Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [8]
Finally, there are financial statements that are not even accompanied by a compilation report. Somebody has just put some numbers together. An example of that is the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.31
The church faces a major challenge in the retirement and elder care needs of priests and nuns, many of whom never paid into Social Security. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles had a $98 million shortfall for clergy pension and retirement as of 2009. The Chicago archdiocese was short $103 million for these needs in 2010; the Boston archdiocese was short $104 million. This funding crisis for priests and nuns stems only in part from the loss of investment revenues in the Great Recession. Abuse litigation is a huge cost. So is a downturn in giving by people who leave the church, distrust bishops, or have been strained by the recession. In 2003 religious orders of men and women faced unfunded retirement costs of $8.7 million. Of 573 religious communities providing data to researchers, 38 were adequately funded for retirement.32
These are aching realities in light of the paramount role of religious sisters in developing a Catholic system of schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Today, that infrastructure has an impact well beyond the faithful. Catholic schools educate many inner-city youngsters from non-Catholic families. The church’s commitment to the poor, immigrants, and people on the margins is enmeshed with U.S. social policy. Catholic Charities USA was a leader in helping Vietnamese refugees relocate in America in the late 1970s and in assisting Gulf Coast families who were thrown into an economic free-fall by the BP oil spill in 2010. The Reverend Fred Kammer, a Jesuit and former president of Catholic Charities USA, explains, “In the United States, the Roman Catholic Church runs the largest private school system, the largest private health care system, and the largest private social service system. We built parallel systems that were dependent almost entirely on religious”—meaning priests and nuns in religious orders, not diocesan clergy. “And those three systems are all now predominantly staffed by lay people. They serve lay people and non-Catholics. Now one can say this is ‘a shortage of priests’ if you look at it negatively. Or it’s the era of the post–Vatican II church and the emergence of the Catholic lay person and the realization that baptism calls you to ministry. It’s reality.”33
Catholic Charities USA had a $3.8 billion budget in 2007. Forty percent of that came from state and local governments, and 11 percent from federal grants. More than $440 million was for programs assisting needy children and families, including foster and residential care.34 Catholic Charities in each diocese functions with its own budget, programs, and fund-raising. Overall, Catholic Charities has more than 50,000 employees and 250,000 volunteers providing services that are integral to the nation’s social safety net.
THE VATICAN
The Holy See issues a financial statement each July; however, it is not a clear picture of assets and worth. The two main categories are the Vatican city-state and the Apostolic Patrimony. The city-state revenues come from real estate, museums, gift shops, stamps, and coins. Apostolic Patrimony is the administration, or the Curia; it governs the 120 diplomatic missions, a publishing house, Vatican Radio, and the daily L’Osservatore Romano. The city-state revenues typically offset costs of Apostolic Patrimony. In 2006 the Vatican operating statement showed a surplus of $3.2 million, despite a loss of $9.5 million in the value of the euro against the dollar. “Most donations to the Vatican and some of its investments are in dollars, yet the Vatican’s expenses are mainly in euros,” reported Catholic News Service.35 But the Holy See has a major asset omitted from its financial statement: