Church Taxes

Of the $20,000,000,000 worth of U. S. property exempt from taxation, nearly one quarter is owned by churches. Custom has sanctified this exemption, which stems from the time when Church and State were one. When they separated (Massachusetts had a State-supported Church until 1833), it was assumed that church property was devoted to public good. But currently more and more churchmen are beginning to question.their right to accept what amounts to a State subsidy for 210,924 U. S. church buildings.

Last December in Manhattan, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, Bishop Francis John McConnell and Dr. John Haynes Holmes, seasoned Liberals, urged that "the special economic privileges of the church" be curtailed because they had been abused. They listed the values of the richest Manhattan churches:* Trinity ...... .$25,000,000 St. Paul's Chapel 6,600,600 St. Bartholomew's 5,400,000 St. Thomas 5,000,000 Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas 4,000,000 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 3,850,000 Brick Presbyterian 3,600,000

The Christian Century urged that exemption be reconsidered; denominational bodies discussed it and last week an even firmer opponent appeared in the person of Rev. Charles Stelzle, Presbyterian sociologist and publicist. In an interview in the New York World-Telegram he said:

"We boast of our religious liberty, but when we compel a disbeliever in religion to support the Church through tax exemption we go back to the days when everybody was compelled to finance the churches. To say that the church helps decrease the amount of taxes because it reduces crime, for example, is somewhat gratuitous. . . ."

Dr. Stelzle's argument was answered by Lawson Purdy, tax expert and comptroller of rich old Trinity, which by its 200-year old charter not only possesses valuable (and taxable) business and tenement properties but also has a right to all whales washed up on the lower West shore of Manhattan Island. Mr. Purdy argued that if church property were taxed its value would at once shrink because assessment is based upon market value. The market value of St. Patrick's Cathedral would be nothing because no one could afford it. Furthermore, said Mr. Purdy, the value of such a plot as Trinity's old churchyard is based on the fact that it is an open space in the shadows of downtown Manhattan. If it were sold for building its worth would decline, dragging down with it the worth of nearby buildings which overlook it. Hence its value is "fiction."

*Appraised value of Manhattan's two cathedrals: St. Patrick's, $14,500,000; St. John the Divine, $11,300,000.

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