and other societies, out of which fat salaries are taken to support their apostles. In 1856, at an Assembly of the Protestant Propaganda, in Germany, it was averred that to their agents in France alone the Association had paid eight millions.
Lastly, it should be remembered that in Protestant countries young ministers generally contract very good matrimonial alliances. It has even been a source of complaint in certain parishes. Not long ago, in one of the cantons of Zurich, at a meeting of young unmarried men it was resolved that in future no unmarried minister should be accepted, "for they carry away the best chances of the place." In other localities pastoral Presbyterial Councils, being mainly composed of fathers of families who have daughters to marry, obstinately refused to receive ministers already married, whose hearts and hands were, therefore, out of market.
Now, of all the money that finds its way into the minister's pocket not a penny is ever spent for church service.
A temple once built (and of course it is not the parson who builds it) requires no other care than that of being swept once a week; there are no sacred vestments to take care of, no expensive luminaries, no religious pomps. The black robe of the parson is called into requisition only on Sunday; it will last a long time with so little wear and tear, and when it is become the worse for wear it can be made available for many domestic purposes.
2. The Catholic parish priest receives from the government a little above one-half of the salary allowed to Protestant ministers, who are so loud in their denunciation against the religion of money — eight hundred and fifty francs to priests occupying places of equal degree with those for which Protestant parsons receive fifteen hundred.
But whilst the Protestant parson is under no expense as regards church service, different is the case with the Catholic priest. In the ritual of the Christian worship there exists a material portion which entails large expenses even in the humblest churches. In the smallest country chapel the celebration of the divine service needs a supply of bread and wine, lamps and candles, sacerdotal vestments of different colors, sacred vessels, linen of various qualities; in a word such an amount of indispensable articles as would astonish those not acquainted with such details. Then you have to pay those who are employed in the Church, generally workmen who live by their labor. Besides all this the parish priest stands, by reason of his position, the first and main help of all the poor, and of all charitable undertakings in his parish. Should ever his heart be faint, his duty and his position would spur him on to act. But after all, he must live, and feed himself and the servant who waits on him.
It requires very little fairness to acknowledge that the Church is perfectly justified in authorizing our priests to levy a kind of tax on the performance of certain acts of their ministry, in order to make up for the great disproportion between their salary and their necessary expenses. They are called "perquisites." Then necessity is easily perceived. Before 1702, the perquisites in France amounted to very little indeed: no payment was required for seats; and the little which the priest expected at the hands of the faithful was to maintain the right which the priest has to live on the altar, and to receive from the Christians temporal assistance in exchange for the spiritual benefits bestowed on them by their ministrations.
"If we have sown for you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?" says St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 11), not meaning, of course, a compensation, which would be simony, but a necessary maintenance. Again, "Know ye not that they who work in the sanctuary eat of the things which are of the sanctuary: and they who serve the altar partake of the altar?" (Ib. 13.)
In France, as well as under the government of Florence, and under that of the czar, and of the Emperor of Austria, the revolution has set everything right; they have taken everything from the Church; they could not kill her, but they have robbed her of everything in hope that she may die of starvation. She does not die, but her priests must depend on the continued liberality of the faithful for their support. Hence the necessity of pew-rents; hence the necessity, so painful to the clergy, of often calling on the people for contributions, which scarcely provide for the most necessary wants.
Do you call that a money-making religion?
But there is a money-making religion, members whereof make their millions every year, gathered from public and secret associations; and then, with a well-lined purse in hand, they climb to the attics of our mechanics, enter the huts of our peasants, take advantage of poverty and misfortune, and buy souls at their valuation of silver!
Shame on them for practising that whereof they accuse us!
---
* I have it from the very lips of a minister that the smallest salary of a parson in Paris is 15,500 francs. The amount expended by the American Board of Foreign Missions to support their agents, wives, and children is fabulous.
— 1. A religion of money is the name given to the Catholic religion by certain Protestant ministers. In concert with the scoffers of religion they charge our priests with selling holy things and trafficking on the credulity of the people, to the profit of their pockets.
It is a cunning charge. Nine out of every ten men are very sensitive whenever the dollar is touched, and to accuse the priests with love of money and intent to pilfer it from the poor, will go a great length to impair their ministry. Protestants know this; hence they repeat the charge over and over with an exceedingly bad faith, inasmuch as they should be the last to utter such an accusation.
It is not generally known that the place of a parson is a most profitable one.* The government in France gives fifteen hundred francs to a parson in the smallest villages, and a salary far larger to those in cities. Beside this emolument, they receive perquisites, which, although not regulated by a tariff, are none the less exacted by custom. Nor is their amount little. Fees for marriages and baptisms in Protestant churches amount to a round sum; bountiful remunerations are given for funeral services, etc.
Add to all this the never-ceasing subscriptions poured into the treasury of biblical and other societies, out of which fat salaries are taken to support their apostles. In 1856, at an Assembly of the Protestant Propaganda, in Germany, it was averred that to their agents in France alone the Association had paid eight millions.
Lastly, it should be remembered that in Protestant countries young ministers generally contract very good matrimonial alliances. It has even been a source of complaint in certain parishes. Not long ago, in one of the cantons of Zurich, at a meeting of young unmarried men it was resolved that in future no unmarried minister should be accepted, "for they carry away the best chances of the place." In other localities pastoral Presbyterial Councils, being mainly composed of fathers of families who have daughters to marry, obstinately refused to receive ministers already married, whose hearts and hands were, therefore, out of market.
Now, of all the money that finds its way into the minister's pocket not a penny is ever spent for church service.
A temple once built (and of course it is not the parson who builds it) requires no other care than that of being swept once a week; there are no sacred vestments to take care of, no expensive luminaries, no religious pomps. The black robe of the parson is called into requisition only on Sunday; it will last a long time with so little wear and tear, and when it is become the worse for wear it can be made available for many domestic purposes.
2. The Catholic parish priest receives from the government a little above one-half of the salary allowed to Protestant ministers, who are so loud in their denunciation against the religion of money — eight hundred and fifty francs to priests occupying places of equal degree with those for which Protestant parsons receive fifteen hundred.
But whilst the Protestant parson is under no expense as regards church service, different is the case with the Catholic priest. In the ritual of the Christian worship there exists a material portion which entails large expenses even in the humblest churches. In the smallest country chapel the celebration of the divine service needs a supply of bread and wine, lamps and candles, sacerdotal vestments of different colors, sacred vessels, linen of various qualities; in a word such an amount of indispensable articles as would astonish those not acquainted with such details. Then you have to pay those who are employed in the Church, generally workmen who live by their labor. Besides all this the parish priest stands, by reason of his position, the first and main help of all the poor, and of all charitable undertakings in his parish. Should ever his heart be faint, his duty and his position would spur him on to act. But after all, he must live, and feed himself and the servant who waits on him.
It requires very little fairness to acknowledge that the Church is perfectly justified in authorizing our priests to levy a kind of tax on the performance of certain acts of their ministry, in order to make up for the great disproportion between their salary and their necessary expenses. They are called "perquisites." Then necessity is easily perceived. Before 1702, the perquisites in France amounted to very little indeed: no payment was required for seats; and the little which the priest expected at the hands of the faithful was to maintain the right which the priest has to live on the altar, and to receive from the Christians temporal assistance in exchange for the spiritual benefits bestowed on them by their ministrations.
"If we have sown for you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?" says St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 11), not meaning, of course, a compensation, which would be simony, but a necessary maintenance. Again, "Know ye not that they who work in the sanctuary eat of the things which are of the sanctuary: and they who serve the altar partake of the altar?" (Ib. 13.)
In France, as well as under the government of Florence, and under that of the czar, and of the Emperor of Austria, the revolution has set everything right; they have taken everything from the Church; they could not kill her, but they have robbed her of everything in hope that she may die of starvation. She does not die, but her priests must depend on the continued liberality of the faithful for their support. Hence the necessity of pew-rents; hence the necessity, so painful to the clergy, of often calling on the people for contributions, which scarcely provide for the most necessary wants.
Do you call that a money-making religion?
But there is a money-making religion, members whereof make their millions every year, gathered from public and secret associations; and then, with a well-lined purse in hand, they climb to the attics of our mechanics, enter the huts of our peasants, take advantage of poverty and misfortune, and buy souls at their valuation of silver!
Shame on them for practising that whereof they accuse us!
---
* I have it from the very lips of a minister that the smallest salary of a parson in Paris is 15,500 francs. The amount expended by the American Board of Foreign Missions to support their agents, wives, and children is fabulous.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre