Need some help regarding religious charities + relief aid

[St. Jarvitude]

I posted a list of organizations supporting the relief effort on a (non political) forum. I pointed out that some religious charities will only provide aid to those that are members of their religion (something I read on DU).

I should have expected a response like this, but I didn't:


As far as your comment on religious charities goes, rarely have I seen such insensitive, biased, and hateful drivel. Sure, keep your money in your pocket rather than donate to a cause where you might incidentally support a religious organization's religious objectives.

What, you think that a "christians of our stripe only" organization is going to take the extra money and buy each affected family from their faith community in the region a new BMW or something? Sheesh. Hello, even by the simple fact of "taking care of their own"--if, indeed, that unsubstantiated assertion were correct--THEY'RE STILL FREEING UP SECULAR MONEY TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE.


I'm asking for some help finding evidence of specific "charities" that do this sort of thing.

[theboss]

1. I don't know of any that do that.

There probably are, but they wouldn't be the "major" religious charities that you would first think of.

[InvisibleBallots]

2. do you actually know of any religious charities that only help

those who share their religion, or did you just assume this?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. If you stick with the mainstream religious bodies

such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran World Relief, Episcopal Relief and Development, and others, you can be assured that the aid goes to people without regard to their religious affiliation or lack thereof.

Even the Mennonites provide aid without discrimination. They do a lot of work with disaster victims in this country, and even won themselves a lot of fans in the highly secular state of Oregon when they helped out in the town of Vernonia, which had been devastated by a flash flood.

I don't know the others. I have heard that World Vision does proselytizing, but I don't know if they make it a condition for help.

[St. Jarvitude]

5. I know that.

And i pointed that out too. I will certainly make a donation to Catholic World Relief very soon (I've already donated to several secular charities).

I just need some specific examples of "evangelizing" relief aid charities. World Vision does indeed proselytize, but apparently only in certain cases... who knows if they'll do it here.

[Taxloss]

4. How about this?

Operation Christmas Child:

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,861580,00.html