The reading from the Letter to the Ephesians this Sunday speaks of how Christ loved the church as a spouse, “cleansing her by the bath of water with the word” so that “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing . . . she might be holy and without blemish.” After looking at the way money is handled by Catholic churches in the U.S., a major financial journal begs to differ, concluding that “the finances of the Catholic Church in America are an unholy mess.” A Catholic researcher, on the other hand, said the analysis reveals “lack of understanding of what the church is as an institution.”

The Economist magazine’s report begins by acknowledging the many charitable works done by Catholic organizations. But, the report continues, “The financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution.

“The church’s finances look poorly coordinated . . . . The management of money is often sloppy. And some parts of the church have indulged in ungainly financial contortions in some cases—it is alleged—both to divert funds away from uses intended by donors and to frustrate creditors with legitimate claims, including its own nuns and priests,” said the report.

“Thousands of claims for damages following sexual-abuse cases, which typically cost the church over $1 million per victim, according to lawyers involved, have led to a liquidity crisis,” the report said, arguing that because of the crisis, churches are resorting to some questionable and risky financial practices to make ends meet.

Some influential Catholics are keen to see better management and more openness and accountability. Current U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta called for outside oversight of church finances when he was a director of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, a position he relinquished in 2009 to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mark M. Gray, who edits a research blog for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, however, takes issue with the magazine’s approach to church economics. “Even a glancing read of the [Code of Canon Law] would have revealed that the church is quite clearly not run like a multinational corporation”” wrote Gray. “The sole objective of the modern corporation is to extract and grow profits. . . . But it sadly has no capacity for social justice.”

“If the aim of this article was to encourage the church to be more like Walmart I personally remain unconvinced,” wrote Gray. “I don’t know any person or institution that is not without its sins and The Economist’s story correctly notes many of the church’s recent failings. But I would also counter that there are many corporations who really, really need to find a way to adopt some of the charitable focus of most nonprofits (religious or secular) more than the church needs to adopt corporate accounting practices on a unified global scale.”

 

Sources: Articles by The Economist and Mark M. Gray for Nineteen Sixty-four, a CARA research blog