If you want to give to charity; do not give to Church

Too many religious charities waste money on peddling religious propaganda, and many of the 'charities' that they will send your money to are actually ministries and preachers in foreign countries. Do not give money to religious charities! Give your money to secular charities such as the Bill & Miranda Gates Foundation, or the Richard Dawkins Foundation, who both carefully research who gets donations.

Yr 2000 Case Study - St. Albans Cathedral

A summary of their outgoings:

Heat and Lighting, etc:	£31 000
Other (+debts):	£52 000
Abbey life + worship:	£376 000
Building Upkeep:	£339 000
Donations:	£46 000
Total:	UKP £844 000

It is a trivial matter to see then, when you give a donation how much you are giving to charity:

Total:	£844 000
To Charity:	£46 000
% to charity (rounding up):	5.5%

Let us put this into real terms. If you give a very generous donation of £100 pounds to St. Albans Cathedral in order to feel good about yourself, to aid the poor, for charity, etc, then the amount that actually goes to charity is £5.50. 95% of your money has gone elsewhere.

If you want to give to charity, do not give to church!

Mother Theresa
This ex-Saint is quite famous. She is famous, in the press, for being nice and kind. In politics and behind-the-scenes, however, she is famous for being a fake, a fraud, a little lucky, and a bit of a preacher.

Upon death, her bank account was in millions of dollars. Although this may seem a lot, when we consider the amount that was donated to her cause on an annual basis it is not surprising.

She did, after all, own, upkeep and finance over one hundred nunneries.

Her pastime was politics, and would frequently fly on her private jet to America to consult with politicians, schools and Church leaders. But what was so important to warrant her traveling such distances?

Hot topics for Mother Theresa were contraception (especially in the third world), divorce, "family values", etc. It is widely recognized that much of the third world is in dire need of contraceptives, but as a faithful Catholic mother Theresa objected to this and thwarted many attempts to distribute contraceptives.

Neither did Theresa, despite popular opinion, own any Hospital in Calcatta. Nor did she own any pain killers, even. She believed that all suffering was conducive to her religion, that God's way was supreme, and that repenting was a more important cure than any medical practice.