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Usually, in Protestant churches, the church's income is mostly from tithes and then offerings, and secondarily from any outside sponsors the church may have. I am less informed how the Catholic church raises their funds.

I learned from this post that Catholics don't tithe. How, then, do Catholic churches support themselves?

I feel that without the Tithe there could be less funds, keeping aside the generosity of the members. Protestant also give generous offerings but I still feel that only offerings may not be sufficient. Because in many Protestant churches, Tithe is the main source of income.

I have no doubt on how funds are raised. It's only a matter of how important is Tithe to the Protestants and why not on Catholics. May be Catholics are more generous in offerings, but I am only naive.

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The question you link to says almost exactly the opposite of what you try to cite is as supporting. Both answers clearly state that Catholics do individually give money offerings to support the church. They just don't call it "tithing" or mandate that it is 10%. I'm tempted to close this as a duplicate of that because that question does show where money comes from. Maybe you'd like to edit this to be a more specific question about how the money is processed and distributed instead? – Caleb♦ Feb 22 at 10:24
Answers from this are also useful. – Mawia Feb 23 at 5:20

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Your question seems to imply there must be some secret source, some behind the scenes force. I'm not sure what you expect to find, but money doesn't grow on trees for Catholics any more than for Protestants.

In fact, if anything, Protestants have a harder time with this than Catholics do. The question you linked to has answers that explain very clearly that Catholics are obligated to give. This sort of obligation tends to be taken much more seriously in Catholicism than in Protestant circles. Even in countries where belief is nominal, fulfillment of such obligations often outpaces other aspects of devotion. In addition, since the Catholic church is centralized, the local ups and downs of giving are averaged out and the expenses are spread out over a larger giving base.

Just because some Protestants define a tithe as a regular 10% offering doesn't mean that actually happens. In practice is is usually much much smaller than this. Since the funds aren't centralized, this often means local churches may have noticeable shortfalls at various times.

I still feel that only offerings may not be sufficient.

It doesn't matter too much what you feel, the account ledgers say otherwise. Of course they have hard times too and giving shortfalls mean less ability to carry out projects etc, but the fact of the matter is that Catholics do give and these offerings do support the church.

The Catholic church benefits from a large member base and their obligation to give out of their ability to the needs of the church. This is the major source of income for the church. End of story. There isn't some vast hidden business network or other money making scheme.

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@Mawia: I didn't say you meant that, but your question seems to be fishing for something other than the stated source of funds and your only justification for it is that you "feel like that's not enough". What else would there be? I was just giving some pertinent negatives. As a contrast, some sects DO have close associations with business networks (Mormons for example) that account for large portions of income rather than just individual giving. – Caleb♦ Feb 22 at 11:14
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Depends also on the country. For example in Germany the Catholic church has a deal with government to collect taxes on their behalf. It's called "Kirchensteuer". (see for example http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchensteuer_(Deutschland)). If you are an official member of the Catholic church, 8%-9% (depending on state) of your income will directly be deducted from your paycheck and collected together with the federal tax.

The church is very protective of this income stream: in order to get out of this, you actually have to show up in court in front of a judge.

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This is not specific to the Catholic church but applies to all religious and some other charitable institutions and their members. Germany isn't alone either, many other European countries have similar systems, but this is part of a social system that substitutes for things like tax-exempt non-profit status in other countries. The same withholding system works for Protestants in these countries. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax – Caleb♦ Feb 22 at 14:57
@Alypius: I have been in this court room. There is a judge and a member of the church. The member of church does all the talking and it has very little to do with religion and everything with money. Quote: "If you go through this with you will immediately loose all benefits of the church but you still have to pay your taxes for two more months". This is very clearly driven by the church, the judge really doesn't want a part of that. – Hilmar Feb 24 at 13:10

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