U.S. Catholic Church finances and their mismanagment

The Economist reports at length on how diocesan bankruptcies have shed light on Church finances and on how poorly they have been handled.

There's a local angle.

"Creditors in the Milwaukee bankruptcy case, which is still in progress, have questioned the motives behind a $35m transfer to a trust and a $55.6m transfer from archdiocese coffers to a fund for cemeteries. Cardinal Dolan, who was Archbishop of Milwaukee at the time, authorised both transactions. The creditors think the movement of such large amounts had more to do with shielding cash from sexual-abuse victims than with the maintenance of graves, calling the manoeuvre fraudulent. Cardinal Dolan’s office responded to questions about these allegations by pointing to blog posts in which he described them as 'baloney' and defended the transfers as 'virtuous, open and in accord with the clear directives of the professionals on our finance council and outside auditors'."

That doesn't sound so different from our bishops' defense of their handling of child-molesting priests.

(via SNAP Wisconsin)

P.S. "When a story uses extra adjectives or adverbs to pretty up a story, you know something might be fishy. If the information, data and narrative can’t speak for themselves, it’s worth reexamining the piece more closely." says Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Get Religion.