Religious corporation

“ It is objected that this corporation is not empowered under its charter to accept and administer this charity. But it is a novel proposition, as inconsistent with the rules of law as it is with the dictates of religion, that a Christian church or religious society cannot receive and distribute money to poor churches of its own denomination so as to promote that cause of religion in the state in which it is established. ”

“ Such a corporation is the source of authority, the test of truth, the creator of spiritual ideals. On the other hand, such a church as the Protestant may be called individualistic because it makes the individual the channel of revelation. It emphasizes personality as of supreme worth, and it makes religious institutions of little value in comparison. ”

“ Organizations pay a fee to the Government for this service, and not all public law corporations avail themselves of this privilege. The decision to grant public law corporation status is made at the state level. Many religious groups have been granted public law corporation status. Among them are the Lutheran and Catholic Churches, as well as the Jewish community, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Baptists, Methodists, Christian Scientists, and the Salvation Army. ”

“ Such are some of the essential characteristics of a religious or moral organization. Any departure from them in an institution, proves its secularism. No church in which they form not a distinguishing feature, has any claims to be a religious or moral corporation. ”

“ Now we must not press this analogy between medieval churches and modern charities very far, for medieval lawyers were but slowly elaborating that idea of a trust which bears heavy weights in modern times and enables all religious bodies, except one old-fashioned body, to conduct their affairs conveniently enough without an apparatus of corporations sole. still, in the main, church and charity seem alike. Neither ever sues, neither is ever sued. The parson holds land "in right of his church". ”

“ I find their principles compendiously declared in an allocution of a minister of Rome to the court of Sardinia, in reference to taxes on church property there. I find that 'religious corporations, forming a portion of the ecclesiastical family at large, are by their very nature, under the guardianship and authority of the church; and, consequently, no measure or laws can be adopted with respect to them, except by the spiritual power, or through its agency, especially in what touches their existence or their conduct in the institutions to which they respectively belong ”

“ Religious recognition under the 1874 law has wide ranging implications, such as the authority to participate in the state-collected religious taxation program, to engage in religious education, and to bring into the country religious workers to act as ministers, missionaries, or teachers. Under the 1874 law, religious societies have "public corporation" status. This status permits religious societies to engage in a number of public or quasi-public activities that are denied to other religious organizations. ”

“ We poor mice may share Church cheer!
There was a feeling of uncertainty in the House of Commons last Wednesday, as to what should be taken to constitute "A Religious Body." Not to go harking back to the Rev. Sydney Smith's definition of "a Corporation"—which, without speaking it profanely, cannot be here quoted without offending eyes polite,—one may say that "A Religious Body" is a contradiction in terms. ”

“ As I have mentioned, you may consider whether the International Unification Church Movement had a specific organizational structure in making your decision. However, the lack of a formal corporation does not prevent a religious movement from being the beneficial owner of property held in the name of another. ”

“ He was originally a friar, but is now the representative of the secular clergy, and carries, with his opinions, the influence of all the most able ecclesiastics of that denomination. It is not equally certain that all the religious corporations, as such, are so much in favour of the new order of things. ”

“ To the church also we owe those religious corporations which produce such an abundance of excellent results by the instruction of childhood and youth, and by the succor which they give so liberally to the sick and to the destitute. We are also debtors to these religious for the renewal of the spirit of piety in this year of jubilee and of sanctification, and for the conversion to Christianity and civilization of nine thousand savages in the eastern province, in which, on account of its vast extent, there are good reasons for establishing a second vicariate. ”

“ While, therefore, the legislature might exempt the citizens from a compulsive attendance and payment of taxes in support of any particular sect, it is not perceived that either public or constitutional principles required the abolition of all religious corporations. ”

“ So many honest and zealous Low Churchmen, who had hitherto never been fairly brought face to face with the Church as a corporation, discovered, when volunteering to act in a combined Church gathering, that the unquestionable common law of that corporate Church contained useful elements of which they had hitherto been ignorant, or of whose importance they had hitherto made light. ”

“ None the less will men, after this change as before, require the corporate experience and manifestation of religion as, in varying degrees and ways, a permanent necessity for the vigorous life of religion. Indeed, such corporate tradition operates strongly even where men's spiritual sense seems most individual, or where, with the retention of some ethical nobility of outlook, they most [127] keenly combat all and every religious institution. ”

“ Romanism says—Jesus established an essential form for his Church, as well as an essential substance. The true Church is an organization as well defined as any corporation for secular purposes. It has the monopoly of saving souls, a patent right of communicating spiritual life, which cannot lawfully be infringed by any other corporation. ”

“ Without going into the religious question, and supposing only the operation of ordinary causes, it is easy to see how the Church corporations—repositories of the gifts of the faithful, moved by no feverish haste in speculation, and with no reckless heirs to spend their gains-must in course of time have become possessed of an enormous share of worldly goods. ”

“ Is it true, then, that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life? The question can be settled only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity. Recognition of that fact does not involve any acceptance of Christian belief; it is merely a matter of common sense and common honesty. At the foundation of the life of every corporation is the incorporation paper, in which the objects of the corporation are set forth. ”

“ In some States the laws do not recognize the church, that being a spiritual body, but incorporate a society, as it is called, consisting of all persons of full age who attend and support the worship. This society has charge of the financial affairs of the church, holds and keeps in repair its property, and conducts its secular concerns. It elects a specified number of trustees, as provided for by law, who are the legal representatives of the corporation. The members of the society, and the trustees elected, may or may not be members of the church. ”

“ A spiritual order, like that of the Roman Catholic Church, which does not propagate itself in direct descendants, may, under the favour of the State, possess lands with subjects attached to them, and may constitute a spiritual corporation called the Church. ”

“ This church, to use Schlegel's own words, is that great and divine corporation which embraces all other social relations, protects them under its vault, crowns them with dignity, and lovingly imparts to them the power of a peculiar consecration. The church is not a mere substitute formed to supply or repair the deficiencies of the other social institutes and corporations; but is itself a free, peculiar, independent corporation, pervading all states, and in its object exalted far above them—an union and society with God, from whom it immediately derives its sustaining power. ”

“ Our personal experience verifies the value of corporate prayer. If it were not so, religion would be an individual matter alone; it would lack its most universal expression, that of common worship. It is because the Church in our country lost for a long period her corporate consciousness, at least in a large degree, that she lost sight of the power of corporate intercession for the sick members of the Body of Christ. ”

“ Kearns' speech weaves around it all sorts of fallacies, a few of which I shall examine. It is charged that the Church is a business corporation rather than a Church, and is establishing a monopoly in business, and threatens, as some gigantic trust might threaten, the industries of this intermountain region. This is not true. It is true that the Church has invested some of its means in various corporations and enterprises. ”

“ First, they say that the property held by the Church in former times was generally ill-gotten, that is, by terrorising the consciences of the credulous; and next, they argue that a corporation is not like an individual or a family. ”

“ Of course, there are thousands of individual exceptions. I am speaking of the church as an institution, as a corporation—and when I say the church, I include all churches. It is said of corporations in general, that they have no soul, and it may truthfully be said of the church that it has less than any other. It lives on alms. It gives nothing for what it gets. It has no sympathy. Beggars never weep over the misfortunes of other beggars.
Nothing could give me more pleasure than to see the Catholic Church on the side of human freedom ”

“ Now, what is very strange, and yet characteristic of all these, they appear to live as though they were unconscious of their obligations, and of the guilt which they incur. They seem to think that if they are allowed to assume the name of a Christian or Catholic, they are safe. Well then, asks one, why not exclude them from the Church altogether, so that the whole world can see what they are? This is the way we do away with unprofitable subjects in other institutions. Take, for example, a railroad corporation. Sometimes a company of this kind starts with great prospects. ”

“ Moreover, the sanction of religious teaching, depending chiefly on the authority of tradition instead of its own reasonableness, made it necessary for any preacher who would command hearers to enter the service of some of the established sectarian organizations. Religion, in a word, like industry and politics, was capitalized by greater or smaller corporations which exclusively controlled the plant and machinery, and conducted it for the prestige and power of the firms. ”

“ These are to the universal church, as particular corporations are to a kingdom, even such parts of it as have a distinct subordinate polity of their own: it is no city or corporation, if they have not their mayors, bailiffs, or other chief officers, subject to the king, as governors of the people under him: and it is no particular church, in a political sense, but only a community, if they have not their pastors to be under Christ, their spiritual conductors {600} in the matters of salvation; as there is no school which is not constituted of teacher and scholars. ”

“ It is natural that a religion of individual initiative and personal responsibility, like Protestantism, should put less confidence in theurgic machinery and formularies of ex-cathedral execration than a religion like Catholicism, in which man’s spiritual concerns are entrusted to a hierarchical corporation to be managed according to traditional and infallible methods. ”

“ Thus the legal status of the churches is that of a large private corporation, and nobody is required to connect himself with any church. Special ecclesiastical legislation is, therefore, superfluous; every church may organize, appoint officers, and regulate its property matters and disciplinary questions as it likes, and any disputed points are settled by civil law, as in the case of all corporations. ”

“ To those sufficiently instructed to know Prohibition and industrial strife as alike children of the Protestant spirit, the coincidence is a symbol and a warning.
To recapitulate: the sixteenth century Protestants proclaimed the supremacy of private judgment over corporate religious authority. Slowly but inevitably such doctrine, making religion not a corporate but a personal thing, has weakened the ties between man and man. Notice now, how from the resulting hedge between individuals and classes springs the evil forest of our discontents which darkens the Christian world to-day. ”

“ Has religious opinion in the past regarded questions of social organization and economic conduct as irrelevant to the life of the spirit, or has it endeavored not only to christianize the individual but to make a Christian civilization? Can religion admit the existence of a sharp antithesis between personal morality and the practices which are permissible in business? Does the idea of a Church involve the acceptance of any particular standard of social ethics, and, if so, ought a Church to endeavor to enforce it as among the obligations incumbent on its members? ”

“ Who is looking to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual standards of the Church for guidance? We are to-day ruled spiritually, as well as intellectually, by laymen, and in a way which is quite outside the organized work of the Church.
2. The Church needs a more business-like organization and way of work. It needs a more military spirit and discipline. The Church is diffuse and loosely strung. There are in the United States alone about two hundred and fifty-six kinds of religious bodies. There is no centralized interest or work; there is no economic adjustment of funds ”