NORWAY
Independent (UK)
Shehab Khan @shehabkhan Wednesday 30 November 2016
The Norwegian Catholic Church has been fined for overstating the number of its members in an attempt to receive more state funding.
The church is accused of looking for immigrants with names that would suggest they were of Catholic origin and adding them to the list of members without their knowledge.
Prosecutors have given the Diocese of Oslo, responsible for keeping records of Catholics living in the country, a one million kroner (£95,000) fine.
If the church refuses to pay the fine it will face trial and the chief administrative officer of the diocese has already been charged with aggravated fraud, prosecutors have said.
“We’ve never done anything illegal or received too much money,” the Catholic Church said in a statement, AFP reported.
“We have always recognised that we have made mistakes and had an unfortunate practise in parts of our registration. This was cleaned up a long (time) ago.”
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