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In a comment to the recent post on gaps in the institutional church's lists of names of abusive clergy, Katherine posed this question:
Is a diocese ever justified in trying to protect assets?I'd like to share a few thoughts on this question.
If we consider the question in a vacuum, "Should a diocese protect its investments, its property, its cash on hand and similar financial assets?", the answer clearly is, Yes. Church leaders have an obligation to be responsible stewards of those assets, especially inasmuch as much of the wealth the institution manages came to it in the forms of donations, gifts, wills and similarly generous giving from individual donors who are members of the church. Responsible management of the church's assets is part of being good shepherds.
But it is very common for victims' advocates to ask, Which is the higher priority, the well-being of victims or the protection of church assets? I suppose there is no need to rehearse here in detail the shameful church history which triggers that question: dioceses and other institutional entities spiritually and financially intimidated victims, forced them to sign non-disclosure agreements, played legal hardball, and generally treated them as threats rather than as victims. Not to mention that the institution covered up instances of abuse, did its best to pull strings with police departments and prosecutors, shuffled abusers from one parish to another without informing parishioners that the newly assigned priest is an abuser, permitted abusers to transfer to other dioceses without informing the new diocese of the abuser's track record, permitted abusive priests to move to other countries, and so on.
This shameful history makes it clear that the well-being of children has not always been valued as highly as it should have been. If we're given this binary choice (protect children or protect financial assets), the moral answer is obvious: the church must protect children, even if that protection requires the expenditure of large amounts of money.
This consideration of a binary choice illustrates that organizations can have multiple goals and objectives, and there are times when they conflict with one another. How should an organization's leaders balance those competing objectives, and seek to resolve conflicts between them?
The classic way to analyze this problem is to ask a series of questions: What is the organization's mission? Do its goals, objectives and activities flow from this mission, or are some of them misaligned? And how should goals, objectives and activities be prioritized in order for the organization to fulfill its mission?
In my view, the mission of the church is to preach the Good News and make disciples, which it sustains through the sacramental life.
If we accept that this is the church's mission, then the threats from the abuse crises come into sharp focus: for the church to give credible witness to its faith in Jesus Christ, its preachers - meaning its leaders - must be people of great truthfulness and personal integrity. They must lead translucent lives, through which the light of Christ shines.
These personal characteristics - truthfulness, personal integrity, holiness - are critical to the church's public reputation. The church's effectiveness in carrying out its mission rises and falls with its public reputation. A church with a poor reputation cannot credibly proclaim the Gospel. Such a church is not translucent with the light of the Gospel; it is huddling beneath the cellar stairs, hiding in the darkness, hoping that the light does not land upon it lest its evil deeds become apparent.
Note what we've just done: to our binary choice (protect children vs. protect financial assets) we've added a third objective: earn and sustain a good public reputation.
A reader may feel a certain impatience with the reflection up to this point: s/he may say, 'Yes, a good public reputation is an important consideration; but surely children should be protected, regardless of its impact on the church's reputation.'
I'd reply by making two points. The first is that, at this point in the history of the church in the US, in which the church's formerly good reputation already has been squandered and lies smashed to pieces in the gutter, the church has no hope for restoring its good reputation except by justly and effectively addressing the problems of abuse.
The second point is that the phrase "protecting children" really is shorthand for two different sets of requirements, and it's important that we distinguish between them. They are: (1) minimizing the possibility that current and future abuse will take place; and (2) dealing justly and effectively with abuse which already has happened in the church. Properly speaking, only no. 1 falls under the category "protecting children". But most of the pain and anguish - and financial risk - for the church is because of no. 2: the church has not dealt justly and effectively with abuse that already has occurred.
For abuse which already has occurred in the past, the most important question isn't about "protecting children"; the church already has failed to protect those victims, and there is no way of undoing what has been done to them. For these victims, it is not a question of the church protecting them; it is a question of the church acknowledging what happened, showing solidarity with them and helping them to heal. In many cases, the victims no longer are children themselves; they're now adults, and in at least some of those now-grown-up victims continue to suffer the consequences today of the church's past failures. The church certainly has a moral responsibility to do what it can for those victims, but those things which can be done don't fall under the problem of "protecting children" (except insofar as the abusers may still be in ministry; many victims have said that it's important to victims that they are able to see that the abusers are called to account and removed from ministry).
Most of the abuse crises that have afflicted the church in the last couple of years - the former-Cardinal McCarrick stories, the Bishop Bransfield stories, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, the activities of Attorneys General in other states, and now the analysis of gaps in lists of abusers - pertain, not to protecting children today (no. 1 above), but rather how to deal justly and effectively with abuse that already has taken place (no. 2 above).
If you've followed my argument this far and buy it, or at least haven't dismissed it completely, you may see that we've now expanded the binary choice with which we started this reflection. The way the binary choice usually is presented ("Which is more important, protecting children or protecting the church's assets?") may be rhetorically effective, but it's not well-rooted in reality. The reality seems to be more complex: we've now named four objectives which church leaders must somehow balance:
- Protecting today's and tomorrow's children from abuse
- Addressing justly and effectively those instances of abuse which occurred in the past
- Stewarding the church's financial assets
- Repairing the church's public reputation
I hope it's clear - at least it's clear to me - that, of these four objectives, the key one, the objective for which the the institutional church's ability to carry out its mission will succeed or fail in the coming years, is no. 2: addressing justly and effectively those instances of abuse which occurred in the past.
What about the other three objectives? Regarding no. 1 (protecting today's and tomorrow's children from abuse), the church has taken measures already, which its leaders believe to be effective, to minimize that risk. Future historians will judge how effective those measures have been, and whether the institution's leaders' faith in them has been justified.
As for objectives 3 and 4 (stewarding financial assets and repairing the church's reputation), those will largely be a function of the church's success in achieving no. 2 (addressing claims of past abuse justly and effectively). If the church fails in addressing no. 2, it almost surely will fail in addressing nos. 3 and 4 as well. If the church succeeds in addressing no. 2, it isn't guaranteed to achieve nos. 3 and 4, but at least it has a chance to get those right.
If this analysis is correct, then the most important question that church leaders must be able to answer is: What would constitute the church addressing abuse claims from the past justly and effectively?
The starting point must be that the church cannot cover up abuse committed by its clergy. It must allow the light of day to shine upon the misdeeds of the sexual criminals in its ranks. Church leaders must be forthcoming with the case histories. Their recounting of these sordid histories must be comprehensive and complete. Half measures in this respect won't do; half measures smack of covering up - they wound the church's public reputation. It doesn't do for a diocese to provide a list of diocesan abusers but omit religious order abusers. It doesn't do to omit the names of clergy who have died. It doesn't do to omit the names of clergy with only one credible accusation against them. Church leaders must commit to being comprehensively forthcoming, and the various church entities must engage in the necessary collaboration to ensure that what is published truly is comprehensive. The church's senior-most leaders (in the Holy See) must provide the necessary direction to induce entities of various sorts (dioceses, religious orders, seminaries, et al) to collaborate as necessary.
Second, the church's institutional leaders must purge criminals from its ranks of clergy, as quickly and completely as it can. Not only those who are currently abusing, but also those about whom the church can credibly and reasonably conclude have committed abuse in the past. Justice for their victims demands this. What's more, any other course of action can only imperil the church's public reputation. In addition to purging the abusers themselves, church leaders who knowingly enabled the abusers, or who failed to act to prevent abusers from having access to victims, also should be disciplined appropriately.
Third, the church must do whatever it can to provide healing and wholeness to past victims. The Gospel should be Good News for victims of sexual abuse. The church should be a ministering angel to victims: healing wounds, drying tears, giving comfort and consolation, fighting for justice for individual victims, and working for just laws and institutions to ensure that justice is done in civil society.
In light of this lengthy discussion, let's return now to the question which kicked it off: Katherine's question, "Is a diocese ever justified in protecting its assets?" Based on this reflection, an answer might go something like this: the church is obligated to care for past victims of abuse, and caring for victims can be an expensive proposition. At the very least, the church is morally obligated to pay for therapy and counseling services. And the hard reality is that, under current secular law, the church will continue to be required to pay civil and punitive damages to victims - and that risk is expanding as more states continue to open windows of exceptions to statutes of limitations.
Do large civil and punitive judgments actually constitute care for victims in any meaningful sense? Does the transfer of huge amounts of financial assets (streams of cash) to victims heal any wounds, dry any tears, provide any comfort and consolation? Does it represent justice - does it punish the wrongdoers and redress the disorder caused by the crime? I confess I continue to be skeptical that these large payouts bring about genuine justice, and that they accomplish any practical good for the victims. But perhaps they do accomplish these things to some limited extent. Perhaps that's the best we can do on earth, especially when the perpetrator has died.
At the least, it seems reasonable to suppose that the risk of having to make large payouts to scores of former victims acts as a strong incentive for the church leaders to behave as recommended in this reflection. Yet surely the same risk of large payouts also has served as a strong incentive for the church to act dysfunctionally: for it to deny, minimize, stonewall and pursue other strategies that may make sense to defense attorneys but not for a church.
Here, we need to urge church leaders to tailor their legal strategies to the four objectives listed above. Do scorched-earth legal strategies help past victims (objective #2)? Do they build up the church's reputation (objective #4)? Pretty clearly, these legal tactics are antithetical to both objectives. Pursuing these erroneous tactics may preserve the church's assets for a time, but in the long run, they run counter to the church's mission.
Thanks, Jim. I think you are right that there isn't a simple Yes or No answer. You laid out the complexities and conflicts nicely.
ReplyDeleteIf you ask the clergy whether they should support the church (themselves) or victims they are always going to end up supporting themselves.
ReplyDeleteMy personal answer to this is that I believe in a poor church for the poor. I give my money to the parish food bank and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society with an token contribution to the parish for administrative expenses.
My ideal church is one of voluntary (clerical as well as lay) rather than paid ministry. I think that would begin to solve many of our problems.
The small, poor church model works when you're in a small town, or when your church is a small minority in a bigger place. Because that's the only option you have. You either do things on a shoestring, or you don't do them. I think of the little Pentecostal storefront churches that spring up. Maybe that's more the way the early Christians were. But they have their problems, too. Sometimes there's an unhealthy ingrownness, and abuse scandals have been known to happen in small poor places, too.
DeleteCorporate bankruptcy laws were written to ensure the vital assets survived the idiocies of a single generation of managers. That is also why corporations "are persons, too, my friend." There should be some stigma to declaring bankruptcy. There used to be with personal bankruptcy, but now everyone knows people forced into bankruptcy by production shifts or by an insurance company that lawfully double-crossed them. So there is less stigma attached to personal bankruptcy, and the reputation of corporate bankruptcy benefits from that societal change. It has always been possible to get rich through corporate bankruptcy: Borrow money and don't pay it back. The alcalde de Norteamérica is proud of his six bankruptcies, each one as perfect as a phone call.
ReplyDeleteIf the law is properly carried out by the courts, the current generation of ordained idiots really shouldn't have a decision to make on this issue after they decide to go there.
A problem, of course, is that the Church's wealth is mostly tied up in real estate. And, no matter how beloved a particular church is to the great grandchildren of the generation that built it with their nickels and dimes, on the market about the only value of most church property is as a teardown.
Peter and Paul got along without that kind of wealth.
Before we get to spinning off property, though, there ought to be a few rounds of belt-tightening, which the Church universal has never undergone. The only only way to reform the Curia, for example, is to have less of it. And do we really need to make every church an chapel have a full complement of the latest translations, in the most expensive form possible, that someone in Rome has ordered up while undergoing change of life? Why not put the updates on the lectors' telephones and relegate the gold-leaf tomes to the sacristy closet? Just for examples.
Re: real estate: even apart from abuse cases and the need to pay victims, the church struggles to rationalize its real estate holdings to its mission. There are any number of parishes in the Chicago archdiocese with ornate church buildings (in a number of cases, more opulent than our cathedral) on prime urban real estate, which are mostly empty on Sundays, primarily because of demographic shifts since the time the buildings were built. At least some of those parishes aren't solvent - really, they should be closed.
DeleteOff topic; parts of Nebraska had an earthquake, 2.9 on the Richter scale today. We didn't notice a thing; we were in the movie theater watching "The Return of Skywalker". The pyrotechnics were such that it would have taken a lot stronger quake than that to register.
ReplyDeleteWe have earthquakes here on occasion, too, although I've never actually felt a tremor, but others have. Illinois is on a fault line.
DeleteThe only time I actually felt a tremor was when a house exploded some 10 or so miles away. I can't imagine what it must have felt like for people who lived on that block.
Church leaders have an obligation to be responsible stewards of those assets, especially inasmuch as much of the wealth the institution manages came in the forms of donations, gifts, wills and similar generous giving from individual donors who are members of the church
ReplyDeleteThe problem about contributing money (as distinct from talent) to the Church goes far beyond the sexual abuse issue. Back in 1992 right before my mother died we had a family conference about our joint wills if all three of us died. We decided rather than dividing the money among my aunts and uncles (too old to help them much), their children (that's where the money had gone but they had mostly raised their children) or their grand children (too many to keep track of). So we decided to give it to charity.
We decided not to give it to any of our parishes because we were pretty sure then that most of them would not exist in the future. (In other words the failure of the bishops to face the priest shortage effectively meant we had no reason to invest in our parishes). This was before the sexual abuse issue came up. Even then we had no reason to invest in the diocese because quite frankly bishops have always been too far removed to trust them. They are like politicians.
We decided to give our money to Wheeling Jesuit University in terms of scholarship money for people from the county in SW Pennsylvania where I grew up. When my father died in 2002 I gave an initial gift to start that scholarship fund. I had thought a Jesuit University even a small struggling one was a safe future but I was wrong.
As part of Bransfield's corruption he not only abused adults, he spent the money that was not his, both from the diocese and Wheeling (Catholic) Hospital, on all sorts of schemes including taking over Wheeling Jesuit University. Originally the University had besides its visible Board of Trustees an invisible corporation composed of three entities (the Maryland Jesuit Province, the Diocese of Wheeling, and the Board of Trustees) that had ultimate control of the University. By purchasing Wheeling University's debt bonds the Bishop of Wheeling became Wheeling University's corporate sole. The Jesuits have disaffiliated themselves from Wheeling University and the University has changed its name to reflect that. I suspect it is on its way to become a secular university.
I had enough behind the scenes contacts to recognize how evil Bransfield was a decade ago. My will is now directed to supporting the mentally ill. I would not trust any Catholic institution to administer those funds since a bishop can always get control of them if they try hard enough.
The sin of injustice of the bishops is not simply against the victims it is against all of us Catholics and indeed the whole general public whom they have betrayed and can continue to betray because they are accountable to no one. My answer is that they do not deserve our money until the bishops enable us laity to hold them accountable by internal means rather than by the our civil legal system. Until then we have to keep the money that helps the poor out of the hands of bishops.
Jim,
DeleteIn terms of your goals, I think it will take much more than doing #1 and #2 to accomplish #4 which unless it is done means #3 cannot be done effectively. Bishop accountability is the bottom line.
A long time ago, a reformed diocesan comptroller (in apostolic succession to the first d.c., Judas) told me that Peter's Pence is well and thoroughly skimmed by the parish and diocese before it reaches Peter. The pastors and bishops will say "It's all for the church after all, doncha know." But if they'll steal from the pope, they'll steal from anybody.
DeleteMaybe it's time to rethink the Corporation Sole for dioceses in the United States. Other models of asset stewardship are available. Jack, your stories here have my hair standing on end.
DeleteJust to expand a bit on my previous comment: Jack's story of how his family approached the deeding of their assets strikes me as a model of responsible stewardship. When Jack made his initial gift to Wheeling U, Bransfield was not yet bishop; and his irresponsibility with the diocese's assets did not become publicly known, to the best of my knowledge, until pretty recently.
DeleteBut the larger point is that, even if we do our due diligence and select a diocese or a university that is well and responsibly managed, that only holds true as long as the current occupier is in office. His successor could be a crook or incompetent or both. And as I understand the Corporation Sole structure, by virtue of his office he has what amounts to unilateral control of the diocese's assets.
Essentially our family relationship to the University was based on my good relationship with the Jesuit President from 1980 to 2000. While there was a new president when I established the initial scholarship in 2002, I thought good management would continue. However there were a succession of Jesuit presidents lasting for about three years each. While I missed the close relationship I had had, I did not become concerned until the Jesuit president was fired in 2009 andd NCR had a story that attributed it to Bransfield.
DeleteI did my research and found out the existence of the three entity superboard, and I asked the key question what happened if the Province of the Maryland Province and the Bishop of Wheeling decided to close Wheeling Jesuit and divide the assets between them. The answer nothing could be done, perhaps the scholarship money might go to other Jesuit institutions. I suspected both bishop and the provincial had other priorities.
The reality is that even if you do all your homework there is no guarantee that the institution let alone its good management will continue.
I guess I could endow a scholarship at Notre Dame for people from SW Pennsylvania (but it probably would be used to recruit football players). A friend of mine who was an academic consultant to universities once got to see Hesburgh because his father had been president of the Alumni Association. Hesburgh listened to his pitch about how ND could become more accountable. After about fifteen minutes Hesburgh waved his hand, walked to the safe and pulled out a multi-million dollar check from an alumnus, and said simply "we don't have to be accountable to anyone, we can do whatever we want."
Jim, as we know but most of the world doesn't, nearly all of the dioceses are doing very well with your point 1. There are glitches and gaps, like the religious orders, and what, if anything, is being done about them is not for us unwashed to know. If I were a religious superior, I would not want the bishops gaining more control over my resources; see Wheeling U.
ReplyDelete3. Is also not for the unwashed apparently. We were making progress wondrous to behold when we got dioceses and parishes to put out pie charts telling us 40% was salaries, 15% was utilities, 15% miscellaneous, 5% was interest and 25% was operations. But we never progressed from pie charts and still don't know what's in miscellaneous and operations.
Our ecclesiastical leaders, for the most part, handle your point 4 by moaning about how we are treated worse than the Los Angeles school district. If they were more transparent about 1 and 3 they might have better talking points.
What, then, about 2? My impression is that bankruptcy is the answer that absolves our ecclesiastical leaders from being forced into full transparency and so will remain the last resort of choice (so to speak). It might be better to set up a global victims fund, which could be ongoing, to which parishes and orders would be required according to their sins or according to their fraternal association with the offenders. This would turn point 2 into a budget item for them, and there are plenty of law firms with more Cohens than O'Casey's in their names with experience to run such a fund.
Richard Rohr often notes that christianity became the tool of the powerful when Constantine made it the religion of his empire.
ReplyDeleteThe last great formal persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ended in AD 303. Ten years later, Christianity was legalized by Constantine I. After this structural change, Christianity increasingly accepted, and even defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning war and money. Morality became individualized and largely sexual. The Church slowly lost its free and alternative vantage point. Texts written in the hundred years preceding 313 show it was unthinkable that a Christian would fight in the army, as the army was killing Christians. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian, and they were now killing the pagans.
Before AD 313, the Church was on the bottom of society, which is the privileged vantage point for understanding the liberating power of Gospel for both the individual and for society. Overnight the Church moved from the bottom to the top, literally from the catacombs to the basilicas. The Roman basilicas were large buildings for court and other public assembly, and they became Christian worship spaces.
The Christian church became the established religion of the empire and started reading the Gospel from the position of maintaining power and social order... In a sense, Christianity almost became a different religion! ...In this paradigm only the “winners” win, whereas the true Gospel has everyone winning. Calling this power “spiritual” and framing success as moral perfection made this position all the more seductive to the ego ..
The failing Roman Empire needed an emperor, and Jesus was used to fill the power gap, making much of his teaching literally incomprehensible ...even by good people.
As a Catholic heretic (schismatic too - no longer "in communion" with the RCC), my views on the subject are somewhat radical. I think the young victims must ALWAYS come first - not protecting the church's wealth.
I think that maybe getting rid of all the property, and going back to house churches might be the way to go. According to my research, the first building owned by christians exclusively as a worship/gathering space didn't appear until sometime in the 3rd century. The hierarchy didn't start to develop until the 2nd century (Ignatius of Antioch is to blame for that), there were no ordained priests. It's time for true ressourcement. As a practical matter, maybe a few churches could be kept for occasional use by the house churches meeting at once - Christmas etc. Set up non-profits to accept the donations to keep it running - lights on, staff (minimal) salaries paid etc, and don't give a dime to anybody outside the parish - not to bishops, or cardinals or pope. Consult some of the orders of women religious to help you set up - clean house, cut expenses to the bone, and start over by following Jesus and not emperors. Jesus taught on riverbanks and in homes and in hills and fields. No hierarchy, no vestments or churches or displays of wealth.
The church (not just RCC) needs to Start Over.
A relevant article in Fortune- "What is a Girl Worth", about the Michigan State/Olympic doctor scandal.
What is a girl worth? What is a boy worth? What is a child worth?
More than Michigan - or the church - wants to pay out, that's for sure.
https://fortune.com/longform/larry-nassar-survivors-settlements/
There's some groups who do "house churches" now. I believe some of the Amish and Mennonites worship in one another's homes. And there are the little storefront churches. I can think of four or five here in town, Spanish language ones. As far as I know they are unaffiliated .
DeleteThe first year we were married we lived in a little town where my husband was a teacher in the public school. I attended Mass in a storefront; that was the only option available. There was one Mass a week, the congregation was a stepchild of a neighboring parish. I remember that the building was dreary and depressing and smelled of mice. There were some rickety pews and board kneelers that someone had salvaged from a closed church. It wasn't long before I decided to drive 30 miles to my hometown for Mass. My husband wasn't Catholic at the time.
Anne, thanks for the link to that Fortune article - it's very good. It echoes themes I've run across from survivors of abuse in the Catholic church, most notably that, for at least some of the victims, they're not particularly interested in a payout. They want to be able to talk about what happened; they want the church to admit it happened; they want the perpetrators removed from ministry (and jailed if possible); and they want to see changes to ensure that what happened to them doesn't happen to anyone else.
DeleteThe money is necessary for attorneys; they're entitled to a just wage for undertaking the cases, and I am sure it can be expensive to represent victims and litigate against a large organization with formidable legal representation on its side.
The article doesn't discuss the impact the scandal has had on MSU and its reputation. Perhaps that impact hasn't been significant. Certainly, a $500 million settlement pool is a lot of money for a university, but no information is provided as to where the money came from - did the state legislature cough up funding for the victims, did it come from the university's endowment, were there liability insurance policies, did the university's budget get reduced as a result, etc.
The money is necessary for attorneys; they're entitled to a just wage for undertaking the cases, and I am sure it can be expensive to represent victims and litigate against a large organization with formidable legal representation on its side.
DeleteOf course the church has huge legal fees in its side, as well as all the money that is spent to try to prevent statute of limitation reform. It is not like lawyers for the victims are the only ones making money off the situation
Thank you, Jack. I have found it very disappointing that so many Catholics resent the payments to victims of clerical sexual abuse. It's not necessarily "over" for some of them EVER in their lives. As we know, many victims have suffered lifelong anxiety and depression, and some have committed suicide. The implications that they only want money, and weren't really seriously hurt by the abuse, is breathtakingly un-christian. The complaints about how much the lawyers make out of the settlements might be more justified - a larger % should go to the victims, and less to the lawyers.
DeleteAnd, as you have pointed out, you don't hear the same whining about all the money the bishops have paid out to lawyers in their attempts to shirk accountability and responsibility for the crimes they allowed to happen on their watch, and the crimes they enabled by passing the criminal priests from parish to parish. The amount of money they have spent to fight laws that would force some level of accountability is enormous - yet you seldom hear complaints from the pews about this.
The defense of the indefensible by some laity is appalling. They turn the perpetrators into victims - somehow the institution, the bishops, become the victims in their twisted reasoning and accusations against those who were molested. Beyond that, the passivity of the laity in not taking action to force bishops into accountability was a major factor in my decision to finally leave the church. It seems that few things "talk" as loudly in the church as money. So the right thing to do would be to withhold their donations until REAL actions are taken - and that would include the resignations of dozens and dozens of members of the hierarchy. But many Catholics refuse to take that kind of action because their own personal comfort in their cozy parish l don't know anybody who was molested. It didn't happen to anyone in my parish, or my family, or in my neighborhood, so.....business as usual.
There are ways they could fund their parish activities without involving any clergy - including their own pastors. But, they are comfortable, and don't want to rock the boat.
Has anyone noted the timing of McCarrick's rather generous $250,000 gift to Benedict shortly after he became pope? And shortly after Benedict forced Maciel out? I'm sure Ratzinger knew (from his time at the CDF) as much about McCarrick as he did about Maciel, so McCarrick was probably just making sure.......
ReplyDeleteAnd, in general, why are hierarchs using the money from the people to give lavish "gifts" of money (thousands of dollars) to their fellow hierarchs anyway?
Jack, thanks for the personal info on Wheeling. I give $ to my Jesuit alma maters (LMU and Georgetown) also. especially to the scholarship fund for Hispanic students at LMU. But how can I know what is really happening to it?
At some point in 2019, LMU had a 24 hour alumni giving marathon - they provided a long list of organizations and programs that alumni could direct their donations to during that one day. I have always donated to scholarships, but when I looked at the sub-divisions, I decided that the Latino student scholarship fund needed the most help. LMU is in Los Angeles, and seems to work very hard to help local Hispanic students get a college education.
After the alumni fundraising marathon (it did raise a whole lot of $$), they sent a report listing the results, including specific information about the recipients of the funds raised. With literally dozens of "worthy" causes as possible recipients, it turned out that more than 75% were designated by the alumni donors to go to sports programs. To say I was disappointed is a huge understatement.
Our diocese like some others has had some very questionable fundraisers. Diocesan leaders with the aid of an outside fundraising firm set goals for each parish. The parish got 20% back in installments over several years of the funds they raised; they also got everything over their targeted amounts.
ReplyDeleteWithin each parish the pastor with the aid of the consulting firm set goals for each person/family. I was asked to contribute $3000 over three years; a widow friend whose husband had died was asked to contribute $30,000 over three years. The richest people were targeted first so that it looked like the parish would meet its goals. Parishes were also targeted in waves.
So essentially pastors were asked to raise four times as much for the diocese as they were getting for themselves. Now all the diocesan funds were earmarked for various purposes. None of which appealed to me so I gave them nothing. A long time ago I adopted the policy of not giving money to dioceses, parishes, United Way, etc but rather choosing much small entities (e.g. the parish food bank, SVDP) where I knew where the money was being spent.