Preachers Challenge Irs

[Aloysius]

the thing is... at the moment the Church doesn't really realize the type of power it really has. if we, as an organization, made a concerted effort to change this country, we could do some damage to the status quo. even with this IRS rule, I really think the temporal power of the Church is stronger than this rule (especially considering the overwhelming opinion of the American people in favor of first ammendment rights)... say we really did take things on and all the bishops agreed on a policy forbiding all bishops and priests and churches from paying any taxes on church properties.

if the whole Catholic Church in the US did it, the government would face a huge backlash if it tried to confiscate all Church properties. we could take on this rule and win by getting a huge snowball effect of support even from our evangelical brethren, et cetera.

the climate in America is not ready to support the government if there were a clash between the government and the Catholic Church of that magnitude. the government would lose.

[philothea]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1666662' date='Sep 29 2008, 10:42 PM']the thing is... at the moment the Church doesn't really realize the type of power it really has. if we, as an organization, made a concerted effort to change this country, we could do some damage to the status quo. even with this IRS rule, I really think the temporal power of the Church is stronger than this rule (especially considering the overwhelming opinion of the American people in favor of first ammendment rights)... say we really did take things on and all the bishops agreed on a policy forbiding all bishops and priests and churches from paying any taxes on church properties.

if the whole Catholic Church in the US did it, the government would face a huge backlash if it tried to confiscate all Church properties. we could take on this rule and win by getting a huge snowball effect of support even from our evangelical brethren, et cetera.a

the climate in America is not ready to support the government if there were a clash between the government and the Catholic Church of that magnitude. the government would lose.[/quote]
Agreed. I am sure the federal government would roll over before confiscating churches. The backlash would be monstrous.

That said, I'd much rather have homilies stick to the day's readings, rather than politics. (I get annoyed enough on Mothers'/Fathers' Days.)