Catholic Ragemonkey

At least it's funny to me...

I was over at Fr. Johansen's blog where I read a post about how some commentor had insinuated that Father's activities might lead to the diocese of Kalamazoo losing their tax-free status.

The following message goes out to all those who would threaten the Church with the loss of her tax free status for having the temerity to correct a member of her own flock. The Church has faced a lot of enemies in her history: plague, famine, persecution without (The Romans, The Huns, the Communists, the Nazis, to name a few), and persecution within (laxity, heresy, schism, self-righteousness). She will face a lot more. But even after these assualts, the Church remains and all those other things have fertilzed the dust heap of history. When compared with Attila the Hun, the IRS is a bunch of weenies.

If compromising the essential work of the Church is the price of not having to pay property and sales taxes, I say, you can have the exempt status back. The price is too high if I can't call the society's obcession with abortion and euthanasia evil, regardless of the candidate. It isn't worth the exchange if I can't call dehumanizing work conditions and policies of taxation that are hostile to families wrong.

In the end though, I don't worry about losing the tax exemption. After all, if there was any sort of worry about overt campaigning leading to the loss of exemption, then, in theory, none of the Protestant churches where Kerry spoke and campaigned should have had Kerry come and speak. I don't agree with who showed up or what he said, but if that doesn't qualify as overt campaigning for a particular figure, what does?!

The exemption status, like all good things, has become a tool of the Deceiver. It's his subtle way of saying, "You Christians aren't welcome in the public square. This is my domain." Well, sorry to break this to you, Bucky, but government is created to serve the public good. The ultimate source and end of all goods is God himself, and therefore, it leads me to conclude that it is you, Deceiver, Murderer, and Father of Lies, who have no place in the public square.