UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody
Posted on July 3, 2016 by Betty Clermont
Tomorrow, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will complete their annual “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign, a call-to-arms in defense of their “freedom” to deny women and LGBT persons theirs.
As they so often do, the bishops tell us, “We are dedicated … to remain free to provide education, to care for the sick, the poor, and the migrant,” in a paid advertisement for this year’s campaign. The USCCB is selling a four minute video “featuring stories of the importance of religious freedom for institutions that perform the works of mercy – educating children, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick.”
Their last meeting open to the press ended with USCCB president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, “highlighting the bishops’ push for religious exemptions for charities, schools and individual for-profit business owners who oppose gay marriage and other laws and regulations.”
On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced a new multimedia platform that “will reach Catholics and non-Catholics alike about the good works in the parishes, schools and ministries not only in the archdiocese, but around the world.”
The bishops would have us believe that Catholic charity has an enormous impact on the well-being of our society. While it’s true that many Catholics are generous with their time and money – as are many Americans – the funding coming from the bishops is very small in proportion to their wealth and minuscule in proportion to total U.S. charity.
Government funding of Catholic charity
When Pope Francis was in the U.S. ten months ago, he visited with people helped by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. The archdiocese lists $123 million in net assets on its financial report for 2014 and total revenues of $95.6 million. Of that, Cardinal Donald Wuerl gave only $254,000 to Catholic Charities in 2014 while taxpayers provided $32 million.
This is usual. The Economist estimated that of the total expenditures by “the U.S. Church and entities” just 2.7 percent goes to charity and 62 percent of the income of its charitable activities “came from local, state and federal government agencies.”
Catholic Charities USA received 63 percent of its revenue from government support in 2014. Of that, 85 percent was spent on charitable services. According to the Forbes list of the “50 Largest U.S. Charities,” these organizations combined received $33 billion in private support. Catholic Charities USA received $757 million, or less than 2 percent of the private support for only the largest of the thousands of U.S. charities – not exactly the behemoth the bishops would have us believe.
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