The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC, will now accept crypto donations, in an attempt to show that even older institutions can modernize to adapt to the times.
This church has partnered with the Engiven platform, which allows for receiving crypto donations. In this way, this archdiocese will use the funds it manages to raise with these donations in crypto assets to increase its digital administration initiatives, but also to grow its ministries.
The archdiocese's executive director of development, Joseph Gilmer, who is also the main promoter of this initiative, explained that "the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC wants to leverage technology to engage its parishioners in these exciting new alternatives, while also making it easier for these believers to fulfill the mission of spreading the Gospel." In addition, he outlined how "Engiven is helping them fulfill this mission by providing them with an advanced cryptocurrency donation platform that is also very intuitive to use and allows the faithful to support more than 300 Catholic schools, parishes and ministries in Washington."
Different alternatives for making donations can be found on the platform. For example, Washington faithful can make crypto donations to various causes such as the Community Food Security Program.
Engiven CEO James Lawrence explained that the platform enables different associations, such as churches, to accept and securely settle donations in cryptocurrencies, while eliminating the risks and complexity associated with these types of transactions. Lawrence also highlighted how parishes receive all donations, which can be paid in different cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin (BTC) being the most valued.
Maybe you are interested: Cryptocurrency donations with Engiven in the United States.
What is the Catholic Church's position on cryptocurrencies?
According to experts, there is no uniform view among Catholics globally on the use of cryptocurrencies. According to the National Catholic Register, the Vatican has not made any official statements regarding the use of cryptocurrencies.
Similarly, there are relevant figures for Catholicism today who are critical of cryptocurrencies, seeing them as "merely speculative elements that only contribute to further increasing the differences between rich and poor" while for other popular Catholics such as the author Thank God for Bitcoin «Cryptocurrencies are an alternative that can solve many serious problems at a global level, such as poverty.»
Similarly, it is interesting to note how the Vatican, for its part, is not isolated from Web3. The Vatican's art will soon be located in the Metaverse and can be visited by becoming an NFT gallery. The company in charge of carrying out this project is Sensorium, which is building this metaverse with Humanity2-0.org. In this virtual Vatican museum, you will be able to find works of art by Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso, Raphael and Gauguin, among other relevant artists.
