General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

"When I was little the priest used to come around on a Friday night collecting for the church. I'm sure he used to go around town with the proceeds."

Some years back the US franchisees of the catholic church found that on average every single church in America was bringing in half of what it should for the size of its attendance.

They hired a detective agency to check out the churches.

The detectives spent weeks attending dioceses, checking the donations. Sure enough, every week, fifty percent of the plate was disappearing into the priests' pockets. All cash.

What to do? After much confab it was determined that the only remedy was to post private cops at every church door to check out the take. Given the number of church functions, that was a very expensive proposition .

So the church decided to take no action, and kept the thefts as established fact. To this day the Vatiucan accepts that its main salesmen/priests are thieves who steal half of the collection plate every week. Think about that when you plunk down your hard earned cash the next time "father" tells you that you are too stupid to know who should be helped by your donation, and that you should give it to him and he will pass it on to Jesus, Or somebody.

That money should go to hospitals, the sick, the poor, anyone but these peddlers of the one true faith.

(I don't subscribe to the site that stores copies of publications, but if you do, about ten years ago a very lengthy series on stealing at catholic churches appeared in The New Yorker, or possibly N ew York Magazine - I forget which).