Pope Francis prays that young people will follow Mary’s example

St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads. 

In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.

Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.

“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol. 

She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”

“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”

The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness. 

The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments. 

“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.

“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”

Making land work for mission

The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities. 

Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment. 

Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own. 

“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said. 

Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission. 

To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other. 

In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community. 

Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor. 

“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.  

“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”

Unlocking potential in California

Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing. 

California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow. 

Yes in God’s Backyard

The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments. 

Proponents of the YIGBY movement, which include the co-director of the Fitzgerald Institute at Notre Dame, Father Patrick Reidy, believe the government should make it easier for churches of all denominations to create housing for those who need it. 

Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State. 

Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use. 

He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.

Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.

“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said. 

Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4. 

“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said. 

“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”

John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability. 

Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income. 

Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money. 

“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.

“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”

He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits. 

“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said. 

“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”

[…]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 10, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The Holy See is facing a perfect storm of a massive income shortfall, months of financial scandal, and a looming international banking inspection. As it prepares to weather the second half of 2020, a range of measures have been taken to shore up its finances and reputation. But will they be enough, or could they end up making matters even more complicated?

According to an apparently leaked internal memo published on Monday, all curial departments of the Vatican have been asked to move all their cash deposits to the Holy See’s central bank. The move signals the depths of the current liquidity crisis facing the Vatican, and raises a number of questions about its ability to mitigate it.

On July 7, Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti published the text of a letter supposedly sent to the heads of all curial dicasteries on May 8. Fr. Juan A. Guerrero, S.J., prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, said in the letter that the decision was taken after a May 4 meeting, led by Pope Francis, to respond to “this particularly negative economic juncture.”

According to the text of the letter, every Vatican department has been asked to move all their external cash deposits to APSA, which functions as the Holy See treasury, sovereign wealth manager, and administers payroll and operating expenses for Vatican City.

CNA asked the Holy See to confirm or comment on the leaked letter but received no response.

The instruction to move all curial funds to APSA is a dramatic step, exceeding previous attempts at financial centralization under Guerrero’s predecessor, Cardinal George Pell. It points to an acute cash crunch for the Holy See, and raises the possibility that it may already be struggling to meet daily operating expenses, including payroll.

In May, Guerrero said that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Vatican is forecasting a reduction in income between 30%-80% for the next fiscal year. While dismissing suggestions that this could lead to a default by the Holy See, Guerrero did say “that doesn’t mean that we are not naming the crisis for what it is. We’re certainly facing difficult years.”

Despite the loss of income, some Vatican departments maintain large investment and asset portfolios, most notably the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fide).

But while moving all cash reserves and deposits held at external banks to APSA could provide a short-term liquidity bridge for the Holy See, it could also create fresh regulatory headaches for the Vatican, and will likely be difficult to achieve.

As CNA has previously reported, the Secretariat of State has maintained large cash balances with several external banks, including in Switzerland. However, transferring the balance of those funds could prove a far from straightforward process.

As reported previously, secretariat funds on deposit were used as security against a $200 million line of credit extended by two banks, Credit Suisse and BSI. The loaned funds were used, in part, to fund the secretariat’s controversial investment in a London building at 60 Sloane Avenue, which has led to the suspension of several curia officials and the arrest of Italian businessman Gianluigi Torzi.

In recent months, Swiss financial authorities have confirmed that several bank accounts, with balances totalling tens of millions of euros, have been frozen as part of an ongoing investigation into the London deal, led by Vatican prosecutors, making them likely hard to transfer.

It is also not clear if the arrangement of using cash deposits as collateral to secure loans to fund investments remains an ongoing practice for the secretariat with other banks. If it does, transferring those deposits to APSA could trigger the banks to call in their loans, adding a credit crunch to a cash shortage for the Vatican.

The text of the leaked letter from Guerrero appears to acknowledge some potential difficulties for different curial departments in complying with his “request,” noting that “where it is necessary to maintain a deposit with IOR or other banks for operational needs, I am kindly asking you to communicate this to this Secretariat [for the Economy] as soon as possible.”

Even if the Secretariat for the Economy is able to have all curial cash moved to APSA without serious financial penalties or complications, and even if this is sufficient to provide for the Holy See’s short-term liquidity needs, the move could still create other unexpected difficulties for the Vatican.

In September, Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering watchdog, is set to conduct a two-week onsite inspection of the Holy See and Vatican City – the first since 2012.

The president of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority, Carmelo Barbagallo has described the inspection as “especially important.” “Its outcome may determine how the jurisdiction [of the Vatican] is perceived by the financial community,” he said on July 3.

Moneyval is expected to arrive with its own list of concerns and questions following months of reporting on Vatican financial scandals. A key item on its agenda is likely to be the role of APSA.

Following the last onsite inspection in 2012, APSA agreed to stop providing services to individuals or taking part in commercial transactions, with these functions being transferred to the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), often referred to as the Vatican Bank, which maintains accounts for Vatican employees, individuals and religious groups. APSA was to be limited to administering the sovereign assets of the Holy See, meeting payroll and operational costs, and functioning as the national reserve bank of the Vatican.

In exchange for agreeing to step back from commercial activity, APSA was exempted from annual inspections by the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF), whose efforts are in turn assessed by Moneyval.

In 2014, Pope Francis issued new norms, transferring oversight and control of APSA’s remaining investment functions to the Prefecture for the Economy, then headed by Cardinal George Pell.

The AIF’s 2015 annual report concluded that since it is no longer an “entity that carries out financial activities on a professional basis,” “APSA stopped being a part of AIF’s jurisdiction at the end of 2015.”

The 2015 AIF report which exempted APSA from further scrutiny said that “If APSA were to carry out financial activities on a professional basis, it would fall again under the jurisdiction of AIF which… must publish and update the list of subjects who must comply with the requirements set forth in [relevant law].”

But last year, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, head of APSA, acknowledged that it had loaned 50 million euros to finance the purchase of an Italian hospital, the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), in 2015, even though APSA is prohibited from making loans that finance commercial transactions.

APSA was forced to write off 30 million of the 50 million euro loan, wiping out APSA’s profits for the 2018 financial year.

The acknowledgement by Galantino that APSA was in 2015 engaged in prohibited lending activity will likely have attracted the attention of European financial watchdogs, who will want to discuss it in September.

In 2016, Pope Francis partially reversed some of the 2014 reforms, returning control of its investment activity to APSA from the Prefecture for the Economy. 

That APSA is engaged in financial activity that requires oversight was underlined when, in June this year, Pope Francis moved the office of the Vatican’s financial records database from APSA back under the management of the Secretariat for the Economy — a move explicitly made to emphasise the need for external oversight.

When Moneyval arrive in September, they are likely to push for a renewed look at the role of APSA and its exemption from AIF and Moneyval’s vigilance – all the more so if it becomes the home for all curial assets.

Some Vatican departments, most notably the Secretariat of State, remain engaged in commercial investments as part of their ongoing financial activities. If, as Guerrero’s May 8 letter indicates, all, or even most, liquid curial assets are now being banked with APSA, it will raise serious questions about how those commercial ventures are being maintained, and if APSA can still credibly claim to play no part in commercial activity.

2020 has become an incredibly high-stakes year for the Vatican, on the line is its ability to continue daily operations and remain a respectable member of the financial community.

Returning to financial health and international credibility are, in many ways, tied together for the Vatican. But after years of regulatory chaos and dubious financial conduct, it remains to be seen if 2020 is a crisis year that makes those efforts come good at last – or finally breaks the bank.

[…]

Former President Bill Clinton was received by Pope Francis at Casa Santa Marta July 5. / Vatican Dicastery for Communication

CNA Staff, Jul 5, 2023 / 15:10 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a private audience… […]