Posted by:
vhainya
(
)
Date: December 09, 2010 11:07AM
I'm pretty sure the church was bankrupt when all their property and tithing monies were seized by the government. Lorenzo Snow was a financial wizard and pulled them out of debt.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon410.html"The question of LDS finances has been a sensitive issue since at the least the mid-20th century.
"Until then, the church gave a detailed financial report every year at its semi-annual General Conference. It discontinued the practice, though, when it had to disclose that the church had outspent its income.
"In 1957, the LDS Church lost $1 million in tithing funds invested in government bonds, according to a 1996 essay by historian D. Michael Quinn. In 1959, the church outspent its income by $8 million.
""There was good reason for the church's annual financial report to give fewer details," Quinn wrote in Sunstone, an independent LDS magazine.
"By 1962 the church deficit was at $32 million and the church was struggling, Quinn said, "to avoid the worst financial crisis of its history.""