MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reproter
Brian Roewe | Nov. 24, 2014
Financial records for the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese released Thursday revealed a $9 million deficit in operating activities for the 2014 fiscal year in addition to uncertainty about how high the costs of its sexual abuse scandal will ultimately rise — or where it might lead.
For its archbishop, the situation pared down to a single word: “trouble.”
“Our local Church and our Chancery Corporation, in particular, have known significant ‘trouble’ during the past year,” Archbishop John Nienstedt said in a column Thursday for the archdiocesan newspaper, one he began by quoting Jesus (Matthew 6:34), who reminds his followers to focus on today’s troubles rather than to look ahead to tomorrow. “That ‘trouble’ continues today with the disheartening financial information published in this issue of The Catholic Spirit.” …
Charles Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church Management at Villanova University, said of the financial picture, “The numbers speak for themselves.”
“This is bleak,” he told NCR. “There’s nothing encouraging in the entire report. If I was a parishioner of St. Paul-Minneapolis, I’d find this very discouraging.”
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