[Mobius]

http://www.thelocal.no/20141103/catholic-church-in-illegal-members-scandal

Catholic Church in illegal members scandal

The Catholic Church of Norway has admitted illegally registering thousands of foreigners to the church without asking their consent in a bid to win more government funding.

Since 2010, the number of registered members of the Roman Catholic Church has increased by 66,000 - to more than 120,000. Many people may be members without knowing it, reported Dagbladet on Monday.

In a written report from Oslo Katolske Bispedømme (OKB - Roman Catholic Diocese of Oslo) to the county governor of Oslo and Akershus, it outlines a recruitment practice that the church itself calls “not satisfactory.”
 
Bishop Bernt Eidsvig wrote in the report: “During our meeting I described how a practice, revealed to have lasted for a few years, has resulted in foreigners moving to Norway from Catholic countries, and thereby assumed to be Catholics. They were then registered as OKB members without agreeing to it themselves.”
 
Eidsvig said to Dagbladet that several thousands could be wrongly registered as members.
 
The bishop said: “We are talking about at least a thousand, maybe many times that.”
 
High member numbers means the Catholic Church in Norway will next year receive around 130 million kroner ($20 million) from the Norwegian government.

Simple and effective. Too bad it's illegal.

Anyway, I do like the idea of Churches getting funds depending on the number of actual - and registered - believers within a specific country's borders. In Italy, the Vatican and its controlled organizations get benefits and tax exemptions as if everyone was Catholic and agreed with their activities.

[The E]

I believe that tax exemptions for churches are an obsolete relic and should be abolished.

[Luis Dias]

I believe that tax exemptions for churches are an obsolete relic and should be abolished.

2nded.

[Phantom Hoover]

I'm not sure that they're actually unjustified but they should definitely be folded into some more general category that includes secular organisations.

[The E]

Yeah, I have no issue with there being a special tax category for charities; I just have a problem with the default assumption that any church is one automatically.

[Bobboau]

I believe that tax exemptions for churches are an obsolete relic and should be abolished.

3rded

[Dragon]

I believe that tax exemptions for churches are an obsolete relic and should be abolished.

Any special treatment for churches in general. They're organizations like any other, but you wouldn't know that from looking at them... Roman Catholic Church is a particularly bad offender in Europe (Poland being one of the most egregious cases), and I've noticed Islamic mosques also seem to be getting far more government attention than they should. I really think that exercising religious tolerance by equally pumping money into every church in the country is a road to bankruptcy. Especially since if you think of it, they should also be paying the Pastafarians, Cthulhu cultists and Scientologists. The last group should probably not be allowed near government money, and I wouldn't think the other two to be a good investment, either.

[karajorma]

I love how you put Scientologists above Cthulhu cultists when deciding what is likely to do something bad with government money.

Not saying you're wrong mind you.

[Lorric]

Nice thread. Because maybe we can all agree on something for once.

When you've got "televangelists" raking in vast amounts of cash and being tax exempt, something is very wrong.

[watsisname]

I love how you put Scientologists above Cthulhu cultists when deciding what is likely to do something bad with government money.

Anyway, I think it's fine to give tax exemptions or funds to organizations on the basis of them doing charitable works, but doing this just because they fall under the category of being a church is ridiculous.

[InsaneBaron]

Nice thread. Because maybe we can all agree on something for once.

When you've got "televangelists" raking in vast amounts of cash and being tax exempt, something is very wrong.

I can't believe this! We've got a thread that relates to religion and no one is disputing with anyone else! That world is coming to and end! Run for the hills! Put a sack over you're head!
 

Seriously, this is rare.

At least the Bishop realized there was a problem and admitted it honestly.

[Mobius]

Yeah, I have no issue with there being a special tax category for charities; I just have a problem with the default assumption that any church is one automatically.

Furthermore, there's a tiny and not well defined border between religious support and pure charity. One may argue that giving a slice of pizza to a homeless person with one hand and rosary beads with the other hand constitutes a form of support, even though it's clearly not secular. I hard believe a priest or nun could go around supporting people without actually showing off religious stuff.

[Dragon]

The religious bit should not be taken into consideration at all. You either do charity or you don't. Whether you say "Glory be to God", "Salam" or "Go buy yourself a loaf of bread" when doing it should be irrelevant. As long as you're not trying to feed anything actually harmful into the minds of those you support (once again, it's also quite possible to do without a religion), the ideology behind being charitable shouldn't matter much.

[InsaneBaron]

The religious bit should not be taken into consideration at all. You either do charity or you don't. Whether you say "Glory be to God", "Salam" or "Go buy yourself a loaf of bread" when doing it should be irrelevant. As long as you're not trying to feed anything actually harmful into the minds of those you support (once again, it's also quite possible to do without a religion), the ideology behind being charitable shouldn't matter much.

2nded

[Luis Dias]

At least the Bishop realized there was a problem and admitted it honestly.

We can all rest assured that some big corp like IKEA, well known tax evaders, wouldn't bat an eyelid at this. So while all this consensus on what to do with these taxes is fine, we could take a break from always finding fault in the church institutions and start looking elsewhere. Or perhaps I'm being unjust and the issue here is that one institution is expected to behave morally while the other is expected to behave psychopathically...

[Dragon]

This is simply a different issue. I think nobody is arguing that corporations should be exempt from taxes. That they, de facto, are is a fault of the tax enforcement system. With the Church, you'd find many people arguing (not on this forum, thankfully) that even thinking about taking money away from them is blasphemy. Not so with corporations. Ikea should definitely pay its due, that they're able to avoid it is a problem with the tax system unable to enforce them on big corporations.