An Alternative to Godwin's Law

Godwin’s Law states that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

I would like to propose Lindner’s Law, that states “as a discussion of religion grows longer, the probability of a fallacy involving the Catholic Church approaches 1.” Note that the discussion doesn’t have to be online, and I’m not even sure it has to be about religion.

The other day I was hit in an online discussion with the old saw that Catholics aren’t Christians, because if we were Christians the Church would give all its “vast fortune” to the poor and end world hunger once and for all. I was tempted to go all John 12:4-6, but refrained and went with logic instead.

There are a number of things wrong with this argument, but it’s something that comes up regularly when discussion the faith with non-Catholics (and even some Catholics).

Where are the “vast fortunes”?

The budget of the vatican is about $300 million a year, and that’s not even big for a corporation, let alone a country, so certainly that’s not going to end world hunger. By comparison, the American Red Cross’s budget is $3.5 billion!

But what about all the churches filled with gold?

Most of the money that flows into individual parishes and diocese flows out again (sometimes more flows out than in) in service to the community and to the poor. The “gold” that it in our parishes is there for the worship of God. As Jesus says in Matthew 23:17, “Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred?” It would not be honoring God to cease worshipping Him in order to “worship” people.

The “wealth” of each parish belongs to its members, not to some global organization. Each Catholic parish serves the community (not just the parishioners but the entire community) for free. I can walk into any Catholic church in the world and be surrounded by art and beauty (well, aesthetic tastes aside) in order to worship God.

Are we to tell all the Catholics that they can’t use their money to worship God, but have to spend it all on the poor? They are already helping the poor with their money. The Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization on the planet.

But what about all the art work in the Vatican?

Again that is for the glory of God, and is provided for free to anyone on the planet who wants to enjoy it, The Church does not sit on its artwork, like a private collector would. The Pope does not take treasure baths.

Sadly, all the money in the world would not end world hunger. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it go away (and often exacerbates it). Let’s say you did sell everything off and wanted to use the money to feed the hungry. You’d be getting that money from the very rich, and then turning around and giving it back to buy food. the glut of artwork in the marketplace would make the art worthless, and the demand for food would drive food prices up so that you’d wind up doing nothing except lining the pockets of speculators. In a day, or a month, or a year, the food would be gone, the rich would still be rich, and the hungry would be hungry again, and have no churches to go to to worship.

Ultimately the problem of the poor and hungry is caused by the attitudes and actions of billions of people, and cannot be solved by a single act by a single individual, or even a single organization. The solution is an economy based not on greed or personal gain, but on justice and charity. In that respect, the Catholic Church is the solution, not the problem.

Michael Lindner

Mike is a scouter, a science geek, a dad, a husband and a Catholic. He earns a living as a software engineer in beautiful New Jersey. In his spare time (ha ha) he muses at his blog What Does Mike Think? He is not a writer (which will be painfully obvious after reading his posts) but feels called to apologetics and evangelization anyway. You have been warned.

An Alternative to Godwin's Law - New Evangelizers