[conspire] (forw) Recent Mormon Leaks and Side Effects

[Rick Moen]

The Mormon Church has always made a big thing about how their moral
superiority over, e.g., the RCC is evinced by their clergy being
_unpaid_  -- and continues to say so.  Turns out, some clergy are
markedly more equal than others:  The top people (the 'General
Authorities') are quietly sucking down quite a _lot_ of the
parishioners' tithing money.  Confronted with this, the Church lied some
more, denying that this suddenly-revealed funding comes from tithing at
all, claiming it came from 'investment earnings' and parsonage
allowances -- which is blatant obfuscation because both of those things
come from tithing.

Apparently this isn't going over well.

----- Forwarded message from Deirdre Saoirse Moen <deirdre at deirdre.net> -----

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:01:03 -0800
From: Deirdre Saoirse Moen <deirdre at deirdre.net>
To: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Recent Mormon Leaks and Side Effects

Possibly of interest to skeptics list; feel free to forward if you like.

1. Recently-established Mormon Leaks leaks salary information for one of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/5mysp0/leaked_q15_and_1q70_pay_information/

2. Backlash starts because Mormons have traditionally made fun of Catholics (etc.) for having a paid professional clergy. Extensive quotes and cites here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/5n7buv/several_quotes_to_show_the_depth_of_the_recent/

Sample: "In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there is no paid ministry, no professional clergy, as is common in other churches.”

One of the big claims Mormons are making is that the pay isn’t from tithing, but from the for-profit work the church does (e.g., it owns 2% of Florida land and is the 6th largest landowner in the US). However, that’s prima facie false as the pay stubs include a parsonage allowance, something that can only be paid by a church to a minister for ministerial duties.

3. Deseret News, official church mouthpiece, responds:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865670786/MormonLeaks-dumps-four-new-documents-about-LDS-Church.html?pg=all

4. Mormon Leaks responds *in the Deseret News* to the Deseret response:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865670952/A-critical-response-to-the-Deseret-News-from-MormonLeaks.html

That would never have happened before.

5. And of course, they had to write an op-ed blasting it at the same time: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/5nmx5f/dnews_response_to_mormonleaks_response_to_dnews/

Still, it’s big, and it’s also a quick response, which says to me there’s a lot of pushback from the congregations.

Deirdre

----- End forwarded message -----