the templars and the turin shroud, page-19

Frankie I never called you a bigot. Read carefully what I said. I said it was a bigoted response because you came back about the Catholic Church and not about the shroud, which was the object of the original post.

I have always held that people are free to believe what they want, including you, but I prefer to respond to rational debate not knee jerk reactions with which one cannot debate. In a debate there is give and take.

Yes, the Church has a lot of property accumulated over 2000 years, one way or another. But it belongs to no individual but to a whole group. That is why you can go and see the artistic works in the Vatican or any Catholic church, they belong to the people. That property is used in service to the works of the church which includes reaching out to the poor. I repeat, no other organization reaches out to more people at the bottom of the barrel. I am a member of such a group that derives its money from fellow Catholics, not from the institutional Church and we work for the poor in our society, here and elsewhere. Think of all those hospitals we established in many countries, schools in many countries, mostly manned by people who did it for no monitory reward, no pay just love. Not many around now but there were many in the past. What other organization can match it, based onnfacts not an automatic response.