Do you tithe (ie, donate 10% of your income to the Church)? Do you know anyone who tithes? Should we still be tithing?

-- Anonymous, July 06, 1998

Answers

Yes, but (embarrassingly) not all to the Catholic Church. My husband and I have always tithed, and it's very common in evangelical circles, from which I come. A fair proportion of my tithe was already committed to our local church, specifically for a building project which will be as much for the community (St John's run a drop-in centre for drug addicts, alcoholics and so on) as for the church. I've now added on a fair bit to my new (Catholic!) church and to a couple of Catholic charities, helped by the fact that I changed jobs in September and am earning a lot more than previously.

It has to be said that tithing is easy if one's always done it; but I'd hate to start it from scratch, and don't honestly think I'd have the determination to allow my income to drop by a tenth.

I don't know if we 'should' be tithing; I know that I'd feel very uncomfortable if I didn't, but would never criticise anyone else for giving on a different method. I would feel that someone who was contributing little or nothing from a reasonable income wasn't pulling his/her weight, though.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1998

tithing

We haven't been able to tithe in money for several years. However, I count volunteer work that I do and money we spend on our children's Catholic education in addition to contributions we make to the Church and charities, and try to make the total come close to 10%. This past Fall, our pastor sent out a letter about tithing, and in it he mentioned that things like going to daily Mass and praying rosaries count as charitable acts and can be done in place of giving money to the Church. That makes me feel a lot better about not being able to give a full 10% of our income. If we were able to afford it, though, I would give the full 10%, half to the Church, and half to other worthy charities.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1998