CAN A CHURCH GO BROKE?

摘要

It Used To Be Said That In Polite society one shouldn't discuss sex or money. But that's no longer possible in the Roman Catholic Church. Just last week Milwaukee Archbishop Rem-bert G. Weakland acknowledged paying $450,000 in 1998 to settle a claim that two decades ago he sexually assaulted a 30-year-old graduate student. (The Vatican accepted his resignation a day after the revelation.) Add the Weakland settlement to the huge sums other dioceses have paid to cover sex-abuse claims in recent years: an estimated $25 million in Santa Fe, N.M.; nearly $30 million in Boston; and $31 million in Dallas. With new allegations of sexual abuse surfacing almost weekly, Catholic dioceses across the U.S. face hundreds of millions of dollars in additional claims. Many now wonder: Can the church actually go broke? The short answer is no. In the U.S. the Catholic Church collects revenues totaling around $7.5 billion annually. Even more impressive are its vast property holdings, which include everything from cathedrals and schools to beachfront retreats, stately mansions, golf courses and television and radio stations. But the real secret of the church's financial strength is that each of the 178 Roman Catholic dioceses in the U.S. organizes its affairs separately; nearly all employ a highly complex and decentralized legal structure that so far has effectively shielded their assets from legal claims brought against priests.