Tonight on Perspectives: Should the Church be poor?

Jenna Murphy

November 26, 2010
Should the Church be poor?
Does your church have a crying room for babies and young families? A parish hall? Are your kids going to World Youth Day? Do you have regular coffee socials? If you answered yes to most of these questions, chances are you do not belong to a parish in Whitehorse or in rural Newfoundland.
Canadian Catholics who live “off of the grid” so to speak (away from Canadian city centres) have a completely different experience of the Church than the rest of us.
This week, host Pedro Guevara Mann is joined by Bishop Gary Gordon of Whitehorse, Yukon and Archbishop Martin Currie of St. John's (and also Bishop of Grand Falls), Newfoundland. The two bishops will tell us how they have learned to be faithful in small things- that is-being good stewards of the amount they have been given.
Some Catholics (and the world at large) are critical of the material wealth of the Church as made manifest in our sometimes ornate Cathedrals. To these people, Bishop Gary says that the trouble with money is not possessing it but letting it possess you. Money (directed by good will) builds hospitals, feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. The key word here is good will.
Join us this week for a thoughtful reflection on the camel-needle phenomenon in a featured chat with these two Canadian bishops. It’s a discussion you won’t want to miss!
That’s Perspectives Weekly tonight at 7pm ET, 8pm PT.