Yeah those greedy bastards

https://www.catholiccharities.org/our-services/strengthening-families/basic-needs/

http://www.ccoswego.com/food-pantry/

http://m.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-fisher/charities-you-ought-to-know#.WNeobbU8JR4

You mean the organization that has thousands upon thousands of charities worldwide that do nothing but focus on raising orphans, feeding the poor, paying for expensive surgeries, fighting cancer and other diseases and educating the mislaid youth of nations worldwide?

That organization?

I think your criticism is misplaced and doesn't reflect the reality of the modern day church.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteriesa wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. ”

OP, the answer is no. The poor and hungry are not poor and hungry because the Roman Catholic Church has nice things.

There reasons why the poor and hungry are in the condition they are in, are manifold.

"The poor you will always have with you..."

All the money in the world wouldn't end world hunger.

I don't have anything to say to this.

This is the only, no bull-shit, comment I received.

So... yes to my question, or No to my question?

I appreciate that you took the time to post that. Unfortunately, it does not  answer my question... which is more financial based than faith based.

I am not a <Catholicchurch fan but there is no way that they could end world hunger

Yeah, we should sell the pieta so some rich guy can have it instead of everybody being able to see it.

This is an original thread idea that certainly doesn't have good responses all over the Internet.

They are just like the pharisees. I was just pointing that out with scripture.

However, they nor anyone else can end world hunger. The reason is sin.

First they need to admit they're responsible for world hunger in a lot of 3rd world demographics with their anti contraceptive teachings. Notice I didn't say ALL world hunger.

Don't be jizzing on bellies or backs. Every sperm is sacred. Wearing a condom is like farting directly in god's mouth while he's about to yawn. 

Populations of impoverished areas were much lower before catholicism took root. People do retarded shit once they believe a god is telling them to do it. 

Selling off all their stuff would end world hunger for a week or two at best.
As long as you have despots and dictators and marxism, you will have hungry, starving, amd opressed people in the world.  
As long as you have illiterate people with no desire to learn, and a bunch of imbred morons in those areas thrown in for good measure, you will have hungry, starving, and oppressed people.

Any time some groups try to send in food to the starving, most of it goes to feed the army, and ends up getting controlled by the warlords and party members.  And then in some places, like when the UN steps in, or you have the Concerts for the Starving People in country X, all those bags of rice and grain are left to rot on the docks, becuase their are elements within the UN and the global elites that don't want healthy growing populations of some races.

End world hunger by killing all th dictators first, and every wannabe that pops his head up after the first one gets wacked.
And if after that, the people can't get their act together and figure out how to cultivate the land, or move out of the desert like sam kinnison used to say, well then they should die off.

Matthew 6: 19-21

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Citation needed.

Not always that simple. A lot of the fanciest stuff the Church has is through donations - rich people trying to buy their way into heaven, you could say, but a lot of it goes back to showing off and outdoing your peers, ie the neighbours donated a candlestick, so you need to donate two candlesticks and a ruby-encrusted dildo just to prove that you're even more godly (and richer) than the neighbours.

The downside to this, is that many items are given for the Church to use and display, not sell. If the Church started pawning everything, their richest supporters would start to get pissed off and the money would stop flowing.

Think of it this way. You might be prepared to buy a cheap car for your child if it would help them get started in a new job, but you would refuse if you thought they were going to sell it for crack money.

Also, we have world hunger because the world is full of stupid people. No amount of money is going to fix stupid people, therefore no amount of money is going to fix world hunger.

Hey OP. If you are so interested in ending world hunger, how about YOU sell all of YOUR things to help make a difference?

The church is not on the forefront of humanitarian causes????? Every Catholic church I have ever heard of has programs to stock food pantries and provide assistance to the poor.

How many programs to help the poor and hungry do you run OP?

Go troll somewhere else OP..

Start seizing any excess income over $150K/year and help all the poor!!
Just get some bright enough peeps to do it this time!
What can go wrong????

I've been to Vatican City and it is clearly the single most plunderous, extravagant display of wealth and excess imaginable. I'm insulted that it even exists. It is very clear that Protestants did the right thing by opposing the church's obsession with material wealth. That is not to say the Catholic religion is bad, just that it's HQ is quite the opposite of humble. Catholic charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor here in Indiana do phenomenal work and are irreplaceable.

If only a rich country lithe the US could spend trillions to end poverty and hunger in it's own country.  

Maybe a better idea would be for the people who want to spend millions of dollars on some paint on canvas would donate that money to end world hunger.  

The art works are just inanimate objects.  They do nothing by themselves.  The fact that people assign obscene values to them does not reflect on the church, but on the people who think that they have any monetary value at all.  

As to the amount of property that the Catholic Church owns, it is not as large as many people think.  I would bet that LDS property holdings in many western states outstrip all other denominations.  In the US the Catholic church is nowhere near as large as it used to be.  An awful lot of churches have been sold.  And you cannot tax their property anyway.  That whole church and state thing in the constitution.  

Outside of Indian Reservations, church owned land may be about the only non government owned property in the nation.  I don't own the land my house sits on.  If I don't pay my liege lords their annual stipend for it's use, they will take the land back and my house with it.  Then sell it for the fees that are owed.

The church does feed the poor.  Catholic Charities are known worldwide for their efforts, as are Catholic education and healthcare.

How about YOU do something to feed the poor and quit pointing at others?

LC

The same reason you don't sell your home and possessions, live in a cheap rented room, and donate the proceeds to the poor.

Anybody can be born poor. I was.

Poor people stay poor because they are stupid. All the money in the world can't fix that.

There is a 600 acre Catholic retreat the next county over from me that has not been used in 20+ years. They have a caretaker, maintain it like the Monks are going to move in tomorrow, and that's it.

We are talking several big buildings made of limestone and even a fucking limestone 75' bell-tower, a 30 acre pond, and the whole property is surrounded by a 5' stone wall!

It's almost medieval in appearance with a long limestone meeting/dining house with this huge long table down the middle of it with it's attending benches and topped off with huge hearth fireplace on each end. It's really something to see, I was impressed.

The caretaker (ex-LAPD) had a yard sale there years ago and he gave me the nickle tour and invited me back to fish the pond. It's loaded down with big bass.

The land value in the county it is in is through the roof due to Yankees moving in back in the 70s and becoming landed gentry that compete with each other for land so just the land is worth many millions of dollars.

When I see something like that just sitting and getting tax breaks on the back of the county residents I have very little use for Catholic charities whining for donations.

Sure they could end it until the money ran out because it wouldn't actually change any of those people's other problems, they just wouldn't be starving for a while.

Same with the US gov: if we somehow managed to pay off the national debt tomorrow, we'd be back where we started after a bit because the debt isn't the actual problem.

Worth repeating

catholics point to this on the topic of ornate churches:

/Thread.

No .......

But what they spend on sexual abuse cases would ...............

well shit OP, this goes a long way to explaining why your Amazon with list is full of coloring books.

If you look most NGO's/philanthropic orgs, .gov Development have all moved from giving shit away to creating sustainable practice.  The giving shit away thing is part of the reason they crushed large swaths of the African farming and textile industries.  We have also come to the realization that most of these famines and issues were caused as externalities to conflicts and government policy.  Look at the disaster of giving clothes to Kenya or what happened with the LiveAid money.

No. Most of the people starving in the world are not like our welfare rats. They're starving because of food insecurity brought on by conflict, displacement, and/or weather.

It would be more money if the sold off unused land and buildings. There is a lot of prime land around the world they just sit on. In the end it wouldn't solve a thing. If they even used the land for the poor to raise food on most poor wouldn't do it in this country.

I love how the Catholic Church is always looked down on for its wealth and opulence, when the largest churches with multiple buildings on the large tracts of land that I see are of other demoninations.

I am affiliated with a Methodist church that has  a nice, tradtional style church, but they needed to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large auditorium building with a stage and sound and light system worth another 10s of thousands of dollars.

In my Catholic Church, we are lucky to have a sound system that hasn't been updated in 20 years.

They have been out in force since the election season started.  OP either understands nothing about how the world works or is a deliberate troll.  Choose one or both.

Are you saying Catholics are bigger tightwads? I'm being a bit facetious. Most churches are multi-purpose, some events are recorded for broadcast and a very good sound system is a must. How much $$ of a must might be better asked. Some churches I've been in the acoustics are so bad it was impossible to hear w/o a good sound system. Not everything is about opulence and the "I spent more on my sound system than you did" mentality.

You don't solve world hunger by feeding people.  You solve it by teaching them how to grow food.

I was raised Catholic and still consider myself one, but I don't attend the church.  


We have a painting crew we work with, straight out of Italy.  They were restoring the local Catholic Church.  The amount of cash they just found lying around and the complete disregard for it gave them reason to stop going to church as well.

I'm talking about guys who grew up in Italy, in the footsteps of St. Peter's, as alter boys.  

Hundreds of thousands of dollars that hadn't been touched in decades, up to newer stacks of money.  



That's one church in a smaller town.  How much cash is lying around in churches around the world?  

If they really wanted to fix something, they could.


I'm not trashing Catholicism, just what MAN has done to it.  I still believe the message.

No, they couldn't.  How much money does the US dump into that annually?

And that assumes lack of resources is the issue.  Remember Somalia?

Norman Borlaug, 40+ inches of annual rainfall, and an endless mountain of fertilizer wouldn't be able to end hunger in third world countries...

No.

Throwing food and money at poverty is treating symptoms,  not the disease.

Or, to look at it another way,  the schools where we pay the most per student have the worst outcomes,  because we throw money at the problem without even acknowledging the problem.......

Bingo.  How would the Catholic Church, or any church, solve the problem of Zimbabwe changing from a breadbasket of Africa into a country that can't feed itself?  The world is perfectly capable of producing enough food to feed all humanity very well.  The problem isn't the lack of money, it's the corruption of governments, socialism strangling production, etc.

I bet that you're right.

The premise of your post is so old, tired, infantile, and absurd that I think the Jesuits attempt to educate must have been a lost cause  from the get go

Most of that "opulent" stuff is donated either in time or materials. Some of it is purchased with costs of running their business'

For instance childhood church had a solid gold chalice, it was given to the priest by his parents when they died IIRC.

Lol. This.

"You first."

And it is always someone else who needs to be taxed at a higher rate, or have more taxes applied to them, that can solve the problem.

That is how socialists out themselves.

"We need to tax churches to pay for more socialism and more social programs."

You first.

Go ahead, sell all your stuff. Give it to the poor. Now you are poor, and your kids are hungry. Lol.

Watch socialists. They always suggest it is the other guy who is going to pay for it. Obama was an expert at this. Obama created a bogeyman in job creators. It was the job creators and the businesses that were going to pay for everything. The working man and the poor was going to reap the benefits of punishing the job creators and the business owners. Socialists leave out the fact that everything is passed along, and everyone is punished, and the job creators will always find a way to pass along their increased costs, and the poor and the workers will suffer the most from socialism.

At least use some funds to evacuate the Coptics and other endangered Christians in the ME...  Geez

Why ?

Its the largest criminal organization known to man.

Change wouldn't be of benefit to them.

The Vatican has authorized the murder of millions.

The Spanish were particularly enthusiastic to fulfill Rome's "Document of Discovery".

The gold which ornate fixture many worship, comes from all corners of the World, stained with blood.


-Former Seminary Student / Catholic