How Much Should a Catholic Tithe?

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:12] Hello and welcome to Crisis Point. I'm Eric Sammons. Today, what I want to talk about is what is a Catholic's obligation when it comes to financial giving? [00:00:23] How much should Catholics give? Who should they give to? [00:00:27] And should Catholics give a tithe a 10% of their income? [00:00:34] I bring this up because it became somewhat of a controversy on X, as almost every post becomes a controversy on X. But this one seemed to generate a lot of feedback, I'll put it that way. And what I wrote was this is yesterday. I wrote every Catholic, no matter their financial situation, should, should donate at least 10% of their income to the church and charity. [00:00:57] It all comes from God, so it's only right to give a portion back. It's a scandal how little Catholics donate. [00:01:04] So my basic point was every Catholic should donate, without exception, should donate at least 10% of their income to the church and charity. [00:01:13] Now when I wrote this, I figured there'd be some people who might push back on that. And I understand that, like I said, everything gets pushed back on, on social media, but I was a little surprised by how much there was and how, you know, how controversial the topic became, but began became. [00:01:32] But then when I think about it, there are certain subjects that are always going, people are always going to be sensitive about. [00:01:40] They're always going to be quick to be offended, be upset. [00:01:46] Money is definitely one of them. You talk about other things like for example, sex or money or something like that, people are going to get offended. If I said something like people shouldn't use NFP like birth control, I know I'm going to get a response that people are going to be upset about that and some people might get defensive. Likewise, when I talk about money, it's a very personal thing and people get like to be challenged often in that area of their life. [00:02:15] Now I, I want to say, to start off, I just want to say this. [00:02:22] A lot of people, a lot of Catholics are soft. I'm sorry, they're just soft. [00:02:28] The amount of vitriol I got for that statement was just hilarious, frankly. [00:02:34] The, the idea that people were offended by that saying something that, as we'll see here in this podcast, basically aligns with what many of the church fathers said. [00:02:47] And they acted like it was some self righteous, judgmental virtue signaling post on my part just shows how soft we are, frankly. [00:02:59] And I'm not surprised that we're all soft because if you think about it, how often do we hear homilies that really truly challenge us? [00:03:09] I mean, most homilies by Catholic priests are like our caveat fill, meaning they're just filled with caveats to basically get everybody off the hook. [00:03:21] Rarely do you hear a priest in a homily really challenge people and don't give a bunch of exceptions to allow everybody to feel like they are an exception. [00:03:33] And they would do this, like with giving money, with how they parent, with, you know, using contraception, whatever. They, they just make it. They either don't talk about it or they do it always in a way that they hope won't offend anybody because they're afraid of the pushback, I guess. [00:03:50] But that just has made us soft. Where a post like that where I say again, every Catholic, no matter their financial situation, should donate at least 10% of their income to church and charity. If that gets you upset and you go and attack me for saying that, frankly, you're soft now. Some people had very good comments. Eric Ybarra, my friend Eric Ybarra had some nice comments to ask me to clarify some of the things I said. And I think that's obviously a good thing. [00:04:19] But notice I said first. I said every Catholic should donate. [00:04:25] And also notice the. The context. [00:04:27] It's some random lay guy, I. E. Me saying this on an X post. In other words, this is just my opinion. Of course it's my opinion. People are like, oh, that's just your opinion. [00:04:40] Duh. That's what X is. We give our opinions. If I had started that post with the words I think every Catholic should, maybe I wouldn't have gotten as much pushback because they would have been like, oh, he's just stating his opinion. But why do we have to say the words? I think at the beginning of every social media post, of course that's what you think. You're just giving your opinion. I have no authority in the church. [00:05:05] I don't claim any authority. [00:05:07] And so I just think people are soft also. I think people are quick to make excuses. I think a lot of people were very sensitive to this and defensive because they know in their hearts they're not giving enough, that they're not being generous with the money that God has enabled them to make. [00:05:29] And so they make excuses. We're very quick. And I notice this with almost any controversial subject like this. [00:05:35] We're very quick and I do it too. That's why I'm saying we. We're very quick, though, to look for the exceptions in order to make a. A something easier, make our life easier. [00:05:48] We're trying to find the exceptions to make our life easier or even make the lives of others easier instead of looking for ways to be more generous, to sacrifice more, to do the more difficult things. [00:06:03] We're just always looking for those exceptions. [00:06:06] But honestly, what I said, it was actually tame in comparison to what many of the church fathers said. [00:06:13] And again, I wasn't stating some church law. I never said every Catholic is required by the Church to give at least 10%. I just said every Catholic should. [00:06:25] And I think that every Catholic should give 10% of their income to the church and charity. [00:06:32] And if that makes you feel guilty, it makes you feel defensive that some guy on the Internet says that. I think honestly, it's a good opportunity for you to consider how much do you give? And is it really generous enough? Is it really generosity of a follower of Jesus Christ? [00:06:52] I want to show a few quotes from some church fathers. St. Irenaeus, Bishop, Doctor of Church, 2nd century. [00:07:00] He said the Jews were constrained to a particular to a regular payment of tithes. Christians who have liberty assign all their possessions to the Lord, bestowing freely not the lesser portions of their property, since they have the hope of greater things. [00:07:13] What Saint Irenaeus is saying here is like, yes, the Jews are required by law to give a tithe, meaning 10%. Tithe, by the way, does mean 10%. But we use it generically to just kind of mean your donations to the church and things like that. But here we're talking about 10%. [00:07:30] And so, which is in the old law. [00:07:33] And Irenaeus says, yes, Jews were required and Christians are not required by the law. [00:07:40] However, he's making the point that we should bestow freely, not the lesser portions, because we have a hope of greater things. In other words, 10% kind of should be the minimum. Which is what I was saying. [00:07:55] Not because of a church law that requires it, but because we are under a new law of Jesus Christ, we should freely do that. We should want to give more because we've been given so much, so much more than the Jews were given, so we should want to give more. That's St. Irenaeus, St. Augustine. [00:08:16] Everybody knows who St. Augustine is. [00:08:18] Says, cut off some part of your income, a tenth if you choose, though that is but little. [00:08:23] For it is said that the Pharisees gave a tenth. [00:08:26] I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And what says the Lord? Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. [00:08:39] He whose righteousness you ought to exceed gives a tenth. [00:08:43] You give not even a thousandth. How will you surpass him whom you match not, who prepares rain for the earth? So, so basically, St. Augustine here is saying, listen, our Lord said, to have a greater righteousness than the Pharisees. The Pharisees gave a tenth. You should freely choose to give more than a tenth. [00:09:05] That's St. Augustine. He's not saying it's a church rule, you must give a tenth. That was the old law. But he is saying you should choose freely to give more than a tenth because we're supposed to be greater than the Pharisees who gave a tenth. [00:09:18] St. John Chrysostom. I have a couple quotes from him. He was hardcore, guys, John Chrysostom says they gave tithes and tithes again upon tithes for orphans, widows and strangers. Whereas someone was saying to me in astonishment, another, why such a one gives tithes mean the Jews here. What a load of disgrace does this expression imply, since what was not a matter of wonder with the Jews has come to be so in the case of the Christians, if there was a danger then of omitting tithes, think how great it must be now. In other words, the Jews just thought giving 10% was like, okay, that's what we do. Okay, that's just part of being a Jew is you give 10%. [00:09:57] So Chrysostom is saying Christians in his day, however, are saying, oh, my gosh, that's shocking that you would give 10%. [00:10:03] And Chrysostom is challenging St. John Chrysostom is challenging us, saying, wait a minute, The Jews give 10% and it's just regular, normal? Shouldn't we as Christians give so much more? [00:10:18] St. John Chrysostom also said, not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs. [00:10:29] This is far more radical than anything I suggested. St. John Chrysostom goes further than I go and further than the church officially goes. Of course, he's saying that essentially what he says in his writings is, if you have excess wealth, you have an obligation to give that to the poor. [00:10:49] Now, what is excess wealth? I think John Chrysostom would say most of us in America today have loads and loads of excess wealth. I do think that's a prudential decision. I think we have to determine that. I know I have excess wealth. I mean, look behind me. I have all these books. I have these, you know, the camera. I have all this stuff. I have excess wealth. Do I give it all to the poor? No, I don't St. John Chrysostom said would say you are probably doing the wrong thing. [00:11:17] My point is, is that in the early church, these bishops, these doctors of the church, these, these saints, fathers of the church, they basically said a Christian should give a minimum of 10%, which is exactly what I said. [00:11:34] Yet people see a lot of people, to be clear, a lot of people, you know, like the post and everything like that. [00:11:40] But it caused a lot of people to question what I said. [00:11:45] Now, some. Eric Yubara brought this point up, a good point, which is St. John Chrysostom talks a lot about that we give to the widow and orphan the poor. [00:11:55] So, you know, I said, I said, however, every Catholic, no matter their financial situation, but note I said give 10% of their income. [00:12:04] In St. John Chrysostom's Day, a widow typically did not have an income. An orphan did not typically have an income. [00:12:11] So I'm in agreement with St. John Chrysostom. They obviously shouldn't give 10% because they don't have an income. Or I should say they do give 10% of their income. But since their income is zero, basic math tells us that their tithe is zero, their 10% is zero. [00:12:26] So of course they shouldn't have to give. Somebody who does not have an income should not have to give. [00:12:33] I would say also, though, a lot of widows today are not in the same situation as a widow. Synchronic Chrysostom's Day and they do have an income. So I do think they should give. I don't think it's like widow is what he meant, just a strictly, literally widow, orphan. He meant those who have no income. [00:12:50] And I agree those people should not. They don't have a 10% to give. [00:12:55] Now, the assumption then in the early Church was definitely that the Christian should give at least 10%. That's kind of the minimum because God established that in the old law as a law. [00:13:09] Now it's not established as a law today. Yet it is something that Catholics should do in the Middle Ages. St. Thomas Aquinas, he talked about, I don't know if I marked it or not. [00:13:25] This was in, what is this, part two, section two, question 87 on ties. But I won't read it directly, but basically what he says is, St. Thomas Quina says is that Catholics are required to give the chair, to give to the Church, give the charity, but the Church can set a different amount than 10%. [00:13:46] He makes that very clear. 10% was the law in the old law, under the old covenant, with the Jews. But it's not like 10% is a magical number that must be always followed. The Church could say a different number. [00:14:02] So what does the Church say today? What does the Church require? [00:14:07] It says that in Code of Canon Law 222, it says the Christian faithful are obliged. This is the 1983 Code of Canon Law. [00:14:18] The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers also. They're also obliged to promote social justice and mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources. In other words, the Church does not set a exact amount, it said, but we are obliged, you are absolutely obliged to assist with the needs of the Church and to promote social justice and assist the poor from their own resources. So we're definitely obliged. [00:14:56] We can't act like, okay, giving to the Church and giving to the, to the poor and apostles, things like that are a. [00:15:08] Just an extra of being a Catholic. No, they're required. Now, the Church does not set, though it is true, and I never claimed otherwise, the Church does not set a specific amount for how much we should give. However, like I said, traditionally speaking, if you look at the Church Fathers and also you just look at. Throughout the history of the Church, I mean, I remember my people, some people were saying that's a Protestant thing, the 10% I just got from Protestantism. However, my wife, who cradle Catholic, grew up Catholic in the 70s and 80s, not in some great time in the Church. She learned, she was taught that you gave 10%, 5% to your parish, 5% to charities, and I'll get into that in a second. That's what she was taught as a cradle Catholic. [00:15:52] And so the 10% is a good guideline. It is the common suggestion, the most common suggestion given by the saints, by the doctors, by theologians, by spiritual directors. [00:16:04] It's the meaning of the word tithe, of course. [00:16:07] And so I would, I go along with that. Every Catholic should give 10%. [00:16:13] In other words, if you don't give 10% of your income, again, of your income. Of your income, if you have no income, then obviously 10% of nothing is nothing. [00:16:24] But if you have an income, yes, I would say every single Catholic, no matter their financial situation. [00:16:30] Now, some immediately threw it back, like, oh, you're just saying that because you're in a good shape or whatever like that. I'm not saying it because I'm saying Everybody. Because I know in my own experience, and I know people as well who have been faithful to the 10% giving, even in times of financial distress or financial need, that have been blessed by it and have found they've always been provided for by the Lord. Always. [00:16:57] I know when I first got married, we lived in an apartment that was the second floor of somebody's house. It wasn't anything special. [00:17:05] You know, I wasn't, I mean, I had a job pretty soon about a month or so into my, into my marriage, but it wasn't like the super high paying job, it was an entry level job, but we scrimped and we saved. So it's not like I've always lived. I mean, I'm not rich today either. [00:17:21] People who think like those who work for, you know, in work like mine are grifters because they make so much money. [00:17:27] That's just not. People who actually do this stuff. The content creators, they know it's not a lot of money. [00:17:32] But I'm not poor. I don't want to act like I'm poor or something like that. My point is this, simply 10%, remember, it's based upon how much you make. So it, if you make a million dollars a year, you give a hundred thousand, but if you only make 50,000, you get 5,000. It's pretty simple, you give a lot less. If you make less, 10% is a good rule of thumb. [00:17:53] And if you give less than 10%, I think honestly you should really reconsider and be open to the idea that God is calling you to give 10% to the church and to charity and that he will provide even if you're not well off. And I do, and I would also challenge. So that's my challenge to people who maybe feel like they can't afford to give 10%. You can, but I would say I would challenge also those who only give 10% or less than 10%, but they make a lot more money. [00:18:28] If you're making $200,000 in a year, for example, I think it's a joke to only give 10% at that point. I think it's a joke, frankly, because you can definitely live on a lot less than $180,000 a year. [00:18:43] And just as an aside, what about the whole pre tax, post tax? I'm talking post tax because I do think we're talking about what you actually receive. I don't think you, you, you are, you should pay a tithe, a charity based upon money that's not in your possession at any time. The guy it's the government. The government took it from you. [00:19:05] You don't have it. You didn't make it. You know, your check says this or not. It's 10% of what you actually make, take home. [00:19:12] But if you're. So if you take home $200,000 in a year and you're only given $20,000 a year, I mean, there might be a situation where $180,000 a year is barely making. I don't. I can't imagine one, frankly. [00:19:28] And so I would say that person needs to give a lot, heck of a lot more than 10%. [00:19:35] Maybe 15, maybe 20, maybe 30, maybe 50%. I don't know. [00:19:39] That's for you to turn with the Lord. Over 10%, particularly, is a prudential decision. [00:19:44] And I also would go along with what my wife learned, which is when we were Talking about your 10%, you break that down between 5% to the church and 5% to charity, 5% to church, your parish, particularly. But again, it's a minimum as well. Now, I do know we're talking about if you want to give more than 10% because you're making more, you're living off of less than you make even after you give 10%. I do understand that we have to be prudent when it comes to giving more than 10% in the sense that, like, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I have to prepare for the future. I have to be able to, you know, these days there's no pensions or anything like that. I have to be prepared to be able to support my wife and maybe kids, probably just my wife after I'm retired. [00:20:31] And I'm not saying. And so it's like, I have to prepare and my retirement might come sooner than I think if I'm just incapable of continue to do work or whatever the case may be. [00:20:44] So I get that everybody has to plan. [00:20:47] You have to plan ahead. You might be saving up for your kids college education to help them out with something like that. You might be saving up for just knowing I need a savings because when the car breaks down, I need money to fix it. [00:21:00] I get all that. I'm talking about giving more than 10%. [00:21:03] I'm not saying, okay, I figured out my budget is that I live on $5,000 a month. We'll just say I live on $5,000aMonth. [00:21:14] And after I give 10%, I made $6,000 this month. [00:21:20] I'm not saying you have to give that whole $1,000 away to chair. I'm not Saying you shouldn't. I'm just not saying you must give that $1,000 away because you might need to put that in a rainy day fund. You might need to invest it in order to, you know, support your family in the future. [00:21:38] That's being prudent. [00:21:41] I'm again talking about after you've already given 10% that I do think you start with. [00:21:47] I remember one thing I learned. [00:21:49] I can't remember where I learned it from, but somebody said when you're doing it, was somebody a Christian person talking about doing a budget. And when you do your budget, you break down your expenses. You always start with the 10% that you're giving away. [00:22:02] And then you figure out how to make everything else work. [00:22:05] You start with the 10%, you don't end with it. And so I remember I used to do this on a piece of paper back in the old days. I remember when I got a paycheck and I'm like budgeting it out, I would always be like, okay, first line, 10%. [00:22:19] Then I go through all my expenses and if there's savings and it maybe give some more, whatever the case may be, but you do it first. That's like your first thing you, you take. It's almost like a tax to the Lord, frankly. Like you can't control. They take off that tax off your paycheck, you're taking off, you know, another tax, so to speak. Of course, it's not really a tax to the Lord. [00:22:41] And I would also say this 10%. Don't I, I don't think you, you know, this is your money only. It doesn't mean like you can't. Okay, I volunteer here or whatever the case may be. Okay, that's great. You should do that. I volunteer at the parish. I volunteer at the soup kitchen, wherever. Great. God bless you. That's good. That's not part of your 10% of your tithe. [00:23:03] That's all. That's. That's in addition to the 10% of your tithe. In my, in my mind. [00:23:09] And so I would just say I, I have heard so many stories of people who were sacrificial in their giving and the Lord provide for them. Often at the last moment when they just were living on faith. Like somebody who had a van that was broken down, needed repairs, couldn't do, you know, wasn't really going anymore, and they were like, no, I'm still going to give. I'm going to give. [00:23:39] And sure enough, God provide. I think somebody donated them a new van. It's just hap this specific story happened a while back. I'm forgetting some of the details. I tend to do that. [00:23:48] But the point is, is that they were provided for. I have story after story. [00:23:54] I know of these situations where this happens, where when you give, God will bless you. I don't mean that in the sense of Joel Osteen. I simply mean that he will provide. It might be tight. You will definitely have to sacrifice, but God will bless your sacrifice. [00:24:11] So another question that arises when we talk about giving is giving to the church. This is a, unfortunately not a clear cut thing because frankly, there's a lot of reasons why we might not feel comfortable giving to the church right now because of the fact what church leaders are doing with our money. [00:24:37] The usccb, the junket, it promotes what a lot of bishops promote. I mean, just, it's just, it is a, it is a challenge. And so I would just say that you should give 5% to your parish. And if you feel like you can't give 5% to your parish because you don't trust what they'll do it with, you need to find a different parish. [00:25:02] You need to find a different parish. Now, I know the parish gets attacked from the diocese. So you might support your parish, but you don't support your diocese. I get that. I, I agree with that. In many cases, I, I think that's legitimate to think that. I would say, though, that your parish needs your financial support. And so if the only way you can give to them also include somebody to the diocese, you just have to accept that as a reality. [00:25:29] Now, there might be ways you could donate to your diet, to your parish that don't go to the diocese, like helping with building funds and things like that. But you definitely should give, I just feel like you should give 5% to your parish. And if you can't, if you feel in good conscience you can't, then I question whether you should go that parish because you're using their resources and you're refusing to give them any money to support that. And I just think that's wrong. [00:25:54] If you're going there, you're going to Mass, you're going to their catechism classes, whatever the case may be, and you're not giving a dime to them. [00:26:01] I think that's a real problem. [00:26:03] It's a real problem. So definitely give to your parish and you can decide, you know, if you, how you give to your parish, there might be ways you could do that. Gets less to the diocese now, but that's only 5%. What about the other 5%, at least. [00:26:19] I think here's where you give to charity, obviously. And I do think God calls us to be good stewards of our money, our resources. [00:26:29] And so I do think we should be very careful about who we give to. Like, I, for example, would never give to some of these major organizations like the Red Cross or something like that, because I just feel like my money doesn't go very far with them. [00:26:43] And I'm not trying to single out the Red Cross, but a lot, you know what I mean? A lot of organizations that have huge budgets, that a lot are going to payroll and things like that. Like, a great example is Catholic Charities, National Catholic Charities. Like, we. I brought this on my podcast. I don't remember the number in the past, but, like, the people who run it make five, six hundred thousand dollars. Like, multiple people. I think it was like five or six people at the top of the Catholic Charities organization make like at least $500,000 a year. [00:27:16] I'm not giving money to that. I'm sorry. I think that's ridiculous. To give that much, to pay that much. Somebody runs Catholic Charities. [00:27:25] I think a worker is worth his wage, and you definitely should pay him. [00:27:29] Pay people who work for apostolates. I get paid. I work for apostolate. I think that's right. And just. [00:27:35] But I'm just not going to give because I don't want. I feel like that's too much money going to him. [00:27:40] And there's other apostolates where the people who run it make a lot of money. [00:27:46] And honestly, kind of my own. This is my own prudential kind of decision. [00:27:52] If I see an organization I'm going to give to pays their top people, like, over $200,000 a year, I just don't give to them. I figure they got plenty of money. [00:28:02] If they're able to pay their people that much money, I'm not going to give to them. I'm not saying what they're doing is immoral or wrong. I mean, that's for them. I'm not going to judge that because I don't know every bit of the situation, but it's enough to tell me I'm not going to pay them. [00:28:17] I'm not going to give them money. [00:28:20] And so that's kind of my own thing. [00:28:22] So I think you should vet. Obviously you should vet charities based upon their, you know, what they do, you know, wouldn't give the Planned Parenthood. You know, make sure it's given to something important that's good. There's one Reason why I give to, like, I like to give to religious orders because they're not paying their people big box typically, and they're doing good work of the church, like some solid religious order, I think is a great thing to give to. [00:28:49] And I do think there's a hierarchy, though, in how we do this. So like I said, 5%. First 5% goes to your parish, to the church. The next 5% is to charities of your determination. [00:28:59] I do think there's kind of a hierarchy. First, I would say I think you. I think people should prefer the local. Prefer the local. Your money goes further also. It's kind of. You have a. [00:29:09] Like the hierarchy. What was the Vance JD Vance said the. The Order of Love there is. We have more of an obligation the closer somebody is to us. [00:29:19] And so, yes, I do think giving to the local charities, the local pro life groups, the local soup kitchens, the local food pantries, things like that, I think we should do that before we necessarily go somewhere else. So I think there's. That's a hierarchy. I also think there's a hierarchy in that the first, obviously in the church, I said I would say the second is the poor. [00:29:41] I feel like you should give every Catholic part of their 10% should go to. Directly to helping the poor. Now, this is kind of controversial in how you do this because there's a lot of organizations that say they help the poor, but they're in fact enabling the poor. [00:29:58] And so I don't think that's a good use of your funds. I think you really need to do research, find an organization that you think really helps support. Like, for example, here in Cincinnati, there's an organization called CityLink, and it's run by Protestants. But it is the best organization, in my opinion, that helps the poor in our area. Because what it does, it does a lot of job training, job placement, things like that. It's helping poor. The poor who are willing to work, they want to work, but they can't find a good job, typically because they don't have the training, they don't have the education, and they often don't have the soft skills that many of us take for granted, like how to interview. Before I took the crisis job, I volunteered there more often. And I remember I would do mock interviews where I would pretend to be the interviewer and I would interview people and they would do them so they could learn how to interview, so they could get better jobs, better than just working at McDonald's or something like that. A job where you would need to do well in an interview, better. And it was a little bit surprising to me, to be honest, when I first started doing it, how terrible people were. And I realized my dad literally was for a long time a human resources. He was director of human resources for a school district before he became superintendent. So he interviewed tons of people. So he trained us. He taught his kids how to interview. So it was just very second nature to me. [00:31:22] And also I had interviewed a lot of people when I was a. [00:31:25] Ran a computer software development firm. I interviewed hundreds of people for jobs, and most of them were pretty good. Why? Because they're interviewing for a computer programming job. They know how to do it. They've been taught by their college. But these people that I was helping out, they. They had no experience whatsoever. And so that's why I like to give to them this organization, because even though it's Protestant run, because I think it's the most practical. So I think the poor, you have to include the poor, I think. And by the way, the poor also includes the spiritually poor. [00:31:54] I mean, obviously the poor would include a woman who's considering getting an abortion. So pro life groups. Pro life groups. I mean, I kind of put them a little bit separate, like pro life and then pro. I'm sorry, the poor, then pro life. But I understand they're. They're of a similar nature also, I think giving to evangelization groups that do evangelization, I think is very good, that share the gospel that's obviously helping out the spiritual poor. And we have the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. [00:32:20] Go through them and try to find at least one organization for each. For a corporal, not for every single work of mercy, but one that helps in the corporal works of mercy and organization helps in the spiritual works of mercy. And just give to those two. I mean, I think that would be fine. [00:32:36] And if you. You might ask, what about Crisis magazine? I asked for money twice a year. [00:32:42] I honestly. And I might get in trouble for this, for saying this, from the people who tell me to make sure I raise enough money, but I honestly think Crisis, something like Crisis, should be at the bottom of the list. [00:32:57] The parish first, the poor. Evangelization. I think what we do here is partly evangelization, evangelization, pro life, things like that, and then us like ours. In fact, I would say most of our donors should probably be people who give more than 10%, and we're that extra. [00:33:14] I mean, God bless you, by the way, if you're given to us as part of your 10%. And I really do appreciate It. But I understand we're not as important to give to as an organization that gives to the. That helps the poor, for example, or a pro life organization or something like that. A pro life organization that doesn't waste your money. Though, of course, there's. There's actually, unfortunately, a few of those. [00:33:35] So I guess what I'm just trying to say is to wrap this up, be generous. I mean, that's really what I'm saying. Be generous. I'm going to repeat what I said in my initial, my post. Every Catholic, no matter their financial situation, should donate at least 10% of their income to the church and charity. It all comes from God, so it's only right to give a portion back. [00:33:57] I honestly believe that. I believe every Catholic should give 10% of their income. And I thank God any Catholic who does that. God will bless. God will honor their sacrifice and he will bless. And I think those who can give more than 10% should absolutely give more than 10%. [00:34:16] So I think I'm very much in line with the mind of the church when I say that, with the tradition, when I say that, with the church fathers, with the doctors, with the saints. When I say that if you don't give 10% now of your income, I challenge you. I challenge you to consider bumping it up. Maybe it'll take you a little bit of time. Maybe if you're only giving 2% now, you'll have to, you know, go 3%. You need to adjust. You need to get used to it. I get all that. [00:34:43] But really, just like with prayer should be a minimum of an hour a day. I believe, even though there's no law of the Church that says that, I think every Catholic should pray, at least, no matter their situation, should pray an hour a day. At least an hour a day. I would also say every Catholic, no matter their situation, should give at least 10% of their income. [00:35:03] Okay, well, hopefully this was helpful for the people. Hopefully it was challenging. [00:35:08] Let's not be soft. That's the other thing I want to say. Let's not be soft Catholics. [00:35:12] Okay, everybody, God love you. And what do I say? [00:35:15] Remember, the poor.