UNITED STATES
AO Advocates
Posted by: A.Dean on Aug 24 2012
This week, The Economist published an extensive exposé on the financial organisation and mechanisms that underlie the activities of the American Catholic Church. The writers and researchers at The Economist have outdone themselves in the depth of their investigation, and the piece is certainly worth reading in its entirety (link here).
The article details of some of the shadier financial practices of the Catholic Church—obfuscation, diversion and commingling of funds, hiding behind the Church’s tax-exempt status—much of which is hardly surprising. Snippets of such information on this matter have found their way into the press in recent years, usually following major cases of clergy sexual abuse. But it is reading about the pervasiveness of these activities, and in greater detail, that truly shocks the conscience.
It is also worth highlighting that a great deal of this knowledge of Church finances has only come to be accessible as a result of litigation, and in many cases, bankruptcies, arising from sexual abuse civil suits against dioceses.
But on to some of the more striking figures—which help give a sense of just how big a presence the Catholic Church is in America. The Economist estimates that annual spending by the Church and entities owned by the Church was around $170 billion (£107.57 billion) in 2010, and that these entities together employed 1 million people. Almost 100 million Americans have been baptised into the Catholic faith, and 74 million self-identify as Catholic.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.