Frage: Warum erhalten Generalautoritäten eine Unterstützung für Lebenshaltungskosten?

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Frage: Warum erhalten Generalautoritäten eine Unterstützung für Lebenshaltungskosten?

  NEEDS TRANSLATION  

Gordon B. Hinckley: "the living allowances given the General Authorities, which are very modest in comparison with executive compensation in industry and the professions, come from this business income and not from the tithing of the people

Some members of the Church are unaware that some General Authorities receive a modest stipend as a living allowance. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the Church has a professional ministry in the traditional sense.

Calls to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or the First Quorum of the Seventy are calls to “for-life” positions, members of the Twelve serving full-time until they die and members of the First Quorum of Seventy serving full-time until retirement to emeritus status at age seventy. At the present time, calls to other Quorums of the Seventy do not require the same full-time commitment, so those who serve in these positions do not receive the living allowances.

The fact that this stipend exists has not been hidden. As President Hinckley noted in General Conference:

Merchandising interests are an outgrowth of the cooperative movement which existed among our people in pioneer times. The Church has maintained certain real estate holdings, particularly those contiguous to Temple Square, to help preserve the beauty and the integrity of the core of the city. All of these commercial properties are tax-paying entities.

I repeat, the combined income from all of these business interests is relatively small and would not keep the work going for longer than a very brief period.

I should like to add, parenthetically for your information, that the living allowances given the General Authorities, which are very modest in comparison with executive compensation in industry and the professions, come from this business income and not from the tithing of the people.