If you agree with these 3 messages, become a member of the 20,000 Pennies Coalition
If you agree with the three messages below, become a member of the 20,000 Pennies Coalition. Membership is free—no charge, no obligation. Just send an email with your first and last names and your city and state to Frank Douglas at frankdouglas62@yahoo.com
I need this information within the next few hours, so I can include it in a press release about our Coalition gathering in Chicago, Saturday, July 31.
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Thanks.
Send the Bishops a Me$$age
20,000 pennies and 3 messages
To Chicago Cardinal Francis George and all U.S. Bishops
The gospel story of the Good Samaritan—the good neighbor parable—obliges all Catholics to care for the needs of clergy sexual abuse victims. Today, July 31, we are delivering to you, Cardinal George, 20,000 pennies—one for each person in the U.S. who experienced as a child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, deacons, and religious brothers and sisters. The 20,000 pennies are a starter donation for a fund to be set aside to care for the needs of victims who still suffer the debilitating effects of abuse.
To all U.S. Catholics
Through purposeful stewardship of their monetary donations, Catholics have the power to effect real change in their church. If you feel that the bishops and the pope have done everything humanly possible to protect children from known and credibly accused sexual predators employed by the church, fine, but, if not, we urge you to send church officials a message of disapproval by dropping a penny in the collection plate each time it is passed in front of you. Your penny will shout two messages: (1) we need accountability; (2) we need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Every penny counts!
To all Catholics worldwide
After Catholics place money in the collection plate they have no further claim on it. The clergy owns that money. The Golden Rule applies here: she/he who has the gold rules. Today the clergy—priests, bishops, and the pope—are not accountable to the people for their financial decisions. Bishops can at their sole discretion and without transparency close churches, declare bankruptcy, and live high on the hog in accommodations that most Catholics can only dream about. We must separate money from ministry. The Catholic laity, the engine that provides the fuel (money) that pulls the long church train behind it, must ultimately control how church monies are managed. Let the people decide how church monies are spent!
Contact: Frank Douglas, (520) 404-2489, (520) 579-9575, frankdouglas62@yahoo.com www.sendthebishopsamessage.com
7 Responses to “If you agree with these 3 messages, become a member of the 20,000 Pennies Coalition”
July 28, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Handing over 20′000 pennies to Cardinal George??? Are you serious? Why hand anything to any clergy? Yes, the lay people should have control and decision making powers over parish assets.
In those Kantons (states) in Switzerland which were strictly Roman Catholic after the reformation, title to properties is in the name of the laity or foundations controlled by the laity. The laity there have decision making powers still, over all material assets. No, the bishops are not able to close churches and sell of parish properties. The clergy have only advisory powers, and no decision making ones. It is different in parishes established the past hundred or so years in predominantly Protestant areas.
The Swiss government keeps the religious peace by mandating the various faith groups to establish a certain equality in the governance of the faith communities. The government will also collect taxes and hand it to the church leaderships, which are elected lay parish councils. Checks and balance is quiet strict. Parish assemblies have to be consulted in matters such as renovations, pastor salaries, hiring of pastors…… But the government will not in any way dictate matters of the spiritual. Anybody not wanting to pay church taxes, can get out of it by renouncing in writing
membership in any or all specific denominations. The parishes pay an yearly assessment for diocesan administration. They have voted to withhold those funds if they do not like their bishop. For example it happened 25-25 years ago in the Diocese of Chur, while Bishop Haas from Lichtenstein was there. Until then that nation was part of the diocese Chur.
Haas had been appointed by John Paul the second, by-passing the input of the cathedral canons of Chur. After several years the Vatican had to remove him, when not enough funds came in anymore, as several parishes were not complying. Instead, Rome made the principality of Lichtenstein an arch diocese, putting Haas there as the head.
Guess what, nobody was excommunicated for that. Remember famous Bishop Burke, now head of the Vatican supreme court? He excommunicated the Polish parish board a few years ago, who did not hand over title to their property to him? Of course, the Swiss bishops have compelled the Vatican to push the Swiss Catholics to hand over control of the material to them. So far the Vatican had no power to do so. But the clergy keep trying. The bishops appointed this days in Switzerland are Opus Dei and the like. I suspect, the Swiss would rather secede from Rome instead of comply.
Any religious organization can apply for recognition by the Swiss federal government, although no religious organization is required to do so.
Anybody In the USA taking the leadership in empowering the Catholics here?
MEM
July 30, 2010 at 4:05 pm
That is what the fight in St. Louis is about…ownership. The people of that parish should be allowed to govern their parish financially as they had done so over 100 years. There should not be a problem with communion with the Vatican or their Catholic brothers and sisters. St. Stans is historic and it has value as thus but dollar wise, the parish sits on prime property on the fringe of the north side of St. Louis—it is worth more dead than alive—-if leveled, the real estate can be developed as we revitalize the city. The arch diocese should hold onto all of those old churches…give them to the people as houses of prayer and shrines. Let the people manage them. The church proper does not want to do this because it means that the central core of control would possible get less money from the people. Not the case…they haven’t even tried. Jesus missed a few money handlers when He sent them running from the temple….can you blame His anger? The only tax collector Jesus needed was Matthew, and he rehabilitated him into a fisherman. Better to smell like a fish than to smell like the carcass of a dead goat!
Ideas about St Louis: Church funds were dwindling.
Involved in abuse settlements.
Parish closures and consolicdations were up.
Special interests projects were supported while others cast aside.
Did St. Louis pay any monies even if borrowed to complete the shrine in WI?
These were things that probably affected St. Stan’s and these people of God were innocent of any wrongdoing…they were merely doing what they always had done from the very start—living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in hostile territory.
July 30, 2010 at 8:28 pm
They are already Roman Catholic, and no one had the right to reduce them to something that they are not. It’s not the air pollution around these parts—-its the manefestations of a polluted heart that punishes the innocent. God save St. Stan’s!!!!!
July 31, 2010 at 2:03 am
I wish somebody would tell San Stanislaus, that there are a couple of thousand Catholic parishes in Switzerland, where the title to the property is in the name of all the parishioners, or in the name of foundations controlled by the laity. In those parishes the faithful have the decision making power over all the assets. No bishop is able to come close, and sell of property. All the funds are in control of the elected, governing lay boards. In some formerly protestant areas where lately Catholic parishes have been established (with money from longtime Catholic parishes) the bishops have put those conveniently under Canon 515. If the Swiss would want to put time and energy into it,they could go to court and have that changed as well. Vatican Canons are not valid in other nations, and should not be on ours.
The bishops and the Vatican have tried to gain control over all those assets, but the Swiss have not complied. And nobody has been excommunicated for it. Check NCRonline for the headlines on Canon 515
July 31, 2010 at 2:07 am
Frank, of course the laity should control how the money is spend with they give. Can you rally enough pro-bono lawyers to work for the laity, so that all the material of the church is put under their control and decision making power???
July 31, 2010 at 2:12 am
Forgot to add, as it is in a majority of parishes in Switzerland. Neither the bishops nor the Vatican are able to do a darned thing about it. They keep on trying. But the Vatican laws have no influence in Switzerland. Tell me, why are the USA courts letting Canon 515 have any influence in our courts? Did you see the headlines at http://www.NCRonline.org regarding a Cleveland court?
August 1, 2010 at 4:28 am
If the American courts upheld the very laws that we are governed under, every bishop, archbishop, and cardinal would be under house arrest. For their failure to handle clerical sexual abuse of minors appropriately, for their failure to allow the practice of religion, and for their discrimmination of women in their bid to live their calling as ministers and priests. There cannot be both president and monarch guiding our democracy…one clearly is not democratic.