Father Tony O'Riordan believes that the wealthy should pay more taxes. The director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice thinks it's only fair.
The poor are struggling to survive, and there's all kinds of stealth taxes that everyone has to pay but it hurts the poor more, so why not change the system. Have the wealthy give more, so that the poor can give less.
The government doesn't have the sort of income it once did, so there's talk of cutting back on programs, some of which benefit the poor. So why not have the wealthy dig deeper?
No one pays any attention to the priests anymore, not since the church became mired in a scandal of its own making. No one will donate more to charity because Father O'Riordan has made a strong case from the pulpit, because few bottoms are in the pews to hear him. So what's left?
The government, of course. Let the government become the source of charity, so that people can be forced to give, even if they are made to donate to a cause they don't support.
As long as people believe that the government, and not the Catholic Church, is a source of such largess, they won't bother with giving to the church because they have to render unto Caesar and there's not much left at the end of the week.
Father O'Riordan may find more success by promoting his own institution as a charitable organization, and if the wealthy could pay lower taxes through incentives, while being reminded of the good old days of competition to buy the most African babies, there might be more money to go around.
The government has a tendency to waste, and those who work hard to generate their wealth are somewhat resentful. All those priests and nuns, working for next to nothing? At least you always knew that almost every penny you donated to a Catholic charity was going to the needy.
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