Re: Americans give record $295 billion to charities in 2006
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some might call it tuition.
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I'm pretty sure no one would call that. At least not someone who was honest and familiar with how things work in the church.
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I'm pretty familiar with how things work in a parish and a Catholic school. Sample size is pretty small, admittedly. Not sure what you want me to say. People donate a lot to their church to make their church better. This isn't "Yeah, giving always makes the giver feel better" type of stuff, this is giving directly for your own benefit. People like going to church in nice, fancy, EXPENSIVE churches. Monseignors and priests like living in nice places and driving nice cars.
I don't know what percentage of the money given to churches ever leaves the church. It might be most of it. Surely, there are many good reasons people give money to their church. I'm not claiming otherwise. But to pretend like people do not get real, concrete, palpable returns on their donations at church is very dishonest.
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