The New York Catholic Diocese, which once blamed its pedophilia problem on “a few bad apples,” has declared bankruptcy over mounting legal costs in the 200 lawsuits it faces over child sexual abuse allegations, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, said on Thursday that it was seeking financial protection partly because of the passage of New York State’s Child Victims Act, which allows adults who were sexually assaulted as children, to file claims.
Serving about 1.5 million Catholics, the Rockville diocese is not the first to file for bankruptcy protection, but it is the largest, New York Times reported.
More than 20 Catholic dioceses — including two in New York state — have filed for bankruptcy over the past 16 years, according to BishopAccountability.org, which tracks sexual abuse cases in the church. The Rockville Centre diocese is the eighth largest in the U.S.
In its federal bankruptcy court filing, the diocese said that about 40 percent of its annual revenue usually comes from collections at parishes, where donations fell after Sunday Mass services were suspended or restricted due to covid-19.
The diocese said it “was not going to be able to carry out its spiritual, charitable and educational missions” due to “the increasing burden of litigation expenses,” Bishop John O. Barres said in a video message.
In July, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan compared criticism of the Catholic clergy to criticism of the New York Police Department. In his defense of the NYPD, Dolan said “that while bad apples there indeed may be, they are very rare,” USA Today reported in August 2020.
The Roman Catholic Church is considered the wealthiest organization in the world but it is secretive about its wealth. No one knows exactly how much money it has.
That’s because, unlike other categories of tax-exempt “nonprofits”, religious organizations in the U.S. don’t have to submit basic financial reporting to the IRS.
One source put the Catholic Church’s U.S. operating budget at $170 billion in 2012.
“It operates a vast and lucrative network of schools, universities, and hospitals whose Medicare and Medicaid patients are bankrolled by American taxpayers, yet it is listed as a nonprofit organization. Ministers and other clergy may write off their rent, mortgage, home upkeep, furniture, utilities—even their cable bills. Churches cumulatively spend just a tiny fraction of their fortunes on actual charity,” Listverse reported.
Most Catholics have no idea of the extent of the church’s assets. There is no public record, said Peter Johnstone, an Australian corporate governance consultant and president of Catholics for Renewal.
“There’s a lot of other secrecy within the church, and that secrecy must be undone,” Johnstone said on ABC News in Australia. “Any organization receiving public funds should be accountable for those funds and the government in making those funds available should know exactly how they’re being spent.”
Pope Francis is not just the spiritual leader of arguably the most significant religious group in the world, but also the head of probably the wealthiest institution the world has ever seen, Stafannel B. Morris wrote in Pope2You.
The church’s global spending matches the annual revenues of the largest firms in the world. Its assets include real estate, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Vatican City, and the most significant art pieces in existence.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Party’s sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.
“Still, it is surprisingly difficult to understand how rich the church really is,” Morris wrote. “This is due to the fact that church finances are complicated, but also because, at least in the U.S., churches do not make financial reports.”
Church leaders in the U.S. see bankruptcy as a good solution because it provides secrecy and a controlled process for settling a large number of lawsuits while holding on to as many assets as possible, Bloomberg reported.
“Lawsuits and trials lead to testimony and publicity. Bankruptcy ensures a quieter mass settlement that forces an end to existing lawsuits and blocks new ones. ‘It provides a clean slate,’ said Robert Kugler, a lawyer who represented abuse victims in the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese.”
