Yes, the Church accepts money because the Church needs money to keep its operations going. But consider another institution that needs and accepts money: a school. What would we say about a school that said, “Kids don’t like math, so let’s just stop offering math”? Don’t we assume the school has a responsibility to teach its students things they might not “like”? Perhaps, then, we should admit the Church has an analogous responsibility: to teach and to do what is in the best interests of her members, even if they don’t always “like” it – and even if it doesn’t always make her “popular.”
It’s clear to me that faithful Catholics can expect no assistance, or at best little and tentative assistance, from the institutional Church as we try to reform old schools, establish new schools, reintegrate good to great art and music (across cultural and folk traditions) into our worship, help to resuscitate or recreate some of the many genres of the arts and crafts that have been lost, reform or found institutions of social welfare, revive a genuinely Catholic and Christian intellectual tradition across the disciplines, and – most important when it comes to the laity and what they are directly responsible for – preach and embody the virtues that make for coherent and vibrant family life.
Performative Catholicism has become the norm today, and the Rosary is the primary tool in the performance. President Joe Biden loves to show off his rosary, such as during a virtual conversation with Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador. Claiming his devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe—despite the fact that President Biden has promoted the most extreme pro-abortion policies in history—Biden told Obrador that he had visited Mexico four times as vice president and during his visits he “paid his respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe.”