I'll begin with this blog as its one of the easier ones to deal with.
Click Here to view his entire article.
This blog entry is actually one of his good ones - yes he does have a few. However I did find a comment he made a bit judgmental when he wrote "I am just thankful that we no longer have the burden and expense of cleaning staff. They likely didn't need the income anyway and this move allows members to provide more hours of service for which they will surely be blessed."
Really? They likely didnt need the income? thats a bit unthoughtful of him to say. What ganitor have you ever met that was so wealthy they didnt need the income? Im not talking about a cleaning company - the ganitor him/herself.
The rest of the statement I agree with that it allows members the opportunity to serve.
14 comments:
It janitor...
I'm starting to think your blog is the spoof of a spoof. In the whole "tithing" post, that's the only comment you have?
You're not going to defend the LDS Church choice to pay $40 million to keep BYU up and running?
You're either another spoof, or you went to BYU. As a kid who didn't quite make it into BYU, I find it offensive that my parents and the parents of other kids like me would be paying to support other people's more worthy, righteous, or academically inclined children to attend that school.
So, no blogging on that? Really?
It's SATIRE. OF COURSE the janitorial staff needed the income. The good Pres. Paternoster was pointing this out...he was just being clever about it.
Actually it's church custodian.
Whether the individuals could use the money or not is irrelivent. The leaders of the church felt inspired to have members care for their own buildings. Members will have an opportunity to serve and show respect to their place of worship. How is that a bad thing?
It stinks
the whole cleaning the toilet thing
it just stinks.
Yes Cindy,
I'm sure the members with all of their callings, meetings, VT, HT, scripture study, FHE...etc...would LOVE to spend what little extra time would be available with their families to clean the church buildings, when the church has plenty of funds to hire someone ...and isn't that what tithing is SUPPOSED to be for? Hmm...I guess the 4 BILLION dollar mall is more important than keeping the buildings clean, or helping starving families..lol.. but what do I know?
I wasn't saying it was fair I was just stating the reasons we have been given as to why this decision was made.
Whether the custodians needed the money or not was not discussed when this new policy was give to us (at least not in my ward). The only conclusion I can come up with is that it was irrelevant to the decision. Maybe that is what lead President Paternoster to make the statement he made which was addressed in this post.
Just some thoughts on your other comments.:
If everyone were to clean up after themselves on Sundays and after any activities held at church there wouldn't that much left to do. Ideally each family would probably only have to give a couple of hours once or twice a year.
VT only asks that you do a personal visit once every three months. You can decide what meeting you will or will not go to (despite what others say). FHE should not be seen as using up your time. You can put scriptures or the ensign on an iPod to listen to while doing other tasks to free up time.
Thank you for this blog. The "real" stake pres has some problems... maybe little penis syndrom. I hope someday we can discover who he really is... but will probably just be wishful thinking.
It's interesting how people like to critizie President paternotster instead of addressing the issues he raises. That says something!
@ Taylor, sorry I didnt address anything about the topic you'd like me to blog about , because I was raised in australia, nd actually have no idea about it. No knowledge warrents no comment on it.
@ Trudy, Interesting how you critisize us that critisize what paternoster is saying and not address the issues we are actually critisizing. I guess that really says something.
If you actually read what we have to say, I dont see anyone posting persecutions about Paternoster but actually issues with certain things he says. You might even notice how I said in this blog That I thought his blog entry on the subject was a good one. You didnt read that did you. Just jumped on and started critisizing without research...I guess that really does say something about you
I apologize. I was reading the comments on the stake president blog and noticed many people making personal attacks on President Paternoster instead of addressing the issues at hand. Some didn't even get that the things they were criticizing were not even Paternosters words but words of our leaders. I assumed this blog would be the same as those people. I see that you have been respectful and the comments on here have also been.
Since your blog is a place to discuss President Paternoster's blog, I still stand by what I said but with the clarification that I wasn't directing it at you personally.
I wish you'd discuss the secrecy of tithing expenditures. Why hide it? Why can't a member ask for a "tithing settlement" from the Church in the form of a yearly, fairly detailed, financial statement telling them if tithing money was spent on administration, real estate, building maintenance,missionary work, liquid financial investments, etc...
The only answer I've ever received to that question is that I need to trust the Church.
If that's the only answer, it's not a very good one. That's the kind of answer people usually get from liars and rip-off artists like Bernie Madoff.
I'm wondering why the LDS Church thinks this is an acceptable answer to its closed-door policy.
you know I havnt put much thought about that myself, but yeah its a good question, because I know there is no governing body that overlooks what some departments do. I should be thinking about it more.
I have a friend who worked in physical facilities - actually he was my boss once. He was in New Zealand on a church trip for the buildings or whatever and when they arrived in New Zealand the men wanted to do something to unwind, so on church funds they went to the movies. which isnt so bad really, but it was on a Sunday and it was an R rated movie, my friend refused to go. So our tithing went to R rated sunday entertainment in this case.
Another case was my friend topp supervisor took a 3 day houseboat trip on the Murry river using tithing funds in the name of a "business meeting" - Victoria Australia with one other building supervisor - (I personally both of these men)
I know of a case on certain chapels where $27,000 was spent on a roof, when the job would have only cost $9000.
It sound like the church is generous when handing out money on projects, but I also know that if you quote a job, like if youre a plumber quoting a job, they dont like to pay the asking price - my Bishop was a plumber ad they asked him to quote, he actually gave the church a discount on the job, and they wanted to screw him down futher saying its for the Lords church etc type of guilt bargaining, he refused to do the job. After a while they came back to him because they couldnt get it done cheaper and gave him the job.
Yes I agree there need to be more scrutiny and they should be made to account their expenditures. I bet these guys would be the first ones to say tsk tsk to the policital people who misappropriate funds.
In my experience there sems to be two types of governing bodies in the church - the eclesiastical side which is lead by the spirit and the professional side which seems to be lead by greed and looking after your friends. As these guys answer to noone they get away with a lot. My friend took the church to court about some deal I cant remember and won his case as the church was found guilty of not obeying the building laws & codes in Australia. This is all documented - my friends wife - who I grew up with stopped going to church for a long time and was sick with stress from it all
With this sort of thing going on, no wonder the church has a closed door policy and say "you need to just have faith or trust"
That was very candid.
If the audit committee chairman knows how the funds were spent, and presumably this can be perused by the prophet and perhaps the apostles, why wouldn't something be done to control expenditures.
But, of course, they are untouchable, so you can participate in the abuse of your fellow members all you want, and say it's their fault, just like they have been trained to abuse you in the same way. Corrupt managers blame everyone but themselves.
Your management has stuff to hide, but you've been trained not to look there.
Do they think they're exempt from checks and balances? You bet they do. It's written in your Sunday School manuals and spoken at you from the pulpit.
Can you really not see the errors in judgement you've been taught to use by the church? They teach you these thought circles to keep themselves untouched. They may not even know that's what they're doing because they were taught the same stuff. It's like a chronic disease that causes ignorance.
Robert Frost wrote, "We dance around in a ring and suppose, while the secret sits in the middle and knows."
You've been taught to dance with the rest of them in a circle. You've allowed yourselve to think the little dance is the ultimate truth; the only way; the path to exaltation; the plan of salvation. But in the middle of the circle there's an untouchable thing. A sad, despicable, pathetic thing. Very few dancing in your circle every touch it.
Some of them suspect what it might be and are too afraid to touch it. Some go near it and get burned, so never again try to find out what it is. Others just never even know there's anything in the middle of the circle.
You are one of those who has suspected the worst, but it's too painful to even think about. So, like thousands of others just like yourself, you stuff those suspicions way down deep inside, and dance the dance with even more gusto.
I invite you to enter the middle, pull back the many veils, walk through the smoke, past the fire placed there to scare you away, and see what doesn't want to be discovered.
Before you do, you have to ask yourself, "If there's something that makes me know this is not the true 'dance', would I even want to know?" Answer this question honestly to yourself. If you still seek truth, then go for it.
Or, just keep dancing in the intellectual circle that's been created for you.
I have to tell you, however, that defending the church is much easier when you can defend the good things and admit the bad things.
After years of defending the guy and his teachings, finally being able to admit that Brigham Young was a fool and a power hungry and sexually expolitive man was extremely freeing. And, oh yes, he most certainly meets none of the criteria for being a prophet.
You have to admit it would be pretty nice to finally admit something like that about the church and actually blame the leaders who are responsible (as opposed to blaming the innocent, if not gullible and unwise members).
So, about tithing misappropriation...do you think the Prophet and Apostles really have no clue about where the money goes? If you think they know, do you think they are forthright about the situation? If you think they are forthright (as men of God), then why don't they change it?
Because they benefit from it as much as their employees who use it as their own slush fund (if what you've said is true).
If what you've indicated is true, I believe the General Authorities most certainly know about this kind of abuse of funds. The fact that they make no attempts at corrective action/reform is extremely telling.
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