Posted on 01/11/2020 5:58:04 PM PST by ebb tide
The bishops of the United States have narrowly approved an increase on the amount dioceses must contribute to the national bishops’ conference. The measure initially failed to pass when put to a vote during their November 2019 meeting and additional votes had to be collected by mail to ensure the measure passed.
On the first day of their November meeting last year, the bishops voted in favor of a three percent rise in the amount each diocese in the country is required to contribute for the funding of the USCCB, based in Washington, DC, for the year 2021. But the vote of 111 to 55 in favor failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority to pass.
The conference leadership ruled the vote “inconclusive” and determined to send additional postal ballots to bishops not present at the meeting. Two months after the initial vote in Baltimore, the measure passed with a final tally of 130 in favor, 62 against, and three abstentions.
The final result of 130 votes in favor from diocesan and eparchial bishops was the minimum number of votes required to pass. During the first vote in Baltimore, the bishops of New York had to vote electronically from Rome, where they were conducting their ad lima visit to Pope Francis and the Roman curia.
The diocesan assessment, currently estimated at $25 million per year, is used to fund administrative, pastoral, and public policy programs at the USCCB, and the conference has told the bishops that a regular increase is necessary to maintain reserves.
The three percent increase is the first to be passed by the bishops since November of 2017, but which did not come into effect until the 2019 financial year. In November of 2018, no increase was approved for the 2020 assessment, largely due to the costs dioceses were facing from a surge of new clergy sex abuse lawsuits.
Following the inconclusive vote at the 2019 meeting, USCCB treasurer Archbishop Dennis Schnurr called the failure to pass “no surprise,” and acknowledged the financial challenges of some dioceses facing a resurgence in clergy sex abuse claims from new openings in state statutes of limitations.
“There are a lot of dioceses in this country that are looking at bankruptcy,” Schnurr said.
While the assessment increase can now come into effect, some bishops have publicly stated their opposition to the rate hike.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said in November that his archdiocese’s assessment amounts to $257,000 per year which, when paired with a matching donation to the Holy See, totals more than half a million dollars annually.
“I don’t have this kind of money to keep increasing it [the assessment],” Chaput said. “We have huge expenses because of the sexual abuse issue and related circumstances.”
Chaput also noted that the conference itself was in ruder financial health than many of the dioceses being asked to fund it at ever-increasing rates, including his own.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia had to pay more than $32 million in settlements to abuse victims, after a window for new abuse claims closed on Sept. 30 in the wake of a Pennsylvania grand jury report, released in August of 2018.
Chaput said that the USCCB also has more savings and investments in reserve than the archdiocese does.
“I don’t think that some of the work of the USCCB is essential to the mission of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,” he said.
Other bishops have noted that the three percent increase is essential for the conference to keep up with inflation and rising operating costs.
In November, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago noted that it had been several years since the last rate increase, and that the three percent rise would not even keep up with the accumulated cost of inflation.
They get zero from me. I contribute to my parish maintenance funds and one order of conservative nuns who have younger novitiates because they stand for belief in the magesterium.
Ping
USCCB crooks
Maybe you should stop buddying up with the democrats who fund abortions, stop worrying about climate change, and stop helping criminal illegal aliens, and start worrying about saving souls.
There is a revolving door between the USCCB staff and democrat congressional staffers. Getridof them and your costs go down billy.
Bigly, not billy
The Church does have a supernatural aspect, I believe, but it is incarnate in an institution of men and so must follow the laws of human institutions. True economic and social norms cannot be ignored indefinitely without things eventually righting themselves through the school of hard knocks.
The Bishops might profit from the theological musings of Rudyard Kipling, which follow:
THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
· · · · · ·
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
He wrote that a year after the end of the Great War, and foretold the events of the next century.
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