For some time and from several official media, insults in form of campaigns that systematically attack the Catholic Church have been launched. It is not known exactly the reason, because it usually becomes a tempest in a teapot and the reality hides. This leaves the impression that ecclesiastics are a string of undesirable. However, we must remember that this is one of the purposes of the left and they do it quite well.

But do you have ever thought the amount of money that the institutions of the Catholic Church help to save the state? And when I say the State I mean our pockets. Let’s see some examples:

These are some numbers of the much criticized Catholic Church

107 hospitals (the State saves 50 million Euros per hospital per year)

1.004 centres: outpatients departments, dispensaries, old people’s home, centres for the disabled and terminally ill Aids patient; a total of 51.312 beds (The State saves 4 million Euros per hospital per year)

Caritas expenses per year: 155 million Euros (donations from Spanish people)

Manos Unidas expenses: 43 million Euros (donations from Spanish people)

Pontifical Mission Societies expenses (WMS): 21 million Euros. Do you imagine where it comes from?

365 Re-education Centres for social outcasts: ex-prostitutes, ex-convicts and ex-drug addicts; 53.140 persons. (The State saves half a million Euros per centre)

937 orphanage; 10.835 abandoned children. (The State saves 100.000 million Euros per centre)

80% of the expenses of conservation and maintenance of historical and artistic heritage (The State approximately saves between 32.000 and 36.000 million Euros per year).Meanwhile, we must add that almost all people who work or collaborate with Manos Unidas, Caritas, etc…are volunteers without salary. This is true, although it is a surprise for some people; there are people who work for others without asking for money. How much their work value? And we have not mentioned educational centres, food banks, etc. with which the State can approximately save 15.000 million Euros per year.

This is the reason why the State continues to give some aid to the Catholic Church.

What is amazing is that nobody (or very few people) know that this saving is essential for the Spanish economy goes well…

All of this represents an overall saving of some 50,000 million Euros per year. This translated into old pesetas represents a surprising amount of more than eight billion three hundred BILLION Euros. It is amazing, isn’t it?

As counterpart, how many soup kitchens for indigent people has opened the Workers’ Commissions (Spanish: Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) How many hospitals for terminally and AIDS ill patients keep open UGT (General Union of Workers)? Can the needy go to ask for food to the headquarters of the PP, PSOE or the UI?… all of these live at the expense of our budgets and what a budgets…

And how many missionaries, schools, hospitals, leprosarium, etc serve for the world members of other not Christian religions? Watching this information, why are we going to be ashamed of our Church?

Isabel Costa – Independent Forum of Opinion                                      

http://indeforum.wordpress.com