When the Church, and those that work for it, pay their taxes like any other business, then, and only then can they start to talk about greed without being viewed as total hypocrites.

Simon, Den Haag,

Is the Archbishop of Canterbury not greedy when he earns £67,000 a year for doing Gods work? At least the Pope does it for free.

Elisa, Napoli, Italy

Perhaps the Church could practise what it preaches and give some of its phenomenal wealth away, before telling others what to do?

Katherine, Reading,

"'m just about to start a job in investment banking in the Summer. ... some people have worked very hard to get where they are and in return should be paid a good salary. ...Dan, Manchester"

Dan - though I wish you well in your new job, and don't have any problem with whatever benefit package you'll have, please don't kid yourself that it's because you've "worked very hard".

Salary is a mixture of supply/demand and luck. I imagine investment bankers are (thankfully) fairly rare, handle vast amounts of money and manage to cream off a decent percentage- leading to their vast salaries.

Huge numbers of people in other jobs work just as hard as you wil, but because they have a more common skill, they are more easily replaced and hence paid nowhere near as much as you.

So, I'd say -whether you're religious or not - be thankful if you earn huge sums and consider (that's all I ask) using some of it for others less fortunate.

Clive, Surrey,

Let us compare the bishop and any ordinary rich banker to determine whose actions are more compassionate. The banker provides jobs for the poor, creates new wealth, allows an economic system to flourish, pays taxes ... The bishop wastes people's time, pays no taxes, lives off the anxiety of others and promotes a crude form of anti-intellectualism. Could you think of anyone more repugnant.

Alec, Toronto, Canada

May I humbly suggest that the Bishop would be more useful to society if he got a job in the city and created more wealth, rather than living off the charity of others.

The bishop is fundamentally wrong about capitalism. Capitalism is the unforced creation of wealth. By trading services through the exchange of money more weatlh is created. The opposite of wealth is stagnation and poverty, and we all know the trouble poverty causes.

It is certainly reasonable for the able to support the disabled and sick, but it is unreasonable for the most productive of society, which includes the so-called "fat cats" and bankers, to support the least productive, including shaman, witch doctors, bishops and other people who claim direct access to a god they can't prove exist.

Also if you think money is evil you should read this passage from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged": http://www.working-minds.com/money.htm

Mark, Westminster, London, UK

Leave it to the religious mentalists to dump it bigtime on wordly excellence. It is not greed that cause this mess, but dishonesty. Not the priveledged or the rich, but the crooks. This is why I pray directly to God through the sun and the trees and the sea-waves instead of through the distorted rags of bishops.

eugene, heidelberg, germany

Reverend Michael-Ali, here we go again; the rich are rich, because theyre mean, dide'nt knew that???????

Happy Easter to all times workers&readers of this media !
Ken

Cllr Ken Tiwari (Independent), Oxford, United Kingdom

Assuming no tax dodges:

nearly 40% goes direct to the government.
Another 17.5% on VAT on many items
Buy a house? Oh, further taxes.
Fuel duty... the list goes on!

Private healthcare? They're still paying for the NHS
Private schools? They're still paying for state ones.

I thought that the Church was extremely rich. Oh, but it's easy to score points off others.

Richard, London, England

The bishop lost the plot ages ago. Sack him he is off his head. In society certain people will will be wealth and others poor. In the islamic religion wvrybody gives 2.5% of earnings to charity at home and abroad which means a greater distribution of wealth. All the bisjhop is trying to do is trying to attract attention to himself. I think he needs to keep quiet as he is totally losing the plot.

ismail, preston, england

I created my wealth, I choose to give to charity and serve my family.

Less laziness from those who just live on benefits, and those who think that attended a desk everday in a posh office consists of work, it's not creating lasting wealth.

Get to it...

John, London,

God doesn't exist end of...

Fill your boots boys!

Paul Sullivan, Chester,

Can we be absolutely certain that the Bishop of Rochester said, greedy "bankers"?

Robert, Hull,

1) Giving to charity is also a PR exercise and those who shout most about their charity giving are probably doing it for reasons that are not entirely positive. Gates and Buffet are two prime examples.

2) We may need bankers but we do not need usery.

Alan Heaton, Framkfurt,

:Life is a Minestrone"

The world needs both bishops AND bankers. If all talented people became bishops, there would be nobody left to create the jobs which mean that laiety get to live a better life than subsistence farming.

Come to think of it, if there were a prize for the greediest bankers in history, the Medici sponsored Popes would probably get it. Or steal it.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

I'm just about to start a job in investment banking in the Summer. What most people don't realise it takes a tremendous amount of work to get these jobs. In addition to being paid a very good graduate salary, it comes with long hours that will cut into my social life. I appreciate that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth but in contrast some people have worked very hard to get where they are and in return should be paid a good salary. That said, I think top executives earn too much, verging on the obscene.

Dan, Manchester, Greater Manchester

The bishop is correct in most of what he says. Those city types probably don't think about the effect of what they have done on ordinary people's lives, and the misery they are likely to cause. Really they are very bad sinners without realising it.

The fact is that the money that pays for their luxury items is not real wealth they have created, just paper money created out of the dodgy loans they have supplied to the less well-off.

However the solution is mainly for them to change their business practices, particularly compensation schemes. It is not the answer that they should give more to charity.

The thought of giving piles more money to African charities fills me with despair. Most of it gets creamed off in administration and corruption, and what is left doesn't really help their local economy.

Toby, Winchester, UK

The difference between communism and Christianity is that communism labels personal wealth as intrinsically immoral and legislates to remove it from people fby force if necessary. (Apart of course, from communist leaders who always have access to the best of everything.)

Whereas for Jesus, it's the love of money that's intrinsically damaging - 'the root of all manner of evil'. He encourages His followers to transform through sharing what they have - and then to share what they have because they are transformed people.

Inner transformation versus tranfer by imposition. Simple really. The Bishop is spot on , and, to judge from this piece, no communist.

Fran Waddams, E Midlands,

Does the Bishop really believe these people eat or stash their money away?, i would bet they spend their money which redistributes wealth.
The most beneficial wealth to society is that which is created not that which is shared.

wayne, huntingdon, cambridgeshire

There are rogues, there are villains and there are bankers!

John Richardson, Brixham,

Funny... in Canada, it is the non-secular corporatists that are trying to tell the sheeple that the opinions of the religious and their holidays should simply be ignored... unless there are some actual sales attached to them like Christmas, of course...

However, if religious leaders are now saying that the barons of global trade should be sharing their wealth with their fellow man, it is no wonder that their opinions must be discredited.

Happy Non-Easter by the way!

RAM, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Bishop is right on the two main points he has made. Strange that Alex (below) shd think of him "a communist". Many, before Marx, have said that wealth, whether in land, money or other resources has a social dimension, even if the legal owner is one individual who has the first power of disposal over those resources. On the second point too he is right: Christianity is at the heart of European history and society. True, it had caused a lot of problems, [ wars, inquisitions, persecutions] but it has shaped peace and development too. Groups such as Hindus, Buddhists, Jains Falun Gong and Zoroastrians would be better off living in a Christian Britain than in any other. I say, the Bishop is a true man of God. May he continue to alert the rest of us to the deeper values we need to live by.

Kris iyer, Chennai, India

Nothing so silly as to state the obvious. Having said that, I wonder how much the Vatican or Canterbury have share? It is not relative but preportional to one's holdings.

Sensible Jack

Jack Poland, Denver, Colorado, USA

Nothing so silly as to state the obvious. Having said that, I wonder how much the Vatican, Canterbury, or the Church of Hollywood, have given? Remember the amount is not relative but perportional to ones holdings.


sensible jack

Jack Poland, Denver, Colorado, USA

"richest men and women must curb their greed "

This is of course basically the mantra of Labour and the LibDems, not to mention the BBC - the lie that anyone wealthy is by definition greedy. It usually is expressed by the politics of envy practiced by so many politicians and in the media.

Stan(expat), US, USA

"Bishop of Rochester: save your souls, you greedy bankers"

This is going to be good. I am waiting for all those pro Nazir-Ali folks who were patting him on the back for his Islamophobic rants to appear. Will they pat him now?

lmfao!

jayil, london, uk

So, there are some sickeningly rich people in the country (I agree there are). So what? Is the Bishop going to auction off that golden staff I see him holding in the picture above?

I very much doubt it. Why should somebody who has worked damn hard for their wealth, be lectured that they should give it away to people who haven't worked hard to earn their wealth?

If I'm not mistaken, this Bishop is a communist. Yet another ludicrious lecture by this Bishop (when his previous comments about no go areas in this country were examined, they proved to be false). Btw, I'm not rich at all. I'm not, because I haven't worked towards it. I'm not going to expect rich people to prop me up. However sickeningly rich they are, I'm not going to used religion and its blackmail to siphon it out of them.

Alex, South West, UK

Is the Bishop going to 'give up' his gold,silver, and pearls? AAAhhhh the 'elite'....see you in heaven,,??

Mr Tim, San Marcos, U S of A / Ca