Denver Newsroom, Feb 5, 2021 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- A Feb. 4 investigative story from the Associated Press inaccurately portrays “the Roman Catholic Church” as a “giant corporate monolith” that raked in federal aid while sitting on billions of dollars that they could have used to pay employees, a canon and civil law expert told CNA.
In reality, “the Roman Catholic Church” in the US is made up of tens of thousands of separate nonprofits, most of which did not have legal access to liquid cash necessary to pay their employees when the pandemic took hold last year.
The CARES Act, passed in March 2020, initially authorized some $350 billion in loans to small businesses, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, which was intended to allow them to continue to pay their employees.
The loans, given by the Small Business Administration, were approved on a first come, first served basis. According to reports, an estimated 12,000-13,000 of the 17,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S. applied, and most were encouraged to do so by their dioceses.
According to the AP’s analysis, “dioceses” and “other Catholic institutions” collectively received about $3 billion from the PPP program, leading the authors to conclude that “the Roman Catholic Church” was perhaps “the biggest beneficiary of the paycheck program.”
Father Pius Pietrzyk, OP, a canon and civil lawyer and a professor at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California, told CNA that in conflating the finances of dioceses with those of individual parishes and other Catholic entities, the article gives the impression that “this is all one budget with fungible dollars”— a “gross misrepresentation” that belies a “fundamental ignorance” of Church finances in the US.
The article goes on to claim that the total assets for all Catholic entities in the US, including dioceses, parishes, and charities, totals more than $10 billion and in some cases increased slightly over the course of the pandemic.
Importantly, to reach the $10 billion figure, the AP “also included funding that dioceses had opted to designate for special projects instead of general expenses; excess cash that parishes and their affiliates deposit with their diocese’s savings and loan; and lines of credit dioceses typically have with outside banks.”
The AP story does not assert that dioceses or other Catholic entities committed fraud or broke the law by applying for and receiving PPP loans, but a strong theme in the article is that “the Roman Catholic Church” did not need the loans, and could have afforded to continue to pay its employees with the assets “the Church” had on hand.
The January AP story is similar to a story the AP published during July 2020, which criticized the “US Roman Catholic Church” for accepting what appeared at the time to be $1.4-3.5 billion worth of PPP loans.
But there is, both legally and financially, no single entity that is the “US Roman Catholic Church.” Nearly each of the nation’s 17,000 parishes operates as its own nonprofit, and weekly donations help to employ the priest, along with the employees who maintain the parish and its ministries.
The distinction in civil law is important, but the distinction in canon law— the law governing the Church— is also crucial to understand, and applies to every diocese in the world.
“Juridic persons” are defined in canon law as either aggregates of persons, or aggregates of things, i.e. goods. Canon law protects the financial independence of each juridic person, such as a parish. A “parish” is defined in canon law as “a portion of the people of God.”
Under canon law, the assets of a parish are managed by the pastor and are not “owned” by the bishop, although he does exercise a certain degree of governance over them, Pietrzyk explained.
Some— but only a minority— of US dioceses are incorporated in civil law as a “corporation sole”, whereby all Church assets within the diocese are owned by the bishop. The Vatican has discouraged this form of corporate organization because of its incongruency with canon law.
The canonical structure of the Church is, in some ways, similar to the federal system in the US, Pietrzyk said. The federal government exercises governance in individual states, but it does not “own” individual states, and thus cannot take funds away from one state budget and give them to another state.
Catholic schools are, like parishes, separate legal entities and their employees work for the school, not for the diocese.
This does not mean that there is no free flow of money between dioceses and parishes. All parishes are taxed by their dioceses.
In addition, many dioceses operate “savings and loans,” whereby parishes send excess money to a reserve fund managed by the diocese which functions like a bank; deposits can then be withdrawn at any time for any reason.
Importantly, dioceses do not— as the AP asserts— have the power to use the deposited money, which belongs to the parishes, as they see fit.
“The bishop has no authority in canon law to simply swoop in and clean out the bank account of a parish, nor does he have that ability in civil law if they are separately established,” Pietrzyk pointed out.
The AP story also does not adequately portray Catholic endowments or foundations, many of which are required by law to respect the intentions of donors and be used for specific purposes, Pietrzyk said.
The foundations, too, are also separate civil and canonical entities from the dioceses, and are not subject to the bishop’s whims, he noted.
For example, the AP reports that the Archdiocese of Chicago “had more than $1 billion in cash and investments in its headquarters and cemetery division as of May [2020],” while at the same time “Chicago’s parishes, schools and ministries accumulated at least $77 million in paycheck protection funds.”
The story implies that a fund specifically earmarked for cemeteries could somehow be repurposed to pay for salaries— a legal and practical impossibility, Pietrzyk said.
“You can’t, either in civil or canon law, simply move those funds around contrary to the wishes of the donor,” he said.
“The diocese can’t simply scoop out the cemetery fund to start paying salaries for schoolteachers. That would be fraud…they could be liable for prosecution for something like that.”
The AP story includes quotes from an anonymous pastor in “a Western state” as well as Fr. James Connell, former vice chancellor of the Milwaukee archdiocese, who asserted that “Catholic entities did not need government aid” and should have instead, out of love of neighbor, left the funds for small businesses to use.
Part of the reason for their assertions was the fact that many dioceses did not experience the catastrophic downturn in assets that many expected in 2020, thanks in part to a healthy rebounding of the stock market.
The investments made by many Catholic entities turned out to be safer than they could have been, Pietrzyk said, with the stock market largely recovering since the start of the pandemic. But “nobody knew that in June.”
“To say that the Church should not have taken that money in June because things are really rosy [next] January is absurd,” he asserted.
Catholic financial experts have recommended to CNA in the past that parishes and dioceses especially well-prepared for a crisis ought to consider calling up struggling parishes or dioceses voluntarily to offer to share resources.
That being said, the AP story displays “incredible 20/20 hindsight,” Pietrzyk noted, and seems to gloss over the uncertainty of the period in which the PPP program first launched.
“There was a nationwide sense of panic within the Church at the time these funds were available. No vaccine in sight, didn’t know how long the pandemic would go on, everything was being shut down. Initial numbers from dioceses were that donations were way down, as people themselves were uncertain about their future.”
At that time, a massive reorganization of Church assets was not possible, legally and practically. Without another immediate source of income, especially for small parishes without much reserves, large-scale firings of church employees could have taken place, Pietrzyk said.
By the AP’s own admission, dioceses reported that their hardest-hit churches saw income drop by 40% or more before donations began to rebound months later, and schools took hits when fundraisers were canceled and families had trouble paying tuition.
The purpose of the PPP, in part, was to relieve the nation’s unemployment system and keep people employed, and evidence shows that it likely succeeded. Economists working with the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy said in December that the PPP may have saved about 18.6 million US jobs.
Even with PPP money, some dioceses, such as San Francisco’s, still had to cut salaries— but, as the PPP intended, did not have to resort to mass firings.
The AP does not cite any evidence that “Catholic entities” unjustly took money away from more deserving candidates. Catholic entities, taken as a whole, appear to have received, at most, about 0.6% of the funds so far disbursed from the PPP program.
Guidance from the SBA on eligibility for the loans stated that “no otherwise eligible organization will be disqualified from receiving a loan because of the religious nature, religious identity, or religious speech of the organization.”
PPP funds are still available for businesses that need them, albeit with more restrictions than in previous rounds. All told, with Congress adding $284 billion to the program in December, the PPP program is expected to eventually disburse nearly $1 trillion in loans.
Another implication from the AP story worth refuting, Pietrzyk said, is that nonprofit, tax-exempt entities are somehow less deserving of government largess.
It makes sense to allow nonprofits access to PPP funds, he said, because PPP was intended to cover worker’s salaries— workers who pay income tax.
The PPP loans did not directly enrich the nonprofit entities that received them, but rather went straight to the employees. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York noted this fact in a letter he released following the AP’s July 2020 story. The archdiocese, as well as many of the archdioceses’ parishes, had received PPP loans.
“Make no mistake, the money that the Archdiocese of New York received was used solely for the purposes outlined in the law, that is to continue to pay employees their salaries and benefits. Not one penny of that money was used in any way to settle lawsuits or pay victim-survivors of abuse.
“We have none of this money left. It has all be [sic] distributed to our workers, and the government is carefully auditing it.”
Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chair of the US bishops’ committee on domestic justice, also wrote a response to the July AP story, defending the use of the PPP by Catholic parishes, hospitals, schools, dioceses, and social service agencies.
“The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to protect the jobs of Americans from all walks of life, regardless of whether they work for for-profit or non-profit employers, faith-based or secular,” Archbishop Coakley wrote.
“The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental supplier of social services in the United States. Each year, our parishes, schools and ministries serve millions of people in need, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. The novel coronavirus only intensified the needs of the people we serve and the demand for our ministries. The loans we applied for enabled our essential ministries to continue to function in a time of national emergency.”
“In addition, shutdown orders and economic fallout associated with the virus have affected everyone, including the thousands of Catholic ministries — churches, schools, healthcare and social services — that employ about 1 million people in the United States,” Coakley added.
“These loans have been an essential lifeline to keep hundreds of thousands of employees on payroll, ensure families maintain their health insurance, and enable lay workers to continue serving their brothers and sisters during this crisis.”
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Our pastor actually leads the faithful in praying St. Michael and memorare.
Ours, too, along with a prayer for St. Joseph to intercede for us.
What’s going on with you Catholic media you – CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT – people that you show NO OUTRAGE at the damage this Cdl. Cup-sick has done to our beloved Church?. Why are you not shaming him for the heretic he is? When I asked this same question of one of our ‘better’ bishops his answer: ” You don’t understand Michael, they have all the power.” I told him (and Archbishop Chaput before him, of Saint John Vianney’s response:” Anyone who is tolerant of evil when there is cause for holy anger is an immoral man” You Catholic World Report media -types are acting immorally in your lack of HOLY ANGER. Are you not aware ( you E.W.T.N , you Relevant Radio folk and all of you in the Catholic main-stream media.) how faithful, informed, catholic’s everywhere are seething at your lack of action in this regard? Your good Father Fessio said years ago; ” When I die I want there to be blood on my sword.” Hear, Hear! ! But that won’t ever happen unless you take the sword out of it’s sheath. ” If the bugle sound isn’t clear then how can the troops know to prepare for battle? ” You can’t just leave it all to Michael Voris ( God bless him ) and Fr. James Altman, our hero .and the model priest of our times.
Apparently you’re not familiar with CWR…
Blaise setting things a-blaze… Micro-management – – mitres 30 yrs behind…
Dominus flevit!
Father Zuhlsdorf has posted the original video and an update with a message from the Pastor, Father John Trout. The realist in me thinks that this might be more damage control for the diminutive Cardinal Archbishop since the Lightfoot debacle.
UPDATED – VIDEO: Priest announces he and people have been forbidden to say St. Michael Prayer and Hail Mary after Mass.
Seems like micromanagement to me. Why prohibit or discourage heartfelt prayers after Mass? It’s useless because it just alienates parishioners and reflects poorly on diocesan leadership.
Why doesn’t Cardinal Cupich lead the prayers himself, or make any effort to pray the rosary publicly with his parishioners at the Cathecral?
St. Paul teaches that Christians have “the mind of Christ.”
His Eminence Cupich has “the mind of McCarrick.”
It certainly stands to reason that a lot of the current Catholic hierarchy wouldn’t much like parishioners praying to St. Michael. As for poor Mr. Love who wonders what those who recite this prayer are asking to be protected from, apparently he has never heard the prayer, because it is self-explanatory.
That’s what I was thinking; also, EWTN does this after most masses – “protect against wickedness and snares of the devil.” etc..
(Sigh.)
Cupich’s approach to building unity is unbelievable. Absolutely comical.
It reminds me of the old satirical comment on corporate management…
“Notice to all employees: The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
This article concerned me deeply. First, Mr. Love asked, “what are they praying for?” when reciting the prayer to St. Michael. When Pope Leo XIII directed this prayer at the end of Mass, it was because God had showed him a vision of a conversation God had with the devil asking for more time to gather souls. The devil is running out of time and he knows it. The Church is in a crisis and the world is in the worse state it has ever been. The devil is a real threat to the Church and to each individual. In addition, we as Catholics are encouraged to pray for global catastrophes and problems as a parish and as an individual. However, we all should have our own personal relationship with our Lord and Savior and should be encouraged to pray to Him for personal reasons at ant time…in church or at home. In addition, the Mass was over when the two prayers were being prayed, so why all the concern? After Mass is over there is the soft “hustle-bustle” of people leaving the church, talking, cleaning up pews, etc, and people still are able to have the mind-set for personal prayers. Also the Church has taught me my whole life to have a special devotion to Our Blessed Mother. Even Jesus thought highly enough of her to take time while He was dying on the cross for us, to give His mother to us for protection and source of multiple graces. She has been sent by God multiple times in apparitions to warn us that God is displeased about the state of mankind, while she has been giving us directions on how to change…prayer, penance, sacrifice, fasting, and saying the rosary. I personally feel that one Hail Mary prayer at the end of Mass to ask Our Lady’s help is pleasing to her Son, Jesus.
Parsing is the fallback of the disingenuous. It is grievously evident in the statements recorded in this report. It serves no purpose but to magnify the theological disorder current in our Church, a disorder magnified frequently by the Cardinal himself and by his confreres in the school of deconstructionism. This is exactly where the reputation of episcopal untrustworthiness is generated. A Catholicism which articulates “…what are they praying for protection from?” is in the deepest sense clueless and fraudulent. It is not only tragic but scandalous that we find ourselves in this condition.
CWR – Nice job of creating more division., making a volcano out of a fly speck. I would expect this article from the Washington Post . Now you too?
You’re either willingly dismissing or are willfully ignorant of the fact that the diminutive Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago has a lengthy, well documented dossier of creating division, Jerry. Which is it?
Jerry –
I think that the point being made is that “His Eminence” is the divisive figure.
It’s a healthy thing to talk about Bishops who behave improperly.
The following, which Carl Olson wrote back in 2015, might prove to be edifying:
A Tale of Two Bishops
One Mad Mom weighs in as well:
Cardinal Sit-It-Out Cupich
This is just consistent with a lot of the nonsense during the “pandemic” if you don’t have your pass you can;t come to mass etc…
a little confusion at the end of a parish mass over supplication prayers is not the end of the world – the Bishop should not even comment on it – don’t we want priests who can think on their feet?
My parish in Alexandria VA began saying the prayer to Saint Michael after Mass during the time of the 2002 DC sniper. For several weeks during that time, I recall saying the prayer every time I was out in the open – putting gas in my car, walking a zigzag line into the grocery store, not letting my child out in public. The prayer to Saint Michael comforted me then and even though I no longer live in VA, I continue to recite the prayer almost every day.
Cupich. Enough said.
The same rightist conservative CNA -and also CWR, making a mountain out of a molehill if it concerns Pope Francis and his loyal cardinals and bishops. If those pro-pre-Vatican II mass who criticize the Vatican II mass as celebrated without regard for the rubrics, they should applaud the Cardinal for he is simply upholding the liturgical rules. Prayers like these are not part of the liturgical celebration and can be recited only privately and after the mass itself. Damn if you do, damn if you don’t.
Any idea what “Ite, missa est” means, Charles?
Charles Panata, I am one of those “rightest conservatives” who is fed up with the Vatican Church. They created a different religion that sickens me. Before, during, and after Mass, it’s a free for all for Modernists. Except for Trads. This new one, that of forbidding to pray a prayer considered pre-Vatican ll. It is asked what it is we are praying for deliverance from. We pray for the deliverance of the likes of Cardinal Cupich, and all those who are out to do away with the true Church. We have been coerced to follow and obey their heretical ways and accept the banal ways of the New Church. Doesn’t the Vatican ll prohibit this type of coercion? Yet that’s what has been done for 60 years. Didn’t you know that we are living in the days of the worse major problems in the Church right now? Do you imagine that we Traditionalists are stupid? Think again. We are supposed to follow Vatican ll when those giving us this order are the ones who reject the whole of Vatican ll and make up their own Council as they go along. One of the Major principles of the Council being violated against Trads is “Religious Freedom”.
Charles Pinata, As a Trad I proclaim according to Vatican ll, Religious Freedom! We are ordered to accept the whole of the Council.” What the Council said has now backfired on them.
Independent of whatever the facts are in this case, there is no such thing as a “rubric” that mandates Catholic anti-Catholic bigotry.
I don’t understand what the Cardinal’s issue might be?? Both of these prayers are quite short and would not interfere with anyone’s wish to pray quietly once completed. Gabby parishioners might be the bigger issue following Mass. At my parish the Rosary society prays immediately following a weekday Mass. So here you won’t have any quiet for 25 minutes at least. My guess is someone with an “in” complained to the Cardinal. But I can’t imagine anything stranger than a Cardinal asking the faithful NOT to pray. Especially in this day and age when the country is falling apart. Maybe the Cardinal cannot think of things to pray for, but I sure can!!
Cupich knows who his real boss is. Satan is not happy with the St. Michael Prayer and the Ave Maria.
…And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls
Anen.
“Hatred of the traditional Holy Mass is inspired by the Devil who seeks our spiritual death”-Cardinal Robert Sarah
I would add the same applies to those seeking to ban traditional Catholic prayers and devotionals like the Rosary, Ave Maria and St. Michael prayer. Since these prayers (especially the last one) are designed to protect us from the Evil One, only those who are in service of the Evil One would be opposed to their continued use.
What an incendiary headline! I wonder what is inside the article!?
“The pastor of the church, Father John Trout, issued a statement saying this is not true.”
“CNA asked Torres-Fuentes in an email who gave him the directive to cease the Prayer to St. Michael and the Hail Mary after Mass, but received no response.”
“After contacting other priests in the diocese, CNA found that there was no directive sent to all parishes in the diocese referring to the recitation of the Prayer to Saint Michael or the Hail Mary following Mass.”
What a sham of a website you guys run, LOL! **Almost** makes me feel sorry for ol’ Blase. Can you excise the ‘report’ from your URL?
Blase will gladly sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, Joseph and I’d wager that you’d eagerly write him a check.
“The mass is complete in itself. It does not need additional prayers added to it.” This statement was made by the Bishop of Hamilton, New Zealand in the 1980’s when a similar controversy broke out in my parish there. He also stated people that if people wished, they could have a prayer service 15 minutes after the end of mass thus allowing those who wished to leave to leave and not “force” them to attend a prayer service they didn’t want to attend.
It is really not clear what this article is attempting to report. At this point there is no evidence the Cardinal did in fact do what is being claimed or alleged. The priest responsible for the initial claim will not respond to CWR … How about wait for his response or at least gather more facts on this incident before reporting? Rather than a litany of he said, she said …
“The priest responsible for the initial claim will not respond to CWR.”
No, to Catholic News Agency. This is a news brief, produced by CNA, published by CWR.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Mt 6.5-8
So David, based on your remark you obviously reject the Ordinary Form with all of its accompanying vocal participation from the laity and prefer the Extraordinary Form where the laity is almost entirely silent for the entire Mass, correct?
Where two or more are gathered in My name…