How wealthy can you be before you are no longer a Christian ?

Can you find anything in the gospels to back up your views on the status of the clergy? In particular the view that the clergy have a greater obligation to avoid wealth than the laity do?

If heaven has a low income requirement, I might just get in after all.

Wealth is relative, given what our forefathers subsided on and what we are able to fritter away today.

Gates has pledged himself to give away "virtually all" of his fortune during his own lifetime. Now, Gates's fortune is so huge that he could give way virtually all of it and still retain enough money that neither he nor any of his children would ever have to work a day in their lives and would still never know any kind of economic insecurity. But, still, strictly speaking Gates is probably coming closer than most of us to observing the commandment to "sell all you have and give it to the poor".

Which makes the point that I don't think their are any strictures in the gospels, or in the scriptures more generally, on acquiring wealth (as long, obviously, as you don't acquire it dishonestly, oppressively, in an exploitative manner, etc). It's your attitude to wealth, what you do with it, your dependence on it that is problematic. The rich young man wasn't wicked simply because he was rich. But his riches brought him particular moral challenges, and particular moral obligations, that wouldn't have arisen for a poor young man.

There is, I think, a difference in tone between the Old Testament texts, which mostly present riches as basically a blessing, but one that carries significant moral obligations, and the Gospel texts, which present riches as basically a problem, a barrier to following Jesus in an authentic way.

Some would be doubtful if Pope Francis is that, unless he was grievously misquoted, and judging by some of the vague blather to be found these days on vatican.va, perhaps not. Traditionis custodes was a measure devoid of charity, a punishment for Catholics who loved the Mass of Ages, a nasty slight to the late Benedict XVI (Rest In Peace) justified because some weirdo on Twitter says Francis isn't Pope; based on an idea that the Church was defective before V2; which on the basis of raw numbers in the richest and poorest parts of Europe, was utter nonsense. The Spirit of V2 (the aesthetic horror of the eternal 70s that Francis loves, and only loosely based on Council documents), not some vague 'social change' emptied churches. The New Order is jarring and noisy, filled with elevator muzak (praise on the worst praise music), and most sermons I hear are vague nonsense (if a priest did say something Christian or Biblical, he'd be for the high jump, career-wise). Anyhow the idea that someone who betters himself in this life will be behind some random who drinks and plays Playstation V or Nintendo Switch all day in their (nearly free) forever home from the Council, is patently absurd, not based on reality. Out of context quotes don't make it so. Catholic Ireland is dead and gone, it's with [O'Leary or rather Abp McQuaid, long calumnated by various doddery boomers like that drunk who works for the Indo] in the grave. It is slowly being rebuilt, almost from scratch.

A lot of rich Americans preserve their wealth through charitable trusts which are headed by family members drawing huge emoluments. Giving away his wealth is a very tax efficient strategy. It is like how certain mediaeval lords gave land to monasteries which, alongside prayers for the living family and their immortal souls, could act as relatively safe places for family wealth and a son becoming an abbess or abbot was probably preferable to him becoming a head in a basket alongside Dad. The wealth is given to them to accomplish what a Bill Gates (population reduction) wants or Carnegie (education, and his libraries remain wonderful and have somehow survived the ravages of county council ownership) wants. Bill Gates won't give away his farmland.

At the risk of side-tracking this thread, clergy should not be viewed as intermediaries. Your faith relationship is directly with God.

Jesus' instruction is given to one young rich man. It doesn't seem to me to be a command to all people and I have only heard of monks selling all their possessions and giving the money to the poor, not laity.*

Be careful of the temptation to take something Jesus said and systematize it.

If everyone could meet Jesus and ask them what their salvation depended most on, he might have a different answer for each person based on that person's weakness. A person with no infatuation with money but a bad temper could be told to stop getting angry ("wrath").

*But if it is a rule for everyone then surely it is expected that people must repent when they cannot follow such a difficult rule - and thus repentance rather rule-following is 'the point'.

three fiddy

"There is, I think, a difference in tone between the Old Testament texts, which mostly present riches as basically a blessing, but one that carries significant moral obligations, and the Gospel texts, which present riches as basically a problem, a barrier to following Jesus in an authentic way."

That would imply a difference between the Jewish and Christian view of wealth?