Posted by:
Elder Berry
(
)
Date: December 17, 2019 01:29PM
I totally agree. And as caffiend mentioned "widow's mite" this exchange is informative.
" Mr. Wallace: “It’s expensive to be a Mormon.”
Answer: “Oh, it isn’t expensive. We are living by the law of the Lord—tithing.”
Question: “But 10 percent of your gross goes to the Church, and you have nothing to do with the way the money is spent—an average Mormon, that is.”
Reply: “The average Mormon has a good deal to do with it. He is a member of the Church.”
Mr. Wallace: “But he has nothing to do with how it is going to be spent.”
Response: “If he is a bishop, he has the expenditures of his ward. A lot of that money comes back to the local units. What is that money used for? It is used for Church purposes.”
His question: “What are Church purposes exactly?”
Answer: “Building chapels. About 375 a year. Think about that. New buildings each year to accommodate the needs of the growing membership. It is used for education. We maintain the largest private, church-sponsored university in the world, Brigham Young University, with its 27,000 students on that campus, as well as other campuses. We maintain a tremendous institute of religion program, where we have off-campus connections with [students in] the major universities of America. You will find institutes at UCLA, USC, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of New York, the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Institute of of Technology, and so forth.
“When it comes to the financial circumstances of the Church, we have all funds carefully audited. We have a corps of auditors who are qualified CPAs who are independent from all other agencies of the Church and who report only to the First Presidency of the Church. We try to be very careful. I keep on the credenza behind my desk a widow’s mite that was given me in Jerusalem many years ago as a reminder, a constant reminder, of the sanctity of the funds with which we have to deal. They come from the widow, they are her offering as well as the tithe of the rich man, and they are to be used with care and discretion for the purposes of the Lord. We treat them carefully and safeguard them and try in every way that we can to see that they are used as we feel the Lord would have them used for the upbuilding of His work and the betterment of people.” "
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1996/10/this-thing-was-not-done-in-a-corner?lang=eng