But this gets into what I was talking about earlier: a huge amount of the health care services "provided by the Catholic Church" are done through Catholic hospitals that provide those services on a fee-for-service basis like a state-owned or privately-owned hospital. Catholic health care is mostly a commercial enterprise, not charity.Either way, their charitable work s quite extensive Just a few sources, although I cannot verify the accuracy of these:
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care services in the world. -- Catholic Church and health care - Wikipedia
Same for education: when the Catholic Church charges tuition for a parochial school or a university, it's just operating a fee-for-service commercial operation.
But again: not all of that is actually charitable. I Googled St. Mike's hospital in Toronto (which came to mind as an example of a Catholic organization): yes, they spent $686 million this year on running a hospital, but $501 million was funded by the government through our public health insurance, $80 million came from patient charges and "sales and other revenue", they got a sizeable amount (the exact amount isn't specified) from grants to do research, etc. They're operating under a similar model to a for-profit hospital; why consider one a charity and the other not?(AP) -- Once again today, the Roman Catholic Church, by far the world's largest charitable organization, fed more of the hungry, housed more of the homeless, tended to the more of the sick, and educated more of the poor throughout the world than all other organizations combined. -- BREAKING -- World's Largest Charity Feeds the Hungry - Championship Subdivision Football | FCS Football | Stadiums | Blogs | Forums
Number 2 ) how many people make up the Catholic Church?
There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures. More than 40% of the world's Catholics live in Latin America - but Africa has seen the biggest growth in Catholic congregations in recent years.
That means the charitable organization known as the Catholic Church is 1.2 billion people strong.
Number 3). Is there any other charitable organization that can claim more than 1.2 billion people as members?
No there is not.
Therefore the Catholic Church is in fact the largest charitable organization on earth. -- What is the basis for saying that the Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world?
They estimate that the church spends about $171,600,000,000 a year. Not a typo... The Economist estimates that annual spending by the church and entities owned by the church was around $170 billion in 2010 (the church does not release such figures). We think 57% of this goes on health-care networks, followed by 28% on colleges, with parish and diocesan day-to-day operations accounting for just 6% and national charitable activities just 2.7% (see chart). In total, Catholic institutions employ over 1m people, reckons Fred Gluck, a former McKinsey managing partner and co-founder of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, a lay organisation seeking to improve the way the church is run. -- The Economist Estimates the Catholic Church Spent $171,600,000,000 in 2010
How much of that $172 billion went to the other similar Catholic hospitals out there?
And how much went to church upkeep, parish priest salaries, and other things that really only benefit the parishoners? I remember my ex's church would collect a "flower offering" for Easter every year. While decorating the church with flowers was certainly nice for the parishoners, and while the donors can claim their donations on their taxes, I wouldn't call this sort of thing "charity."
... which isn't to say that the Catholic Church doesn't engage in charity at all. ShareLife - the charitable appeal of the Archdiocese of Toronto - distributed $13 million to its member agencies last year (Financial Statements). But in an archdiocese with
about 2.1 million Catholics (Archdiocese of Toronto), this represents only about $6 of charitable spending per member per year. Edit: and this is for a relatively wealthy city in a first-world country.