The Catholic Church donates 150k dollars to the Philippines for the disaster relief… a country which is something like 90 percent Catholic… hugely conservative…. they are a people that have shown a lot of faith and who have also given a lot of donations to the church.

We give 6 million.

Am I missing something or is the pope a cheap bellend?

The Catholic Church donates 150k dollars to the Philippines for the disaster relief… a country which is something like 90 percent Catholic… hugely conservative…. they are a people that have shown a lot of faith and who have also given a lot of donations to the church.

No point in investing when you already have them hooked.

Exactly my thought…the ****…. it makes me sick…..it’s an insult. My girlfriends Filipino (luckily atheist), we met when we were both studying (international student…much much richer than I).

We’re going out in December, once I’ve sweet talked the parents I’m going to go straight to the worst hit areas and help locals build stuff.

I’m not sure it’s the time to voice my opinion amongst her catholic friends though.

The Catholic Church is a very successful multi-national company with offices round the world, it exists to sustain itself and promote it’s brand/products (salvation etc.) you don’t get that big without being a bit ruthless 🙂 Don’t concern yourself with what they are/aren’t doing. Sounds like you are going to do some good stuff, thats a positive.

I’m not sure it’s the time to voice my opinion amongst her catholic friends though.

Don’t waste your breath, it’s just not worth it. The only thing is have a couple of short sharp responses for the usual crap and move along.

Mehh, the injustice and exploitation makes me quiver with rage. It’s misanthropy, pure misanthropy dressed as salvation.

My feelings in regards to just doing my bit by going all gap year is that it’s like polishing brass on the titanic unless something more is done. Education…. revolution….what exactly? There needs to be a new enlightenment of some sort. Perhaps that was what Brand was getting at…. how can the worlds lower socio economic classes be shown how to rid themselves of the chains that they’ve been placed in by unscrupulous wolves like the Catholic Church.

I’m off to bed to stew.

Will there be many locals in December? Building in unaffected areas may be underway for refugees though. Clearing up will be ongoing for a good while yet.
Although after the tsunami there were appeals for tourists to return to unaffected tourist areas to keep the cash coming in.

Yous can empty your paypal balances here. http://www.dec.org.uk

Couldn’t sleep.

Will probably be clearing up then Cbike, lot’s of contacts within the area that was affected. A good friend of ours is an architect whilst her dad is a city planner in one of the cities that got hit. I’ve never been one for creature comforts and don’t mind working in dangerous environments, so I’ll be up for clearing work.

I’m already giving what I’ve got to MSF, a charity which I already wanted to do some aid work with one day.

My career might take a different path come December, the tv dehumanizes you to these events but this one pissed me off as it hit closer to home.

We’re being asked to give. No doubt David Cameron will be on saying whatever we can give will help (which it will don’t get me wrong) but he is worth something like £30million. 1% of his worth is a lot more than the pennies we can scrape together. Lead by example?

Or just stop giving money to countries who like to spend it on space programs rather than helping their people and save our foreign aid budget for when it really matters, like now for the Philippines

But that’s just fatuous toss LHS: UK aid for India and China isn’t spent on space programmes, nor is it just blindly paid into general revenue. It’s paid out for specific projects that help development and reduce poverty.

It’s stupid to say “well, if the government is so corrupt or prioritizes improperly the people shouldn’t get aid”, because if the government weren’t corrupt and did prioritise properly, the people wouldn’t be in the situation of needing aid in the first place. The Philippines is a massively corrupt country: the deaths are mostly a result of poverty and underdevelopment, not weather.

Well at least they haven’t announced it’s God’s retribution for abortions or other such nonsense…..

But that’s just fatuous toss LHS

Completely disagree. If the governments weren’t spending money on space programmes and encouraging such a huge chasm between wealth and poverty then they wouldn’t need aid! They need to re-assess their priorities and moral obligations as a government, corrupt or not.

If the governments weren’t spending money on space programmes and encouraging such a huge chasm between wealth and poverty then they wouldn’t need aid!

I think that’s pretty much what I said.

The result of your approach is that you only provide aid to people living in properly-administered countries – but if they were properly administered, they wouldn’t need aid. Get it? That’s why aid isn’t a blank cheque paid to governments of developing countries.

Tom_W thoughts with you family and friends and thanks to cbike for the link to donate

Catholic church website states the donation is ‘an initial contribution to the aid effort’. Implying more to come?

Still it does seem rather small. I’m sure many members of the catholic church in the country have been affected themselves and will be involved directly in supporting communities in the aftermath.

Any faith group at such a time should put human need before any agenda and I am sure those of integrity will do so.

We give 6 million

you say that like its a figure to make you proud?

£6m is 10p per person, maybe 20p per taxpayer