Chicago cardinal says archdiocese not yet starting tithing program

Published: 2004-02-09

CHICAGO (CNS) -- The Chicago Archdiocese has no immediate plans to start a parish tithing program despite news reports that it would begin such a program. Cardinal Francis E. George said in a letter published in the Chicago Sun-Times daily newspaper Feb. 5 that while some offices of the archdiocese have looked into how another diocese initiated a tithing program Chicago is nowhere near implementing such a plan "soon," as the paper reported a few days earlier. The Feb. 1 news story said the 2.4 million Catholics in Illinois' Cook and Lake counties would soon be asked to begin tithing, the practice of giving 10 percent of one's income to the church. A Sun-Times editorial Feb. 3 commended the archdiocese for its work in the community and encouraged the tithing idea. Cardinal George's letter said the reports suggested the archdiocese is much further along in considering a tithing program than it really is. "I wish we were, but we're not," he wrote. "Neither I nor any other official of the archdiocese has plans to ask all Catholics in the archdiocese to give 10 percent this year or anytime soon without a lot of serious conversation and preparation," the cardinal's letter said.

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