Catholics lash out at church leaders with their wallets

By Leslie Albrecht
Market Watch
August 27, 2018

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/catholics-skip-the-collection-plate-amid-moral-catastrophe-of-pennsylvanias-sex-abuse-cover-up-2018-08-20

Some Catholics say they’ll skip putting money in the collection basket during mass as the church reels from revelations of abuse by 300 Pennsylvania priests.

Pittsburgh mom Derya Little is such a devoted Catholic that she wishes she could go to church every day.

But with four small children, she has to limit her Mass attendance to Sundays. Another key part of her faith is the $10,000 a year she and her husband give to Catholic causes. They adhere to a traditional definition of tithing and donate exactly 10% of their gross income to charity per year.

But this week she won’t be leaving a check in the collection plate at her church. In fact, none of the money she and her husband typically donate to Catholic groups will go to her local parish or diocese this year.

Little was so appalled by the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing how 300 priests sexually abused more than 1,000 children and then bishops systematically covered it up that she can’t stomach giving anymore money to church leaders. Instead, she says, she’ll donate only to Catholic causes she trusts, like Ave Maria Radio and missionaries who work in her native Turkey.

Little is writing a letter to her local bishop explaining her decision, and she’s hoping other Catholics will join her in halting donations while also praying for a “cleansing” of the church.

“There needs to be something more than just yelling, screaming and feeling outraged,” Little said. “There needs to be something concrete. This is one of the little things we can do, that any family can do.”

On Sunday, the Vatican faced more troubles stemming from sexual abuses cases by priests. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador to the U.S., alleged in an 11-page letter published by Catholic news media that Pope Francis knew in 2013 that former archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had been sexually active with seminarians and priests, and had even disciplined him privately.

“In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them,” Viganò wrote in his letter.

‘I have only one tool in my box. Money’

Even before Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s accusation, the abuse described in the grand jury report in Pennsylvania — which the Vatican said was “morally reprehensible” — has Catholics reeling and wondering about the limits of their loyalty to the church.

Money is one tangible way to express that anger and uncertainty.

“As a lay Catholic, I sometimes feel helpless to stop this and I have only one tool in my box. Money. I am strongly considering not offering my money at Mass in protest until this is cleaned up. I will spend more time volunteering,” said one “heartbroken” church follower on Twitter TWTR, -1.11%

Others have been more direct: one enraged churchgoer posted a video of church collection envelopes burning on a barbecue grill. Some have suggested that parishioners should stop donating to their churches and, instead, collect money in special accounts that they would control themselves.

The church’s sex abuse scandals have left many of its 1.29 billion worldwide followers feeling betrayed, and they’ve also taken a financial toll. This May, for instance, the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis agreed to pay $210 million to 450 sex abuse victims. That archdiocese is one of 19 dioceses or religious orders that have filed for bankruptcy protection as the church has paid out more than $3 billion in settlements and monetary awards for victims, according to the watchdog website Bishop Accountability.

Catholics fear their donations are enabling a culture of abuse and secrecy

“I don’t want to donate any more money because they have spent so much on legal fees, I don’t know where my money is going, I’d rather just give to individual charities,” wrote a woman on a Catholic online forum.

Donations to local parishes are mostly used to fund church operations and all kinds of social services, from disaster relief to helping the family in the next pew pay their bills after a job loss. But some Catholics are struggling to reconcile those benefits with the fact that, in some instances, donation money has been used to facilitate abuse.

In one case described in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, a man who was sexually abused as a teen by a Pittsburgh-area priest said he reported the abuse at the time, but church officials apparently did nothing.

More than a decade later he contacted the diocese again. Officials ended up giving the victim about $24,000 to help pay for his three children’s Catholic education. About $10,000 of that money came from the diocese’s “Catholic Charities Fund,” according to the report. The expense was listed in the diocese’s financial records as “tuition assistance grants.”

Church officials offered another victim money to pay for counseling and for his children’s college tuition, but he refused when he realized the money was meant to buy his silence, according to the report.

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik has apologized and said the church has changed significantly since the abuse detailed in the grand jury report. “I want to show the faithful and the broader community that we have learned from the past,” he said at a press conference.

‘A lot of people just leave. I say, “Don’t leave, stay and fight. This is your church.”’

Where the collection plate money goes

Catholics give on an average about $10 a week to their parish, said Mary Gautier, senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a Georgetown University-affiliated research center.

Most of that money stays with the church to cover overhead costs like building maintenance and priest salaries, she said. On average, about 13% of the money collected during Mass is sent on to the local diocese in the form of a yearly tax called an assessment, Gautier said. And some of the money trickles up to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which charges assessments to pay for church staff in the U.S. — including some of the leaders who allegedly covered up abuse.

The group took in $11.3 million in assessments in 2016, according to its most recent financial statements. The USCCB did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement released Thursday, USCCB officials said the church is facing a “moral catastrophe” and offered an action plan to address it.

Donations dropped after the 2002 Boston scandal — briefly

After the 2002 Boston Globe investigation that revealed decades of abuse by Massachusetts clergy, church attendance among Catholics nationwide dropped — and so did their monetary donations, Gautier said. But the effect was “minor” and didn’t last.

“There was a small trend in backing off from diocesan appeals, but it was offset by people giving more to their local parish,” Gautier said. “We interpreted it as people saying, ‘I’m disappointed in my bishop and angry about what’s going on in the church, but I still love my parish and the pastor still needs money to keep the lights on.’”

Withholding donations can also deprive people in need, some say

Church leaders have argued that withholding donations only hurts the millions who rely on that charity. In Buffalo, N.Y., the local chapter of the national charity group Catholic Charities barely made its $11 million fundraising goal this spring because some parishioners refused to donate. They were protesting the church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations involving the Buffalo diocese, said Buffalo bishop Richard J. Malone in a blog post.

Reaching the $11 million goal “was a unique struggle this year as a result of the abuse crisis,” Malone wrote in a post published before the Pennsylvania grand jury report. Malone said he understood parishioners’ disappointment, disgust and anger. But he said he didn’t understand the logic behind holding back on contributions to Catholic Charities, calling it “a decision that only harms those people who look to us for necessary assistance in times of serious need.”

‘We assure donors that contributions will never go to fund any settlements.’

Indeed, Catholic Charities of Buffalo reaches 153,000 people a year — of all faiths — with services including mental health counseling, addiction treatment, and help for domestic violence victims and refugees.

“The vast majority of our donors continue to be very generous and they understand that the funds they contribute to the annual Appeal support Catholic Charities’ comprehensive programs for people in need and those who are vulnerable,” said Sister Mary McCarrick, Catholic Charities of Buffalo diocesan director. “We also assure donors that contributions to the campaign will never go to fund any settlements.”

Donors were more likely to skip giving this year because they had just donated to the diocese’s capital campaign, rather than as a protest over Buffalo’s recent clergy sexual abuse scandal, she noted.

Nationwide, the church and its related groups operates a vast charity network, with Catholic Charities alone serving 8 million people in 2017, according to CARA.

The number of Catholics is shrinking in the U.S.

There are now 30 million former Catholics in the U.S., and the number of people who identify as Catholic dropped from 81.6 million in 2015 to 74.3 million in 2017, according to CARA. About 27% of those who had left the church did so because of the clergy sexual abuse scandals, according to a 2010 survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center.

But Derya Little, the Pittsburgh mom who’s going to stop donating to her local parish, says she’s not planning to give up on her spiritual home any time soon. “A lot of people just leave,” Little said. “I say, ‘Don’t leave, stay and fight. This is your church.’”