In proportion to its wealth, how charitable is the Catholic Church?
I believe that religious organizations aren’t required to report their assets (except for what is paid to employees as salaries), so answering this will be pure guesswork.
How do you measure how charitable an organisation, or an individual, is?
Yeah, define “charity by an organization” for an organization that is comprised of thousands of individual components (financially). Then you’ll have to factor in worldwide organizations like Catholic Charities. Plus, the thousands of missionaries that have dedicated themselves to lives of poverty.
It’d also be fair to subtract the unliquidatable assets of the Church (it’s pretty difficult to find a fair market price for a chunk of some saint’s leg bone) if you want to define “wealth” as assets that are interchangeable.
Charity Navigator is a great source that I frequently use to get some measure of how “charitable” various charities are (it tracks organizations’ 990s, their administrative costs, etc. and gives them a rating). This search lists everything with the word “catholic” in the organization’s name, which turned up 39 entries. It’s certainly not an exhaustive listing of Catholic charitable organizations, but it’s a start.
Do you mean “charitable” as in “money given to charities”, or is it “any moneys or actions done by the members of Catholic churches in the name of charity”?
For example, my parish will donate money to various charities, but will also have food collections to give to homeless shelters, or have soup kitchen days where parishoners can sign up to spend a day helping to feed the homeless. I wouldn’t hesitate to call that charity, but it’s something that wouldn’t show up as a dollar amount.
On reflection, I think the question is pretty meaningless.
Consider two people, one of whom earns $10,000 a year, and one of whom earns $100,000 a year. Both devote the bulk of their free time to volunteering in a hostel for the homeless. Which is the more charitable “in proportion to his wealth”? The proportionality of charity to wealth in this case (and in many other cases) is surely meaningless.
Also Rider hasn’t said what he means by “charitable”. The relief of poverty, certainly. But what about the provision of health care? Is it charitable only if provided for free? What about at a subsidised cost? And what about the provision of education – is that charitable? Does is cease to be charitable if the education is provided predominantly to the Church’s own members? And much of the pastoral work that a minister of religion does is done at no cost. Some of it – comforting the bereaved, for example – is surely charitable? And, of course, many people would regard endowing religious institutions – e.g. subscribing towards a new synagogue, church or parish centre - as itself a charitable activity. Is it charitable for the purposes of this question?
Are we seeking to consider all the charitable activity of all church members? Or just some activity? Or just the activity of some members? And on what basis are we restricting it?
And finally, what do we consider to be the “wealth” of the Catholic Church for the purposes of the question? The assets of dioceses and parishes only? The assets of religious orders as well? The assets of other catholic organisations and associations? The assets of church members?