@TheMiddleWay I think we'd (including me)all be spending our $$ better if we spent it to fix the environment.

For what it is worth my nun friends seem to have fallen in love with electric bicycles and have spent some of their vast reservoirs of cash on one each.

To directly answer your question: In any organization with top down management those at the top will tend to get the lion's share of the $$. Capitalism intensifies the process. Consequently the top of a nearly 2000 yrear old church has a pretty nice bank account. Like the Boy Scouts, the Catholic church has much to attone for; including an ideology assuming unsustainable population growth. Yes, the Catholic hierarchy has a moral duty to share the wealth.

@karl Now wait a minute fella, if there is going to be outflowing from those shits I want back all the money my family donated throught the millenia plus intrest.....Jest Say'n

@TheMiddleWay No its not, at all like that, at all that is wa totally false anology. It would be more like saying the black lives movement, 'would', be phony if it said that it was OK to kill black people, as long as the whites employed black people to do the killing.

The problem we have, is that you have a USA centric world view. In the US it is perhaps easy to see the harm that is done by extremism, especially evangelical extremism, and I note that one of your former posts, posits the idea that extremism is the only enemy of everyone. Which it may be, to a large degree, but not the only one. And that in turn may make it seem to you, that the old establishment churches and religions are innocent and benign by comparison, but that is far from the case.

Beyond the boundaries of the US the so called moderate and old established religions are much more obviously dangerous and harmful. Not because of intolerance and zealotry, but because of greed, and corruption. Churches such as the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and C. of E. are often completely lost in corruption, and deeply bedded in the most corrupt and decadent parts of many political institutions across the world. From where they do massive harm by milking wealth from and regulating the behaviour of the poorest and most vulnerable of both people and communities. Indeed they all follow a basic business model of grabbing wealth from the week and poor by selling delusions often harmful delusions about birth control and the environment, which do vast harm, especially in the underdeveloped world. And even in places such as Britain where the corrupt church is part of the government, and uses that power to control education and much else.

Then of course, yes, they do promote greatly their charitable works as the foremost part of their public image, because of course they are a most wonderful smoke screen behind which the corruption and greed can hide, and the charitable works are perhaps their most cynical and false action of all. Because much of the poverty, poor health care and hardship they pose as offering to cure, was created in the first place, by their own greedy robbing of the poor from whose pockets they never remove their hands, and their promotion of anti-science, anti-environmental and anti-health policies.

Yes such churches are often tolerant, but the gangster does not care what colour your skin is, or what quirks you have, as long as you are able to pay the protection money. Greed and corruption can be the greatest source of false tolerance and kindliness there is. And yes before you says it, I am aware that their environmental awareness is improving, but they still trail, and that does not excuse the legacy, nor does it excuse the vast legacy of poverty they have created in the world.

@TheMiddleWay OK fair enough. Is that the best you got, a crit of my first throw away joke line, and nothing about the rest that's very sad, or did you not bother to read it.

@TheMiddleWay I think Catholics and ALL OTHER THEOLOGICAL FANTASY PEDDLERS ought to be taxed like any other business. Selling fantasy for advantage, ideologically and politically isn't a monopoly solely possessed by theology.

Functionally, I don't see a lot of difference between thological orthodoxies that freeze-out all others and pseudo-scientific ones freezing-out all contradicting science and empirically based scientific opinions from THEIR orthodoxy. Both are exceedingly presumptuous for both having such a long history of unfulfilled prognostications. Personally, I expect to see Jesus back before the advent of human caused 'Climate Change' catastrophe. Six of one and you know the rest...

My rejection of fantastic future worlds, good or bad, here or out there is based on personal reasoning with nobody else's 'points and authorities' deserving preference.

@TheMiddleWay I said no such thing and will not be caught in another, I said, you said loop.

@TheMiddleWay I am sure many do but as individuals not through the church. I once belonged to a liberal non-denominational organization called Earth ministry. It was primarily an environmental group and comprised of liberal Catholics and protestants mostly Unitarians. Money and actions were given.

@TheMiddleWay Have no idea and don't really care. I do care, though, if it denigrates or removes the issue of overpopulation and family planning programs.

@TheMiddleWay I did open the item but didn't read it thoroughly. Sometimes when I see the Pope his statement on the environment it becomes a red flag. I have heard his statements and they are all short-sighted, self-serving and unrealistic. Let me read it again and try not to get side-tracked by Francis.

@TheMiddleWay Little has changed and this is just another ploy to keep doing the same old things ""His sense of wanting to have an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the underprivileged, and at the same time protecting nature … is precisely what the Climate Solutions Fund aims to address," she said." Work with fortune 500 investment groups to perform the 'church's mission'. People first (first 2 items) and nature third. I have no time for the poops and their minions. My awareness of environmental issues and religions solution to keep throwing money and words (and thereby gaining converts albeit at the expense of more people needing more resources, is why I left the Catholic Church and religion in general. Their solution, to me, is immoral simply because it actually makes the problems worse. In the end more will suffer both human and non-human species.

@TheMiddleWay Why the hell don't people understand it is NOT about Climate Change. Climate change is not a problem! It is a symptom of a much deeper issue. This planet is experiencing a myriad of catastrophic issues created by humans. Since they are anthropogenic one would think we would take is more seriously. At least parents would be concerned about their offspring or even future generations. Nope, and now Nature will have to take charge and she says screw us. Also, many of us feel there is a moral priority that superceeds humankind.

@ZenMasterD The vatican [sic] has a big, thick rug they think they can sweep all the dirt under. It's been what they have done since its beginning. It's called distraction.

@TheMiddleWay no. Reminds me of when I lived in Thailand and stories would break of monks and government officials etc who earned very modest salaries but lived in palatial mansions and BMWs and their wives would fly to Paris for shopping and so on, and when pressed about this they would say that they were very frugal with the household budget and Buddha had been kind to them. Ok, if you say so guys.

@TheMiddleWay I don't know any, do you?

@TheMiddleWay let me end your confusion. No one believed them. Their wealth was not due to their modesty of living. Hope that's clear now. Oh hec, let me just come out and say it: religious clerics and and alike accumulating millions are high on my 'not sure I trust them' list.

@TheMiddleWay We don't need no thought control...

Yeah, he's up to the 1800's now......

@TheMiddleWay Backwards indeed! Don't they still accept concepts like satanic possession, stigmata and the ability of their own priests to conduct exorcisms? By what scientific mechanism are such acts ostensibly accomplished?