Posted on 07/10/2020 6:07:36 PM PDT by marshmallow
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.
The church’s haul may have reached -- or even exceeded -- $3.5 billion, making a global religious institution with more than a billion followers among the biggest winners in the U.S. government’s pandemic relief efforts, an Associated Press analysis of federal data released this week found.
Houses of worship and faith-based organizations that promote religious beliefs aren’t usually eligible for money from the U.S. Small Business Administration. But as the economy plummeted and jobless rates soared, Congress let faith groups and other nonprofits tap into the Paycheck Protection Program, a $659 billion fund created to keep Main Street open and Americans employed.
By aggressively promoting the payroll program and marshaling resources to help affiliates navigate its shifting rules, Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools and other ministries have so far received approval for at least 3,500 forgivable loans, AP found.
The Archdiocese of New York, for example, received 15 loans worth at least $28 million just for its top executive offices. Its iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue was approved for at least $1 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
This is not right
That money needs to be returned.
The RCC is not a small business. And this money should not be used by them to cover their sex crime debts. They cant even get parishoners to cover this stuff, but the country is supposed to?
[This is not right
That money needs to be returned.
The RCC is not a small business. And this money should not be used by them to cover their sex crime debts. They cant even get parishoners to cover this stuff, but the country is supposed to?]
Appreciate the info.
It remains an internal church problem however, not one taxpayers ought to bail them out for.
Depends on how it is calculated.
My Lutheran church got the funds to pay our school teachers payroll. We are putting steps in place to pay it back, but in the early “What the heck!” phase we would not have been able to pay them.
But as far as I know, the district and synod offices did not apply.
You are comparing apples and oranges. The structure of the rcc is not the same as any lutheran church denomination.
Further no lutheran denomination has ever been invoved in any systemic hiding and shuffling around of pedophile priests by top level leaders, and facing bilions in damages, that it could put this bailout mony towards.
So much for separation of Church and State.
The anti-Catholic bigots at FR are at it again.
The Catholic Cur h has institutions like schools, hospitals that have employees - janitors, teachers, nurses, doctors, administrators, etc.
PPP was a payroll assistance plan.
Of course, the bigots here would love see these workers suffer, because they are Catholics.
You don’t know what the structure of a given diocese is in the USA.
The major parts that got these assistances were schools for payroll, parishes for keeping their school staff paid.
Most of the cost for religious schools in Catholic Diocese come from collections which were down tremendously as everyone had to be on lockdown.
Just like everyone was universally subsidized in the USA through payroll protection. What did your church receive in government funds?
The whole point of that payout was so that business owners, and Churches, and schools and services would not be screaming for the country to open up.
Why does the Catholic Church specifically have to be the one shafted in order to be point man on all the major conservative fights?
I know the rcc church structure.
It isnt like any non-rcc church body in the way it operates.
Parishoners have zero control over anything that goes,on there, thry cant remove priests or bishops or archbishops. They cant control church finances or even know about them if the bishops or archbishops dont tell them. They had little to no idea of the pedophile priests being shuffled around.
Other church bodies have real local control, will remove problem priests, are not dictated to by bishops and archbishops, own their own buildings, and the churches are financially held responsible at the local levels. Voters actually literally decide what goes on or doesn’t and items are discussed, pros and cons.
Because Catholics have to be the ones to scream the loudest on all the major conservative issue du jour. That’s why people here want Catholics to be singled out from among all other Churches.
Double standards are all the that’s appropriately fitting though.
Please don’t tell me more how you just hate the Catholic Church. Its really old.
That has nothing to do with payroll protection for the Catholic Churches ministries, just like many other Churches.
Catholic Church ever going to kick Nancy Pelosi out for her stand on abortion ? Or is killing babies still ok.
Oh shove it. Seriously.
I’m reacting to this particular story and the fact a massive group got between 1.4 to 3.5 billion that it could certainly funnel into its sex lawsuit payouts.
The corporate structure is similar in some places.
In that a local parish is a stand alone corporation, and may apply for PPP funds independent of the other the church in town, who also applied for funds.
Each parish, school, nunnery, etc is legally an independent entity. So St Pat’s school gets a loan to pay the teachers, but is that counted on the total?
See how it is folks.
Because the Big religion that is the Catholic Church is also in a religious struggle for its identity,they should be singled out among all the other big religions out there.
In other words, “because I have opinions (nonfactual) about how the Catholic Church operates from Diocesan to parish, from school to bingo raffle ticket, I just know that the money went to no good use!”
Yes there are plenty of apostates in the Catholic Church, no, it is not for you to say when they get excommunicated or whether they give up their Catholic membership card. Those problems again have nothing to do with what the intent of that payout was.
The intent was to tamp down collective opposition to lock downs. My question to you is, was your church also on the take? Did anyone in your community benefit from the PPP? What public service, entertainment, restaurant, ice-cream store, hospital, school and church did not take what was given out freely?
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