Churches will hold special collections this Sunday to raise money for agencies working in the Horn of Africa, where more than ten million people are on the brink of starvation because of drought. The crisis escalated this week when the United Nations declared a famine in two areas of Somalia.
The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, Mark Bowden, said: “If we don’t act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious-disease outbreaks. We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter, and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis in desperate need.”
The International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, who announced on Sunday that the Government would provide £7 million towards UNICEF’s work in East Africa, said: “The fact that a famine has been declared shows just how grave the situation has become. It is time for the world to help, but, sadly, the response from many countries has been derisory and dangerously inadequate.”
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I have emailed the Bishop of Chichester, copied to the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking how much the Church itself has given to the Famine in Somalia?
I can find no evidence of any donations on the Net to any cause at any time.The Bishop has not replied or even acknowledged my question.
One would have thought it would be proud of its generosity, if it exists, and would grasp every opportunity to publicise it.
The Church of England has assets estimated at £14 billion, including investment assets in stocks and shares of about £8 billion. It has an annual income estimated at £1 billion.That is the cost of running the Church apparently.
When individuals donate, it comes out of their pocket. The British are known for their generosity.
We give. We do not go round asking others to give, as your Church does.
Let me suggest if the Church really had a humanitarian conscience, it would give 5% of its annual income to such causes as Somalia.
That would include a 5%pa contribution from its Priests
After all, its wealth is founded completely on theft of other people's possessions over the centuries, including the disgraceful 10% annual Tithe on even the poorest peasant, which they collected for more than 1500 years, whilst their Priests and Bishops lived in relative or obscene luxury.
I should add that some of this accumulated wealth was tricked out of people by promising them a place in Heaven, if they left their possessions to the Church. Alternatively they were threatened that if they didn't, they would go to hell.
This is still common practice in most Catholic Countries. In Canada during WWll the Bishop of Ottawa was offering troops going to Europe a guaranteed place in Heaven, for the sum of $40!!
In England, the Church simply took lands as they fancied. They would trump up charges against the landowner, who would flee if he had the chance, knowing that the alternative was to be tortured, disembowelled, or simply burned at the stake.
The Church would then cease to pay the Tithe to Rome, putting a heavier tax burden on the remaininfg landowners.
Using these tactics, the Church accumulated more than a third of all the land in England, prior to the Reformation, on which their present wealth was founded
Nice people those who ran the Christian Church.Thieves.
Anyone wishing to understand their real history should download a free copy of Arthur Findlay's
"The Curse of Ignorance".
I doubt few are aware that 25 million were tortured and slaughtered over the ages "in the name of Jesus Christ". That was just in Europe and the Near East.
1000s of the vanquished, including women and children, were sold into slavery, and their possessions seized by the Church.
This had little or nothing to do with converting the people to believe in Jesus Christ, but everything to do with theft.
The same applied in South America where another 12 million were murdered, chiefly for their huge wealth in gold and silver.
To add to these crimes, the people were deliberately kept in ignorance for more than 1000 years, by denying them any education. Schools were banned after the Romans left, and everyone except the Church hierarchy was kept illiterate by design.
One might have some sympathy with this shocking crusade if there was any evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed. Nazareth didn't exist as a town in his lifetime, but the fable writers decided that was where he was to come from, when they stitched up their version of the Bible at Nicaea in 325 AD.
Constantine who was largely responsible for Nicaea, is a revered Saint.
Apparently the Church is happy to forget he boiled his wife alive in a bath, and murdered his son plus another close relative. Was it his wife's brother? I forget.
What's another murder amongst 25 million?
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