[Spooky23]

I have served on the board of a church-related institution. It doesn't push tithing. The clergy aren't getting rich. Personally, I wouldn't associate with a place pushing tithing, politics, or where the clergy is living an opulent lifestyle. That's just my pov.

It's been a few years, but about 30-35% of the budget was for direct charitable works. They partner with another church to run a soup kitchen, help to house displaced families, and do other stuff like provide flowers to hospice, youth sports, subsidized vacation camps, subsidy for poorer parishes, etc. Another 30-35% was for the parish itself... salaries for the priest, capital spending on the property. The remainder is scholarship money for the school.

YMMV, and there are certainly good and bad places, but IMO, that parish is a net benefit to the community around it. Some of the examples here of rural communities the are over-churched is a symptom of the effects of decline. The rural town I grew up in is 10% smaller than it was 25 years ago, and it is increasingly a bedroom community for a bigger city. Folks who live there try to keep community institutions like churches going, but obviously there comes a point where that isn't sustainable.