Tithes And Influential Members of The Fellowship of Falsehood

 Preamble:

Tithes: the source of infighting among the influential members of the fellowship of falsehood clan... 

In recent times there have been a clash, indeed series of clashes, in the clan of the fellowship of falsehood in vogue in Nigeria and any average user of the internet and social media outlets could not possibly have  missed out on the associated melodramatic aura. By "the Fellowship of Falsehood" we mean the sum of all the groups, sects, clinging to the Christian name falsely while not professing the entire doctrine of Christ and are preachers of errors and heresies, agents of the Father of lies. 

Now, what was the bone of contention? "Tithes"! 

What got me started on the theme was when I saw, on Facebook, a quote-post of the intervention of a certain "influential" Nigerian Modernist Novus Ordo cleric in The Gambia, "Fr." Kevin Ugwu MSP, who spoke (wrote) not only as one with authority on the question, but also as one speaking "the mind" of the Catholic Church on the question of tithes. 

Noteworthy is that, based on right reason, in judging about anything we must look to it's principle. 

Now, has payment of tithes a principle? Is that principle applicable to-day? What relationship has the collective stance of those of the fellowship of falsehood clan with such principle? These and similar themes form the concern of this piece. 

Stances on the question within the fellowship of falsehood clan

• According to a well-known self acclaimed founder and "general overseer" of a certain faction within the fellowship of falsehood in Nigeria, anyone who is not paying his tithes will "not make heaven. Full stop."
• His iron-clad teaching is ridiculed by a companion of his in the fellowship of falsehood clan as being "unscriptural". This fellow, once a diehard tithe-enthusiast, having experience what would pass for a theological awakening now vehemently condemns the practice of collecting tithes with an unmatched passion.  
• A number of others in the clan, now used to the dividends of "tithing", not only defend their practice of collecting tithes and their entitlement to it, but also remind their awakening comrade how "he" it was who "taught them" the very art of collecting tithes. 

A Provoking Simple Verdict  

In making his intervention on the question of tithes, the cleric in question of the Modernist new order (Novus Ordo) church occupying Catholic buildings was taking another's "very simple verdict" to task. He attached the "verdict " as a screenshot to his own post. The "verdict":

What simple inference can be drawn from this fellow's simple verdict?  Precisely this: that giving tithes is  NOT a morally binding act, but something indifferent, left to the willingness of the giver(s). He only frowns at using whatever form of coercion, violent or subtle, to obtain them. How correct is this "simple verdict"? That we shall see... 

Comes in the Modernist Novus Ordo (new order) church Cleric: "Fr" Kevin Ugwu, MSP. 

As regards tithes, "Fr" Kevin Ugwu's take can be briefly outlined as follows: 

• The whole concept of a Christian paying Tithe and a Christian Minister collecting tithe, whether it was willingly given or he or she was cajoled to do so, is UNCHRISTIAN and WRONG.
• One who pays "tithe" is "not ONLY wrong" but is also  "ignorant and obviously confused"
• The theology of paying Tithe is opposed to the Christian theology in which everyone is now made a priest, prophet and king. There is nothing like a special people or tribe called the Levites, designated to be the only one that can go into the temple to worship or offer sacrifice.
• The theology of paying tithe is obsolete and stands against the redemption Christ brought.
• People must "stop paying tithes". 

In his own defense, he appeals to the history of the Levitical order as recorded in the sacred scripture, and goes on to argue that: 

The death of Jesus brought an end to that setting. This was why the temple's curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:51). What it signifies is that we are all free to go in and worship, unlike the former way in which it was only the Levites who were allowed to go in and worship while the people stayed outside.

This was why, St Paul did not collect tithe from anybody. St Peter did not. All the disciples did not. They never saw themselves as Levites. They have passed that era.

More importantly, in Christianity, everyone has an equal stake. That you are an Apostle does not stop you from earning your living. St Paul even said it in 2 These 3:10, "If you don't work, you should not eat." No free food. This was why St Paul was a tentmaker. He worked for his food. 

Now, imagine someone coming to St Paul or St Peter and telling him to accept his tithes, that it is his money and that he can do anything he wants to do with it. . . St Paul will be like: are you taking us back to the era of the Levites? Do you truly understand what we meant by the death and resurrection of Jesus?

To be clear. . .

A pastor is not more Christian than others. The Pope is not more Christian than others. These are titles that are basically meant for service.... Yes, it is your money, and yes, paying tithe is in the bible, and it is even boldly written in Malachi, Joshua, Deuteronomy, etc, but the theology of paying tithe is obsolete and stands against the redemption Christ brought. For it is to make everyone have access to the Father that Jesus came. For the whole idea of tithe was to serve the Levites, a tribe set apart. . .but with Christ, there is no Levites...we are all set apart, we are all priests having equal access to the Father. Stop paying tithe, you mock the work of redemption each time you do that.

If at this point you still don't get it, I am sorry, I can't help you.

Anyone with some vestige of an informed Catholic common sense must feel uneasy reading this thread of arguments. The reason for that uneasiness is simply that it is not only un-Catholic, it is anti-Catholic in certain details. Yet, it is boldly advanced by one who prides himself as an "influential" Catholic priest... 

The Catholic Teaching on Tithes: from the Angelic Doctor

The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, treated  of "tithes" in the 87th question of the second part of the second part of his Summa Theologiae. Anyone intending to speak with authority on the matter and to express the mind of the Catholic Church could not possibly neglect to consult this tract. 

The key points on the question of tithes as explained by St. Thomas Aquinas are as follows:

• Payment of tithes is not a ceremonial, but a judicial law. And, like all judicial laws of the Old Testament, it is no sin keeping the precept of tithes during the time of Grace although it is not binding. But, people would be bound to keep the precept if they be ordained by the authority of those who have the power to make laws. 
• Man has the obligation to pay tithes. And, this obligation to pay tithes arises partly from natural law, partly from the institution of the Church; who, nevertheless, in consideration of the requirements of time and persons might ordain the payment of some other proportion.
• The precept about paying tithes, in so far as it was a moral precept, was given in the Gospel by our Lord when He said "The workman is worthy of his hire," and the Apostle says the same (1 Corinthians 9:4 seqq.). But the fixing of the particular proportion is left to the ordinance of the Church. 
• the principle of the payment of tithes is the debt whereby carnal things are due to those who sow spiritual things, according to the saying of the Apostle (1 Corinthians 9:11), "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?" [thus implying that on the contrary "it is no great matter if we reap your carnal things"]...For this debt is the principle on which is based the commandment of the Church about the payment of tithes. 
• The clergy are the successors of the sons of Levi in the New Testament. Therefore tithes are due to the clergy alone. The right to receive tithes is a spiritual thing, for it arises from the debt in virtue of which the ministers of the altar have a right to the expenses of their ministry, and temporal things are due to those who sow spiritual things. This debt concerns none but the clergy who have care of souls, and so they alone are competent to have this right.

The theology of paying tithe is not "obsolete" nor does it stand "against the redemption Christ brought" as the cleric of the Modernist new order church would have his readers believe after all...

The Law of the Church on Tithes

 

The provision of the 1917 Code of the Canon Law on Tithes states as follows:

In what pertains to tenth-parts and the first fruits, the special statutes and laudable customs in each region are observed (Can. 1502). 

Notice that while due to changed social and economic situations the Church does not insist on Tithes, where such custom exists it is described as "laudable" and not something as contrary to Christian theology as the cleric of Modernist new order church would have his readers believe.  

The Law on Tithes in the Modernist new order Code Vs The Practice

It might interest the reader to know that the Modernist 1983 new order Code of Canon Law is totally silent about the question of tithes: it says absolutely nothing.  Could it be because they reckon its theology as being obsolete based on the claimed fact that "we are all set apart, we are all priests having equal access to the Father"? It is difficult to say. 

But, wait, if the Modernist new order Code of Canon Law says nothing about tithes, how come about the custom of demanding tithes in the Modernist new order church? 

At least in Nigeria, the custom gained prominence in proportion as the clerics of the Modernist new order church were urged on by the insatiable desire to be like their colleagues in the pentecostal wing of their common fellowship of falsehood whom they see enjoying the dividends of tithe collection. The Modernist mania for "pastoral" creativity was never wanting to be at the service of this craving for the dividends of tithing.

 Yes, the custom of demanding tithes was, as a matter of fact, nationally unknown across the Novus Ordo church. But at some point the craze for it became occasion for conflict between modernist new order parish priests and their curates. It is narrated that in a certain Novus Ordo diocese, in order to settle the multiple conflicts due to tithes, the Modernist new order "Bishop" imposed the norm that all tithes must to sent directly to the diocesan office. This norm, the story goes, made the custom of demanding tithes died a natural death in those modernist new order parishes. 

Indeed, the fact that the custom was unknown was alluded to by the person whose quote-post caught my attention: 

 But Padre looking inward why do most parishes in Nigeria do tithe offering every first Sunday of the month? Is it synodal or canonical? If not then where did such idea for tithe offering/collection in the Catholic church come from?

Because growing up as a baptized and confirmed Catholic in Lagos such collections were not done.

It should be noted that what is falsely referenced here as "Catholic Church" is the Novus Ordo church occupying Catholic buildings across Nigeria.    

Influential False Teachers

The key characters involved in this tithes drama are people united both in being of great influence from different points, and in belonging to the same fellowship of Falsehood. They are blind leading a multitude of blind followers.

Those of the pentecostal wing of the fellowship of falsehood arrogate to themselves the title of being "called to ministry" by God and impose themselves on guillible followers.  Of them our Blessed Lord spoke:

...Take heed you be not seduced: for many will come in my name, saying: I am he and the time is at hand. Go ye not therefore after them. (Luke 21:8)

On the Modernist new order wing of the fellowship of falsehood there is "Fr" Ugwu, who, most probably a victim himself of the Modernist hypocrisy, is perpetually signed up in the Modernist agency for their revolution in permanence and parades himself and an influential"Catholic priest" only to prove by his teaching on Tithes that he is no way "Catholic". The fact that he is certainly not a "Catholic priest" because he is a product of the Modernist 1968 revised rite of Episcopal Consecration which is absolutely null and utterly void, is not the focus of this article but cannot be passed by in silence.

Not very shockingly, in is argument against the very idea of tithes to-day, "Fr" Ugwu:

• on the one hand puts both Catholic clergymen and pentecostal ministers on equal footings, all classed as "Christian ministers". This is not shocking because in the Modernist theology of which he is a product, Protestants of whatever shades are Christians of their own right. But actually, according to Catholic theology, the Protestant religion is not a different form of the true Christian religion . To that extent we see this as the 9th  condemned propositions in Pope Pius IX's  "Syllabus of errors": protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same true Christian religion, in which it is possible to serve God as well as in the Catholic Church"
• On the other hand, he makes categorical affirmations that borders on the proscribed modernist idea of "priesthood" which makes no distinction between the general and the ministerial priesthood. He reduces ministerial priesthood to a "title" simply for service as such. It is indeed a known fact that in the  man-centered "Mass" of modernist new order, their nominal "priest" - like "Fr" Ugwu- is just a titled layman with the duty of presiding over the gathering whose principal author is the gathered assembly.
• By insisting that " in Christianity, everyone has an equal stake"; "The Pope is not more Christian than others" he strikes, perhaps besides himself, at the Church's law on contributing to the support of pastors, the chief of which is the Pope. It is indeed culpable ignorance on his part to not know that even if the office of a priest or the Pope is merely for "service",  "the workman is worthy of his hire," as said by Our Lord and the Apostle, St. Paul and noted by St. Thomas Aquinas. 
• Like his comrades in the Fellowship of Falsehood from the pentecostal/Protestant wing, he quotes and interprets passages of the Scripture to justify his erroneous teaching on Tithes, being uninstructed as to how those passages organically relate to other passages from which the principle of paying tithes according to the Law of the Church is drawn. 

With online followers numbering Two hundred and ninety three thousand (293, 000), imagine the repercussions of "Fr" Ugwu's false teaching on Tithes and the associated errors bordering on the idea of Christian priesthood! And, given his being a product of Modernist new theology officially unveiled at their robber council (Vatican II), how much more damage has he not done over these years of his modernist anti-apostolic apostolate as one perpetually signed up in the Modernist agency at the service of their revolution in permanence! 

Summing up

Let us wrap up by noting the following points:

• Contrary to the claims of the Modernist new order church Cleric, "Fr" Kevin Ugwu, the idea of giving tithes is not unchristian, neither is it wrong. 
• Man has the obligation to pay tithes. And, this obligation arises partly from natural law, partly from the institution of the Church; who, nevertheless, in consideration of the requirements of time and persons has ordained the payment of some other proportion, permitting the laudable custom of tithes where it exists legitimately.
• Catholic clergy are the successors of the sons of Levi in the New Testament. Therefore tithes are due to the clergy alone.
• The principle of the payment of tithes is the debt whereby carnal things are due to those who sow spiritual things, according to the saying of the Apostle (1 Corinthians 9:11), "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?" [thus implying that on the contrary "it is no great matter if we reap your carnal things"].
• Today, due to changed social and economic conditions, the Church accepts other forms of contributions for the needs connected with divine worship. 
• However, the disposition of Canon 1502 of the 1917 Code of the Canon Law is fully valid. Thus, where the law of tithes exists, all answerable to that juridical territory would be bound in justice to keep the positive precept: keeping it would not be optional. Failing to keep it would objectively fall under the species of sin against justice and sin of disobedience.
• Protestant ministers, not being part of the clergy of Christ's Church, have no power to make laws concerning tithes or anything whatsoever pertaining to Christian custom or morals; and, their religion is not in anyway a different form of the true Christian religion (i.e. Catholic religion). 
• Perhaps aware of the illegitimacy of their impostor new order church,  modernists make no canonical claims to tithes. Nevertheless the custom of demanding tithes prevails among the  ranks of their  lay-robed-men (in Nigeria) on account of the desire to copy their Protestant comrades outside the walls and not to be left out in the enjoyment of the lucrative dividends of tithing to-day.  
• There is no evidence that the legitimate, laudable, custom of  tithes existed in Nigeria before the Modernist usurpation and occupation of Catholic buildings across the country. Uncompromising Catholic clergy today therefore do not demand payment of tithes, but accept other forms of contributions for the needs connected with divine worship.
• Having no legitimate claim to tithes, both Protestant ministers and the modernist new order church ministers are gravely bound to stop demanding tithes. Stop the deception! we must say to them. Stop the extortion. Stop the religious theft in broad daylight!
• On the other hand, the deceived populace under the lead of both ministers of the modernist new order church (Protestants within the walls of Catholic buildings) and the Protestant ministers outside the walls; are not only bound to stop patronizing them with so-called tithe offerings, patronizing their religious theft and imposture; but are also bound to seek the True Christian religion, embrace it, and fulfill therein all the duties of a Christian, including the duty of relieving the necessities of the Church and her clergy according to their capacity in line with the existing custom. 

The influence of the ministers of the Fellowship of Falsehood to-day, as always, is in direct proportion to the ignorance of the majority concerning religion. The Catholic priest is "born", among other things, to  spend and be spent himself in order to dispel this ignorance. And to this, God helping us, we are unflinchingly committed +AMDG! But, "Who hath believed our report?..." (Isaias 53:1)