Religion is a business. Like any other business the road to financial success is getting rid of the competition. Fear and hate better than anything else. A very few proponents use religion to try to cross their own evil tendencies but most just want the power and .
"Opinion | The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage - The New York Times" [nytimes.com]hawley-religion-democracy.html
Hence in part the US evangelical opposition to many forms of state welfare. The churches know that they are in direct competition with the nation state, in pretending to provide welfare, and the more distressed people there are seeking help from the churches the better their recruitment.
( They can even try to increase the amount of distress in the community, by enforcing, or persuading the state to enforce things like, restrictions on sexual freedoms, the more unhappy people are the more they need the churches community. )
The church was the original World wide web
The pope gives a message
The cardinals pass it to the bishops
The bishops to the monsignors
Who pass it to the priests
Who preach it in the churches and charge the people for it
And the parents teach it to their children
And everyone thinks the same and so assume the pontificating of a senile old bigot is the truth.
It certainly is a business, in business to brainwash and condition the most stupid and gullible.......
Just like the Pharmaceutical Industry, Which is more appropriately called “The business of disease”. One should ask themselves: why would they want to cure anything? They would be out of business.
They cure the terminal and supress the symptoms of the sick, after all no one can sell to a dead person, except maybe an undertaker