For Catholics:Where did the Catholic Church get all the money to start churches & schools in the USA?

Question

I think this is a good question to ask because many Roman Catholic immigrants to this country were poor,not rich!Including my maternal grandfather & great grandparents/

So,being that so many Roman Catholic immigrants were poor,where did the Roman Catholic church get the money to do anything here in the USA?

Answer 1

Going back to the time of the crusades when the Popes invaded other lands they took whatever bounty they wanted, like any other invading band did. They kept all of this loot. When missionaries were sent to spread the faith among Native American or others these missionaries brought money with them..as well as trinkets for these people.

No so much among the Native Americans but the well to do English were also around, as well as Spanish who paid a nice price to have their children educated by these missionaries.
That's the way it all started. If you ever get the chance to go to California go see the San Gabriel Missions..they were built by the missionaries..with money from wealthy Spaniards.

Answer 2

Things were different back then, people actually attended church on Sundays--everyone. And it was also everyone's responsibility to build the churches, the townspeople all helped out with either gathering supplies, donating money or building the church.

Also though, the Catholic Church has been around for over 2000 years and back then, people gave what they could up to 10 percent of their pay a week. It was a tithe to God that the Church would use it for different means.

Anything put into the church would eventually come back as these churches would take care of the sick, the dying and the needy. But not everyone that's Catholic was poor, there were some rich people and they would help out just like the rest of them.

Answer 3

For the first 280 years of Christian history, Christianity was banned by the Roman Empire, and Christians were terribly persecuted. This changed after the “conversion” of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine provided religious toleration with the Edict of Milan in AD 313, effectively lifting the ban on Christianity. Later, in AD 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicea in an attempt to unify Christianity. Constantine envisioned Christianity as a religion that could unite the Roman Empire (state religion), which at that time was beginning to fragment and divide. While this may have seemed to be a positive development for the Christian church, the results were anything but positive. Just as Constantine refused to fully embrace the Christian faith, but continued many of his pagan beliefs and practices, so the Christian church that Constantine promoted was a mixture of true Christianity and Roman paganism. Constantine found that, with the Roman Empire being so vast, expansive, and diverse, not everyone would agree to forsake his or her religious beliefs to embrace Christianity. So, Constantine allowed, and even promoted, the “Christianization” of pagan beliefs. Completely pagan and utterly unbiblical beliefs were given new “Christian” identities.

Answer 4

Roman Catholic missionaries were sponsored by their churches/orders back home in Europe.

Once Catholics began settling in the U.S., they pooled their resources to fund the church. I live in Nebraska, were there are many small Catholic Churches in rural communities that were built by hand by local farmers/townfolk, on land donated by somebody, using altar cloths and vestments sewn by a parishioner out of fabric donated (and sometimes woven & dyed) by a parishioner. People tithed out of what they had -- chicken or milk or corn or beef or whatever. Even to this day, some farmers set aside a few acres of their crop production and donate the proceeds to pay the church's electric bill or whatnot.

Even poor people can scrape together a little bit that when pooled with everybody else's "little bit" is enough to build a Church and keep it running.

Answer 5

The Catholic Church demands obedience to Jesus not cash from the faithful...yes the Church expects the faithful to help out as Jesus authorised this ...but its what one can afford not 10% or if youre Benny Hinn inclined 90%

Answer 6

They pillaged the new world. Why do you suppose the Church sponsored Cortez's slaughter of the Aztecs. The Aztecs had lots of gold!

The Roman Catholic Church has been hoarding wealth since the Dark Ages. They are one of the wealthiest entities on the planet in terms of real estate holdings. The Irony is, being a Church, there's little they can do with the land.

Answer 7

I'm not a Catholic, but I think a lot of missions were already here because Spain sent priests and monks over to start missions. I would guess the start up money came from Rome.

Answer 8

I would assume that it was from the same place the Protestant churches got their money - from their poor followers.

Answer 9

part of the funds came through tithing which is the biblical principle in giving 10% of your earnings to the church to further God's work.

Answer 10

Well, I do know they used slave labor in Ireland in the Magdalene Asylums, where young women accused of "immoral" behavior were locked up and forced to work in laundries that charged outside businesses for their services. Whether this money stayed in Ireland or went to the vatican and was redistributed, I don't know.