Posted on 02/24/2010 10:26:20 AM PST by Clemenza
Interesting chart that shows US wealth by religious denomination. I can't say that I'm surprised that Jews (46% with income $100K or above) and Hindus (43% with income $100K or above) are at the top. Us "unaffiliated" types are at 19%, right around the national average, as we tend to get both the research scientists, as well as the guys who live in their parents basements watching Star Trek.
Talk amongst yourselves, but, as always, keep it civil.
Great, more Catholic bashing. Don’t you people have a life?
Not similar at all to that of the Bible though.
"I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on." Luke 21:3-4
That is why the stories of the Bible are as true today as they were 2000 years ago.
"Hairy Merde fulla Cr*p"
The Jews sure don’t surprise me.
The Hindus are either medical or more often expats bringing collective family capital to roost from the motherland.
My experience with them has been poor.
don’t know much about Kingdom Hall types
When they walk back down your drive way and stamp their feet, tell them, "Good, I didn't want you stealing any of my dust anyway!"
They start with the Dunkin Donuts and Party Supply store, and within three years, own the entire strip mall. I've seen the story replayed countless times.
They can be kind of gruff and rude, and often not up to American standards on service. The smarter ones, however, learn about the latter quickly.
It should be mentioned that Catholics pay a lot for the Catholic education of their children, rather than sending them to public schools. I have spent about $30,000 to $40,000 per year for many years just in tuition at Catholic elementary school, High School and College. Doubtless that does not show up as “charitable giving”, but it represents a material sacrifice that many Catholics make for their faith and the faith of their children. Also, stats show that religious Catholics have substantially larger families than everyone except the Mormons and Orthodox Jews -— and this is across income levels. I have many Catholic professor friends who have five to ten children. That is quite common. I myself have five. These people could be buying big houses and having expensive vacations. But they forgo that. So before we start pointing fingers, all the facts should be considered. Moreover, statistics on “Catholics” tend to lump in nominal Catholics with ones who actually practice their faith.
Even among many of the poorest represented by the chart...were they to take what they own into Jesus' earthly era, would be deemed considerably wealthy. (Who are we comparing ourselves to when we claim we're NOT "rich"???)
I reviewed decedents Estates, a location where one sees the reporting of the most substantive contributions. I would see the funding of many Yeshivas, Jewish, Eastern Orthodox or Mormon institutions or even many to secular state and private institutions/foundations but rarely did I ever see any donations to Catholic organizations. These donations at times would be in the tens or even hundreds of millions so they were meaningful. My coworkers and I viewed these documents for a 15 year period and they represented all of the Estates whose wealth exceeded 10 million. Thus, it wasn't a sample but represented the entire universe. Discussions with non catholic coworkers over these 15 years confirmed my aforementioned thoughts. It made me wonder.since many of these years predated the scandals , so said scandals could not be offered as a reason for the lack of generosity on the part of Catholics.
I don’t know about “decedent estates”. But it should be noted that Catholics in this country built entirely from their own donations a vast system of Catholic colleges, universities, hospitals, parochial schools, orphanages, and so on. There are over 200 Catholic colleges and universities. Moreover, many of these institutions were built at a time when Catholics were mostly poor immigrants. Just take one institution, Notre Dame. It has one of the highest rates of giving by alumni of all universities. This has allowed it to build up an endowment that is several billion dollars, one of the largest endowments among private universities. The Catholic hospital system is vast -— the largest private hospital system in the country by far. There are about 10,000 parochial schools in this country -— all supported by Catholic donations, not a penny of government help. It dwarfs in numbers all other religious schools put together.
Where do you imagine all the money came from to build these institutions? You have no idea of the scope of Catholic charitable and religious giving.
One major indicator of willingness to sacrifice is the size of families. To have a large family is a huge sacrifice financially. Some have estimated that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to have an extra child over a lifetime. Why is it that Catholics have significantly larger families than Protestants, on average? This is based on both large scale studies that I have seen and my own observations. I rarely come across Protestants -— even evangelicals -— who have more than three children, whereas just among my Catholic professor friends I know many who have between five and ten children. Right here at my (public) university, there are two devout Catholic professors who are friends of mine and who have ten children, several who have four or five. Another friend of mine, a professor in my field but at another university, just had (or rather his wife did!) his sixth child. I just don’t see the same thing with Protestants, where the small family seems to be the norm.
You talk about deducting Catholic school tuition on taxes? Don’t get me started! The reason vouchers and tax deductions for religious schools have gotten nowhere (and these are big conservative issues) is historically largely due to protestant prejudice against Catholics. As someone who has paid so far in my life $500,000 in tuition and other educational expenses for my five children, with just one income (and that a professor’s), I can assure you that Catholics cannot deduct for Catholic schooling —— except for a tiny amount for college. What you fail to grasp is that Catholics are subsidizing everybody else’s children’s educations. We pay twice: we pay for our own children’s education in Catholic schools, and then we pay the same taxes as everyone else to support the public schools, even if our kids aren’t going to them. I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to support public schools over my life without taking a dime of such tax money for my own kids’ schooling. But the tens of billions of dollars that Catholics pay to educate non-Catholic children in this way is not going to show up as “charity”.
Your section on large families is very misleading. You compare Catholics to Protestants who are contracepting themselves into oblivion. Compare Catholics to Muslims, Orthodox Jews or Mormons. I am afraid Catholics failed to read Humane Viate and follow its prescriptions.
You have no defensible concept of reality when addressing current charitable giving. I saw Catholics deduct tuition but turned a blind eye employing the same rationale as you mentioned regarding double taxation . What you don't fathom is that the real game is played not in the income tax realm but in the playground of estates , gifts and trusts. That is where one sees billions donated not by Catholics but by Mormons, Orthodox Jews and Muslims and that was the entire message I was conveying .
Your recitations on how much you have spent on your children's education are laudable but have been eclipsed by those of us who have more children and who have made similar sacrifices. Acquaint yourself with the current realities of eleemosynary giving before making any more statements. When viewed on an individual basis present day Catholics give little or nothing.Perhaps they should have emulated their forefathers but instead were too occupied reciting self serving statistics which only serves their pride.This is the season of repentance so follow the admonitions of John The Baptist.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.