to be quite shocked that the church invests so much in media?

[Orbinator]

I realise the Church is in effect a business now, however I didn't realise that all that collection money is being proffered to such companies as NOTW.
Isn't it fairly obvious that this is to promote religion in some way in our national press? I realise NOTW is/was less than independent, but I'm still quite amazed.
Surely they could fix all those bloomin' church roofs in one fell swoop!
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8627499/Phone-hacking-scandal-Church-of-England-could-withdraw-4-million-from-News-Corp.html

Yep, think I just hadn't really associated the two before and that was why I was surprised. I do have an ISA, so it's more than likely I've invested in NI myself, admittedly. I think I thought the church had more local investments and supported local communities in this way, rather than on such a large global scale. It obviously does make sense to be global but I think I just needed to be bought into the C21!

Oh, and I was being flippant with the church roof comment

In its own way the CofE is very into local investment, as it's probably the biggest landowner in the country after the Crown. [hsmile]

The Church Commissioners are also answerable to Parliament for how they manage the CofE's assets - part of the trade-off for being an established church. I think by law some of the commissioners have to be MPs.