Catholics are obliged to give money to the clergy.
Quote:Can. 222 §1. 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.
TITLE I.
THE ACQUISITION OF GOODS (Cann. 1259 - 1272)
Can. 1259 The Church can acquire temporal goods by every just means of natural or positive law permitted to others.
Can. 1260 The Church has an innate right to require from the Christian faithful those things which are necessary for the purposes proper to it.
Can. 1261 §1. The Christian faithful are free to give temporal goods for the benefit of the Church.
§2. The diocesan bishop is bound to admonish the faithful of the obligation mentioned in can. 222, §1 and in an appropriate manner to urge its observance.
Can. 1262 The faithful are to give support to the Church by responding to appeals and according to the norms issued by the conference of bishops.
Can. 1263 After the diocesan bishop has heard the finance council and the presbyteral council, he has the right to impose a moderate tax for the needs of the diocese upon public juridic persons subject to his governance; this tax is to be proportionate to their income. He is permitted only to impose an extraordinary and moderate exaction upon other physical and juridic persons in case of grave necessity and under the same conditions, without prejudice to particular laws and customs which attribute greater rights to him.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris...10_en.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
