Church and raising funds

[pilgrim3661]

Why, when the Church is one of the richest institutions in the world, do they take money off people who can't afford it, in the form of donations, to repair their buldings.

[gary baldy]

Can you clarify what you mean by "the Church"?

[Peter Pedant]

No the Church is not made of money and the churches are falling down.

Vicars are paid a pittance and RC priests even less.

Archbishop Scrunty (or whomever) in 1913 (ha ! so must be a prot) declined to take part in the historic buildings legislation, which seemed a good idea at the time (churches were not museums) but has been a disaster as over the next 100 years the old churches fell down in increasing numbers.

If you feel bad, buy a disused church and do it up. Serve altar wine at your parties.

[gary baldy]

Thanks Peter for helping to dispel the myth that 'the Church' (whatever that means!) is
a) swimming in money and
b) willing or able to spend it on its buildings.
Church buildings of any age or size are frighteningly expensive to run and maintain and many only survive on the generosity of its parishoners. I cant see pilgrim's problem because as far as i know they dont knock on just any old door begging and like i said parishoners are usually more than glad to support their church.

[PhilBy]

Yeah they are dead poor! The Church of England for example is only worth about �4 billion and is the biggest investors in the stock market with over two of the billions invsted including a �158,000,000 stake in Vodafone & �164,000,000 in GlaxoSmithKline. The last figures available show that in 1999 Churchgoers gave �330,000,000. This is no myth, this is fact! As for poor vicars the yearly pension bill alone is a cool �100,000,000 which hardly suggests they are on income support level .....?

[gary baldy]

Not doubting you Philby but where did you get your facts from - be interested to see them myself?

[delilahcat]

For precisely the same reason as the Catholic Church continues to tell people in the poorest countries of the world to keep breeding - so they can become richer and richer.

'The Church' - in the form of organised religion - is a huge money-making organisation. The Catholic church is the largest landowner in the world.

As for pay, Church of England vicars are paid a little under the average earnings for England and Wales. However, they still earn more than twice the minimum wage and most have lovely homes which they live in rent-free. Their council tax, water charges, buildings insurance, external decoration and maintenance are also paid for by the church.

[delilahcat]

Gary - details of the Chuch of England's extensive portfolio of stocks and shares can be found on its own website. www.cofe.anglican.org/

[gary baldy]

Well ive had a look and i still dont see a problem.
All i see is a huge organisation which a lot of responsibilities and as many outgoings as income. Granted they have lots of assets but that doesnt immediately mean they have access to those assets.
There seems to be a lot of clarity and no dodginess and i'm sure those parishoners who do give all that money dont begrudge it or they wouldnt give it - in fact i'm sure most would be glad to give more if they could.

[jigman1]

As regards the wealth of the church of England, I recently read the road to wigan pier by George Orwell and in it he states that miners in the north west in the 1930's lived in very poor houses owned by a selection uncaring landlords , the worst being the church of England. I can also remember my parents buying the freehold to our house in the 1960's which was owned buy the church of England as was everybody elses in the area. So wheres all this wealth gone

[digitotialis]

The church takes money from others because it is not legally allowed to sell things or engage in commerce because of the separation of church and state. You will see org on the end of any website that belongs to a non-profit organization like a church. As for other countries, those countries are poor anyhow and the church only serves usually to use those other countries as money making schemes, and we can never be sure where the money acually goes, for example, save the children. Here is a starving girl and her picture, but it is possible that they re-use those photographs from the past and the people in the photos never see the money or they may actually already be dead.

[PhilBy]

What drugs is digitotialis on? The above surely could not have come from a sane mind.