See http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-financial-independence

The church has made a pre-emptive PR attempt to diffuse the research and stories brewing over their finances. IMO they failed bigtime as their article contains no meaningful numbers.

The article should have concluded with the wise words from the the current prophet, "one, two, three... let's go shopping!"

The LDS church is being called out on its lack of financial transparency and its only defense is to say, "Quit picking on us! We are so persecuted!".

That will work for some of the members, but the ones that are thinking for themselves are going to start wanting some answers, not lengthy articles put out by the PR department that don't even address the issues at hand.

The church has some 'splaining' to do.

"...lifting the burdens of those who are struggling." What a crock of sh*t. A 10% extortion for typically nothing in return sure seems like a bassackwards way of lifting a burden.

"At Welfare Square in Salt Lake City, where the Church cans goods for its distribution warehouses, some procedures would be more efficient if automated. Instead, the Church has opted for more labor-intensive production lines that provide opportunities for people to give service and for welfare recipients to work for what they get. This is not the pattern of a commercial business, but it is the pattern for helping people to help themselves."

What a joke. Like the church or any other corporate organisation would turn away the chance to exploit and take advantage of free labour as opposed to spending millions on machinery.

If they're so damn concerned about helping people help themselves, why did they terminate all the janitorial jobs for the ward/stake buildings that provided work for a few members who desperately needed the money. The janitors were providing a needed service. Now the overworked sheeple do a p*ss-poor (no pun intended) job of cleaning the buildings.

With so many years of lying under their belts, you'd think TSCC would be better at coming up with less laughable horsesh*t.

sherlock Wrote:
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> "...that provide opportunities for people to give service and for welfare recipients to work for what they get."

I think that there are times when it is appropriate to ask for labor from people when they are the recipients of aid (if those people are not part of the culture of work and have little desire to be,) and times when it is not (when hard-working people have fallen on misfortune.)

I remember once years ago I had graduated from college into a recession (much like the recent situation for young people.) Jobs were scarce, and despite a diligent hunt, I came up dry. I ended up being hired by a federal work program. The federal government was subsidizing jobs that had to be cut by the local county government. We worked hard and gave good quality labor for our modest paychecks.

A local church sponsored weekly self esteem and job hunting workshops for my group. We attended the series or workshops in a church building (there was nothing religious about it. They were just trying to help members of the community in a time of need.) Church volunteers cooked up a hot breakfast for us as we attended our workshops. I remember that kindness decades later.

When someone is down, a kindness goes a long way. It is not even so much the material goods, which are needed and helpful, as just knowing that you are valued as a human being and that someone cares about you.

A bishop who asks a faithful church member to clean or can in exchange for material help just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that sometimes the biggest gift is giving help with no strings attached.

The article reads like it's been written by someone with something to hide. They do not dispute any of the financial numbers used in the bloomberg article.

I tried to read it but couldn't see all the words because of the smoke and mirrors.

> "The vast majority of the income used to manage the Church comes from tithing, not from businesses or investments" <

They admit that tithing money runs the church and that there are businesses. So what happens to the money coming from businesses (which is probably a significant amount) does that go to charity?

> "Today, the Church’s business assets support the Church’s mission and principles by serving as a rainy day fund. Agricultural holdings now operated as for-profit enterprises can be converted into welfare farms in the event of a global food crisis. Companies such as KSL Television and the Deseret News provide strategically valuable communication tools." <

Ah, they are for a rainy day, not to help people, but are there in case we have a global food crises and need comunication tools. Interesting.