Curtis and Joni Meese have three children and live on what he makes as a self-employed financial counselor, minus the 10 percent they pay to the Mormon Church.
"We believe that if you pay the tithe faithfully and not begrudgingly, you will be provided for," Joni said. "There's also a feeling of peace, of knowing you are on the right track. We feel we're better persons for making the sacrifice."It takes that kind of faith to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"You see, tithing is a scriptural commandment, and people do pay their tithing to satisfy the scriptural commandment," said Howard W. Hunter, 83, president of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, from which presidents of the church are chosen by seniority.
"It's administered by people . . . who aren't receiving anything out of those funds. We're sure about that. And so there's trust," Hunter said.
Mormons trust the church enough to tithe about $4.3 billion each year without asking for any accounting of how it's spent, The Arizona Republic reported Monday in the second of a four-part series on the church's holdings.The series is based on an eight-month investigation by four reporters.
Best estimates are that about 30 percent of the church members give a full tithe. Church leaders say tithing accounts for more than 90 percent of the church's revenues and that profits from business operations and investments make up the balance.
Tithing is used to build and maintain thousands of meetinghouses and 44 temples around the globe, print sacred scriptures in dozens of languages and to educate 50,000 students in church-operated elementary and secondary schools and colleges and universities.
In Utah alone, where two-thirds of the population is LDS, the church has spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" to build new chapels, said Gordon B. Hinckley, first counselor to church President Ezra Taft Benson.
In addition, the church's missionary program, thought to be twice as large as any other operated by a single organization, relies on a combination of tithing funds and contributions from the families of its 44,000 missionaries.
Although the Mormon Church won't disclose financial data, the missionary program costs an estimated $550 million a year, according to David Barrett, a researcher who tracks missionary programs for the respected World Christian Encyclopedia.
Barrett estimates that the second-largest missionary program is operated by the Jehovah's Witnesses at an annual cost of $200 million.
The Roman Catholic Church's missionary programs are far larger, involving about 150,000 missionaries, but are not ranked as high because they are divided among a large number of religious orders and are not under central control, Barrett said.
The Mormon Church, like everyone else, has to balance its priorities among its construction, missionary, education and investment goals.
Enrollment at Brigham Young University has been capped at 27,000 students because the church, which gave the school $153.7 million last year, doesn't want to divert money away from missionary programs.
BYU President Rex Lee explained to the school's alumni that "we cannot continue to dot the universe with chapels if we continue to dot BYU with buildings."
Mormon tithing also is used as an investment vehicle: to buy stocks, bonds and real estate. The church's investment portfolio easily exceeds $5 billion, including $1 billion in stocks and bonds and another $1 billion in real estate, The Republic said.
Most members take it on faith that their funds will be spent advancing the Lord's work.
"People who press, who want to know, are people who usually aren't members of the church," Hunter said. "Members of the church pay tithing and know the money is used for the purposes for which they pay it. . . . It doesn't require an accounting."
In 1853, an unidentified visitor to Utah asked apostle John Taylor why there was no public accounting of the tithes.
"In the end, it would be better for the more intelligent and educated men to take care of the people's affairs than to have them fight and quarrel about everything," Taylor replied.
A century and a half later, little has changed.
"I recall that when I was a boy, I raised a question with my father . . . concerning the expenditure of church funds," Hinckley said.
"He reminded that mine is the God-given obligation to pay my tithes and offerings. When I do so, that which I give is no longer mine. It belongs to the Lord to whom I consecrate it. What the authorities of the church do with it need not concern me. They are answerable to the Lord, who will require an accounting at their hands."
The church has never released figures on the amount of tithes collected. The last time the church released any accounting of its expenses was in 1957, when it disclosed only general information about its budget to its 1.5 million members.
That year, the church said it spent $58 million on its ecclesiastical programs. Nearly one-half of the funds were used to build new chapels, to build and operate temples and to maintain meeting halls. The next-largest sum, $12 million, was spent on missionary programs, while $10 million was spent for church education, $6 million for welfare and $2 million on administrative programs.
The church's spending priorities are thought to be similar today, although the numbers are considerably larger.
Hunter said the church doesn't need to release its financial information because, unlike other churches, it doesn't need to prove a deficit as part of an appeal for more contributions. Publishing a balance sheet won't change how much money flows into the church, he said.
Most Mormons are not concerned about the lack of reporting.
Jon M. Huntsman is the chief executive and founder of Huntsman Chemical Corp., a Salt Lake City-based international chemical and packaging company. In his corporate life, Huntsman routinely scrutinizes his company's billion-dollar operations for waste or mismanagement.
But Huntsman doesn't ask for an accounting from his church, even though the amount of his tithing is enormous, compared with most faithful Mormons.
Huntsman is a stake president responsible for several congregations in metropolitan Salt Lake City. He said he has paid his tithe regularly since childhood, when he washed dishes in an Idaho restaurant for 50 cents an hour.
"We believe that our church leaders are divinely inspired," he said. "I believe it with all my soul. I believe that because they are divinely inspired, they have a sacred trust that permits them to be guardians of the financial welfare of the church."
Even with the financial secrecy, church officials have administered billions of dollars scandal-free, Huntsman and others said.
The billions of dollars that flow through church headquarters basically are managed as two types of funds: the ecclesiastical donations from tithes and offerings, and the profits from church-owned businesses and investments.
The church also receives donations through members' wills. The church has a number of trust funds, including Deseret Trust, a non-profit subsidiary that manages $100 million in real estate, stocks and other assets for eventual benefit of the church. The firm collected $531,000 in fees for administering the trusts in 1989, from which it turned over $85,700 to the church.
The church's public-communications department explained the use of tithed funds for investments this way:
"Prudent stewardship of tithing donations dictates that funds not needed to meet current operating expenses of the church not be allowed to sit idle. Consequently, they are placed in low-risk investments. Those funds, together with the return on their investment, are available for operating expenses when needed."
J. Alan Blodgett, who was the church's chief financial officer until 1985, said most tithing dollars are used for ecclesiastical purposes, including construction of new church buildings, financing church schools, and supporting the missionary program.
Some tithing money is used for investments such as land, he said, disputing the assertion by some church officials that tithing money is used strictly for ecclesiastical purposes and that investments are acquired with other church money.
"Money is fungible. And land is bought out of the bank account that tithing goes into, but other income goes into it, too," said Blodgett, who now works for the federal Resolution Trust Corporation.
Tithing also has been used for business ventures that have failed.
For instance, about $4 million was used to finance three made-for-television movies produced at BYU's film studio. The movies were financial losses, and questions were raised last year about the relationship between the studio and a full-time church auditor who was involved on the side in production of the movies.
A state investigation last year concluded there was no criminal misuse of the funds.
However, in February, the church - fearful that its tax-exempt status might be jeopardized - moved control of the film studio from the university to church headquarters.
Tithing also was used in recent years to subsidize the Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City. When it closed in 1987, then public-communications director Richard P. Lindsay said the church could "no longer justify using money contributed by its members for ecclesiastical purposes to subsidize the hotel."
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(Additional information)
The Public Affairs Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued the following statement:
The Arizona Republic is publishing a series of articles focusing on financial aspects of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church recognizes that the team of writers has put considerable effort into the series. While portions of the series are accurate, there are many deficiencies.
The estimates of the Church's income are just that - estimates made by the Republic - and they are grossly overstated. The Church has emphasized the fact that the overwhelming majority of its assets are not money-producing assets but money-consuming assets throughout the world, including temples and meetinghouses, schools, welfare projects, curriculum materials, missionary efforts and humanitarian undertakings that benefit people in many nations.
And while it is briefly addressed in the series, there could have been more prominent mention of the increasingly heavy financial demands placed on the Church by its dramatic growth, particularly in the developing areas of the world.
While the proper management of the business affairs of the Church may be interesting to the Arizona Republic's readers, the Church hopes that the series does not detract from its primary mission, which is to help improve the lives of its members and to share the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ with its friends and neighbors everywhere.