> I wonder if there is some secret underground religious Venture Capital system that we don't know about.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/private-equity-backed-ministry-...

I’m not sure if they still does it, but as recently as 2017 the Vatican operated/backed a tech accelerator[1]. It included seed funding, demo days, etc.

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/40424655/inside-the-vaticans-tec...

The real value is in lead generation, getting contact info of gullible people with spare money.

Lots of dubious products are marketed to religious people, a segment that are easy to soon part with their money.

I wanted to downvote you for disparaging a massive sector of the population, although it is true that superstition is inevitably easier to peddle to people inclined to some form of mysticism. This said, there are plenty of equally "gullible" non-religious segments though ("bio/organic", homeopathy, fitness, diets, "goop", etc etc...).

There's no reason to assume it is tax free. You can find out.