Philadelphia Archdiocese-finances Story

TribTown
October 3, 2014

http://www.tribtown.com/view/story/086606363ea5411184372a4a1096279b/PA--Philadelphia-Archdiocese-Finances

In a story Oct. 2 about property sales by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, The Associated Press reported erroneously the amount and type of liabilities the sales are to help offset. The sales will help pay about $126 million in pension and trust and loan fund liabilities, not $287 million in pension and insurance liabilities.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Philadelphia Archdiocese sells properties for $56M

Philadelphia Archdiocese sells properties for $56 million to help shore up finances, pensions

By KATHY MATHESON

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is selling three parcels of land for more than $56 million in an effort to shore up its finances, church officials announced Thursday.

Most proceeds from the transactions, which involve about 700 acres in the Philadelphia suburbs and Lehigh Valley, will go toward a parish trust and loan fund. About $3.7 million will go to the priests' pension fund, officials said.

The properties include a 200-acre tract in Delaware County that will be sold for $47 million to Jenkintown-based Cardinal Crossing Realty Associates, according to the archdiocese.

The Marple Township site has been home to church facilities serving dozens of disabled men, who are being relocated to make way for commercial and residential development.

The archdiocese also has a $5.5 million agreement with David T. Davis for a 454-acre lot in Northampton County that houses a defunct spiritual retreat. Davis, of Bethlehem, said he hopes to renovate the property and continue its religious use after the sale closes.

"It's a phenomenal building," Davis said Thursday. "Hopefully we can revitalize it."

Officials said Woodbine Partners spent $3.7 million for a 54-acre parcel that was considered excess land at the St. John Vianney Center, a facility for mental health and substance abuse in Downingtown, Chester County.

Plans for that site are not clear, the church said. The buyer could not be reached for comment.

The property sales will help put a dent in about $126 million in priests' pension and trust and loan fund liabilities, according to the church.

The archdiocese stunned parishioners in July 2013 by revealing it had a $39.2 million operating deficit, a gap that Archbishop Charles Chaput has described as a product of bad spending habits, not fraud or the priest sex abuse scandal.

The deficit has since shrunk to $5 million through a series of cost-cutting moves, officials say.

Over the past few years, the church sold the archbishop's residence and a vacation home for priests at the Jersey shore. It cut 25 percent of its staff at the pastoral center, outsourced cemetery maintenance and closed 32 parishes from 2009 to 2013.

On July 1, the church announced the sale of six nursing homes for $145 million to a New York-based management group. That sale has not yet closed, and officials haven't decided how the profits will be allocated, said Ken Gavin, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

The archdiocese serves about 1.1 million Catholics in Philadelphia and four surrounding counties.