Church claims billions in relief aid
The US Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least US$1.4 billion ($2.1b) in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid.
Millions went to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.
The church’s haul may have reached — or even exceeded — US$3.5b, making a global religious institution with more than a billion followers among the biggest winners in the US government’s pandemic relief efforts.
The Archdiocese of New York, for example, received 15 loans worth at least US$28m just for its top executive offices. Its iconic St Patrick’s Cathedral was approved for at least US$1m.
In Orange County, California, where a sparkling glass cathedral estimated to cost more than US$70m recently opened, diocesan officials working at the complex received four loans worth at least US$3m.
And elsewhere, a loan of at least US$2m went to the diocese covering Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, where a church investigation revealed last year that then-Bishop Michael Bransfield embezzled funds and made sexual advances towards young priests.
Religious groups persuaded the Trump administration to free them from a rule that typically disqualifies an applicant with more than 500 workers. Without this preferential treatment, many Catholic dioceses would have been ineligible because — between their head offices, parishes and other affiliates — their employees exceed the 500-person cap.
The amount that the church collected, between US$1.4b and US$3.5b, is an undercount.
The Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, an organisation of Catholic financial officers, surveyed members and reported that about 9000 Catholic entities received loans. That is nearly three times the number of Catholic recipients the Associated
Press could identify.
The AP couldn’t find more Catholic beneficiaries because government data, released after pressure from Congress and a lawsuit from news outlets including the AP, didn’t name recipients of loans under $150,000 — a category in which many smaller churches would fall.
Even without a full accounting, analysis places the Catholic Church among the major beneficiaries in the Paycheck Protection Programme, which also has helped companies backed by celebrities, billionaires, governors and members of Congress.
Loan recipients included about 40 dioceses that have spent hundreds of millions in recent years paying victims through compensation funds or bankruptcy proceedings.