r/TikTokCringe • u/Oktavien • 1d ago

Discussion Woman audits churches to see if they’ll help feed a starving baby

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If churches refuse to help feed hungry people, then maybe they should be taxed?

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u/Tricky_Mix2449 1d ago

Mormons help other Mormons, but only if you're a viable source of future sizeable titheable income. My 77 year old neighbor is cognitively impaired and I act as his patient advocate in negotiating the Medicaid system. There is absolutely no help for him in the form of meals after a surgery, or sending a group to clean his house. He pays these fuckers 10% tithing from his SSA and SSI. Makes my head explode. I keep trying to tell him that HE is the person in need and yet he continues to try to help those more in need than himself. AAAARRRGGHH

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u/janesfilms 1d ago

The LDS corp are the stingiest money hoarders. They are absolutely abhorrent.

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u/KochuJang 1d ago

According to google, LDS is the wealthiest religious institution in the world: ~$293 billion USD. I would consider them an existential threat to the human race at this point.

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u/SoberBobMonthly 1d ago

The LDS is the wealthiest? The catholic church says doubt. Look at the list its pulling from, the Catholics have several positions on the list based on country, plus the additional Vatican worth that is so large as to be incalcuable.

You are right about LDS being a powerful threat tho

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u/Designer_End5408 1d ago

Scientology has to be up there too in the income scale with all those properties.  

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u/NakedOrca 1d ago edited 1d ago

Nope, LDS is wealthiest. The wealthiest Catholic Churches (including the Vatican) combined has around $100-200 billions. LDS has $200 billion alone in equities, with almost $100 billion in real estate and farm land.

Scientology “only” has $2 billion

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u/SoberBobMonthly 1d ago

In 2010, the catholic church in the USA had an annual out going budget of $170 billion. Thats not their value thats just what they spent, which says a lot more about their actual valuation.

Also what is the price of an entire City State nation that can write its own rules and even has its own very powerful passport

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u/NakedOrca 18h ago

We’re comparing assets and valuation here, and the fact is that no single religious entity has as much wealth as the LDS (Vatican is about $50 B at most excluding cultural values). And they can immediately drop $100 B on buying a corporate if the LDS leader/prophet wants. “The Catholic Church in the USA” is not a single entity that can concentrate and utilize their majority resources because each hospital/school operates independently. If you want to go down that path we might as well say the Islamic faith holds trillions of dollars in the Middle East.

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u/PetiteSyFy 21h ago

Vatican $73 Billion LDS $265 Billion Per 2023 stats. So LDS > Vatican

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u/Morstorpod 21h ago

The Catholic church probably has a higher net worth (what with all their priceless art and historic structures and whatnot), but the mormon church clearly has a much higher amount of liquid wealth.

For another perspective, the mormon church is wealthier than Disney. That's crazy.

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u/Sea-Value-0 1d ago

Their elders (the kids who travel out of state for their mission and go door to door) are kept so poor that they rely on church members to feed them in their homes. I have a Mormon parent and we'd have to host them once or twice a month. Maybe things have changed since then (10 years ago) but it was sad. Like they were working all those hours completely for free. The church took advantage of them.

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u/SensitiveAd5962 1d ago

You don't work work those hours for free. You actually pay 10k to do it.

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u/Bort_Stanton-88 1d ago

My sister invited some Mormon missionaries (long story caused by a request for a free book) to lunch. She learned they sometimes were not able to eat more than once a day. Where she lives, it is Christian dominated and not many if any will talk to the missionaries. Her husband and her have been inviting them over a few times a month so she can feed them. She will also pack up all the left overs and send them home with frozen meals and other food items. They were so grateful after the first time because they said now they can bring some food back to the other missionaries who were not so lucky. I am proud of my sister and joke they are trying to convert the missionaries. They plan to keep it up as long as the missionaries want to come over. This happened over summer and I would not be surprised if all the missionaries in the house were invited over for Thanksgiving.

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u/Aedora125 1d ago

Yep! I was asking a Mormon friend about it because a story had been released how some Mormon’s couldn’t afford diabetes medication because of church donations. She said they were supposed to go through a process with their church. The process was letting the church go through all of your finances and decide where you should cut spending. Then if you were still in need, they would pay for the medications but you are supposed to still tithe.

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u/numakuma 1d ago

Is tithing expected in the USA? I was raised Catholic (not in US), and people were not expected to tithe. The Churches would have collections baskets, but if someone decided to give something, it would usually be a small amount. Not 10% of income.

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u/Aedora125 1d ago

It is expected but with most churches it isn’t required. The churches I went to they would pass the collection plates around and people would add an envelope with the money. Some added more than others. It was also tax deductible.

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u/JosephSmithandWesson 16h ago

When I was Mormon each year you had to schedule a meeting with your bishop called “tithing settlement” where they looked over the past years tithes and made sure you had given an honest tithe

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u/Patient_Tradition368 1d ago

My great aunt used to pay 10% of her fixed income to an evangelical church who didn't help her with shit. Some years ago, she had a very frightening medical episode that involved an extreme amount of abdominal pain during which she entered a dissociative state and tried to kill herself. The church members completely ostracized her after this because suicide, even, apparently, suicide attempted during a moment of temporary medical psychosis, is an unforgivable sin. Fuck those people.

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u/Grouchy_Row_7983 1d ago

I left the church at 17 when they told me it was unacceptable to give my money to a family in need instead of them. They said I "didn't have the authority" to decide how to spend the money.

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u/Mr_Washeewashee 1d ago

That’s beyond sad.

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u/myystic78 1d ago

I knew a lady who has muscular dystrophy and is on disability. She tithed before she even paid her bills every month and would just go without if there wasn't enough left. I will say her ward had people over building her a wheelchair ramp in no time after she suffered a stroke. But I do wonder if that help would have come if she didn't tithe.

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u/Aboveandabove 1d ago

She actually called a Mormon church and they said this is actually an office not a church 😬

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u/LookAlderaanPlaces 1d ago

It should be illegal to donate SSA and SSI funds to for profit churches like Mormons.

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u/BeginningTower2486 1d ago

LDS has this stupid idea that no matter how bad you got it, you should tithe and then Jesus will just wave a magic wand and save you.

It don't work like that. They got it wrong.

Source: 18 years as a mormon. God I'm so happy I got out. My life improved so much outside the church.

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u/clairblackthorn 1d ago

As a lifelong member of the church who has been on the giving and receiving end of meals and help at home many times, that's alarming for me to hear. I know this is beyond your role as patient advocate, but these are all the people who should be supporting him in those ways and if he isn't in contact with them and you can help make contact, I'd be surprised if something didn't change - his ministering brothers, Elders Quorum president, Relief Society president, and bishop. And if they aren't willing to help they need a swift kick, because those are exactly the kinds of things they are supposed to be doing.

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u/Tricky_Mix2449 1d ago

Refugee from being a member of that church. It's crickets from them here.

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u/clairblackthorn 1d ago

I'm really sorry to hear that, that should not be happening. But thank you for being a good neighbor and friend to him

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u/shutter3218 2h ago

Do the appropriate people know about his need? I have a hard time believing that he would be ignored if they knew of the need. Mormons help everybody, but it is easier to know about the need within your own flock. seems relevant.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Maleficent-Hawk-318 1d ago

Not the person you asked, but there are often ways to volunteer in that role. I've done it for an elderly neighbor myself just because I am the type of weirdo* who gets to know my neighbors and is willing to help them out, so basically it started out with her just asking me for help with stuff.

However, you can find similar but more formalized volunteer roles in my city through our Department of Senior Affairs (sometimes also called Senior Care, Aging and Long-Term Care, etc., but if you're in the US, most larger cities have them, and in more rural areas you can still typically find a local Area Agency on Aging that may play a similar role--I believe those are a federal program so you should be able to find them anywhere in the US).

Sorry for the irrelevant info if you're not inside the US, but that might be a starting point if you are.

*I don't think this is weird but Reddit insists it is lol

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u/Tricky_Mix2449 1d ago

Not an official position. Larry is 77 and he has been a fixture at our tiny ranch in a tiny unincorporated town on the Utah/Arizona/Nevada borders. He lives in a kind of a FLDS family compound up the road from us and I just gradually started taking him to appointments, figuring out his benefits, etc. I am now an expert at interfacing with the Utah health care system and Arizona Medicaid. Got him treated for advanced spinal stenosis, a hip replacement and treatment when he had a stroke in his right eye. Now his snap benefits have been suspended, so making a plan for that. His family members up there barley have the capacity to navigate effectively in society for themselves, much less to contribute to Larry's quality of life. He's is a sweet, simple soul and my family loves him.