Re: Catholic Corruption

[Guest guest]

You may have a point on the national level, but here on the local level, there have been shenanigans going on for over a decade.

Like I said: the plan was to close the inner city Catholic schools and funnel the money from across the diocese to a handful of brand new trophy schools that were built near wealthy suburbs. These schools have gotten the bulk of the funding and very little has gone to the few remaining city schools.

This has happened because some 15 years ago, the administrators WANTED to have only the trophy schools and wanted to close all the others, regardless of what the local parishes wanted. So, of course the school is lagging behind a bit on maintenance because the diocese hasn't helped it, but it has spent great sums on the new schools.

You are right that the parishioners are aging. The local Catholic churches have very few young people in them unlike virtually all of the other churches around.

What really gets me about the local situation is that I know what has been happening all this time. This bishop is just turning up the heat and is playing very dirty. He has also been one of the ones pushing to close all the little Catholic schools so the diocese will only have to spend money on the trophy schools. It is the corruption of the whole thing that irritates me. I mean, he drew one line and it was reached by the local business people, and then he drew another one AND his "official" report on the school is so far from the truth that it shocked people who heard it and know better.

I agree also about the televangelists. I have no idea what kind of stocks this diocese has, but what I do know is that it wasn't bothered by the rounds of pedophile priest lawsuits, at least not much. Suffice it to say there were no big stories about it and I know that there would have been. No, this is just a pig-headed bishop who is abandoning the whole basis of the Catholic school system: private education for those who can't afford other schools. Like I said, it is all about their few trophy schools and has been for over a decade. This is just the end result of planned neglect aimed at closing the last few schools that are "draining resources" from their shiny new schools for the rich kids.

In a message dated 4/4/2008 4:21:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

Here is the irony of it though: Whereas Jimmy and Tammy Fe Baker and other tele-evangelists were obviousy rooking its parishoners, they were at least accounting for income reasonably fairly. In the case of the Catholic Church, I do believe that they are not corrupt in that sense, but they are hoarding stuff (innocently) nevertheless. Administrator Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides.

[Guest guest]

" This whole affair those has dragged on for years. It still amazes me

how often the incompetent, stubborn and stupid manage to wiggle their

way into positions of leadership. "

The revamp in bookkeeping might be legit. There has been pressure on

the non-profit industry to standardize accounting practices so that

assets and liabilities can no longer be hidden so easily. This way

the publc can tell what these organizations REALLY have, what these

organizations REALLY need, and how much these organizations actually

ive out.

By law, they are required to give out 5% of what they take in at

least per year. If an organization's books look like they are taking

in less than what you are (via donor dollars and interest on

investments) it means the organization is paying out less than it

should. If the organization is hiding its debts, it means they may be

hiding something, either in terms of inefficient operations or in

terms of something illegal, like embezellment of funds.

The Catholic Church is facing a threefold problem at the moment:

1) Paying out money to settle lawsuits. Money goes from parishoners

to the parish to the diocese. Whatever money is left over after

handling by administraton is used for operational costs, maintenance

of infrastructure, and new projects. But with all these lawsuits

going on, money has been paid out to settle them and less money is

going back to the parish. This leaves individual churches and schools

to fend for themselves a little more as far as their own needs go.

2) The Catholic church has seen a fall-off in the number of

parishoners, partly due to the churhch scandals, and also due tothe

appeal of " loose " churches that are not as strict. This menans a loss

of donor dollars. Corporate funders and private foundations usually

issue grants that " match " donor dollars or a percentage of them, so

if donations are lower, corporate and foundation grants will be lower.

3) An aging, inefficient, infrastructure combined with a reduction in

the number of preists, nuns, and Catholic teachers. The whole

structure of the catholic Church is very inefficient. There is too

much overhead, too many people in authority. All of that costs money.

Meanwhile, on the " front lines " as it were, there are fewer people to

carry out the actual " work " of the church.

I think what is going on here is that the church has audited itself

and they are going to have to cut funding for the school for the

reasons above. I beleive that what should have been happening all

along was a slow and systematic restructuring of the entire Catholic

Church from the Vatican down to the smallest parish, eliminating

overhead and redundancy wherever possible. Because the Church failed

to do that, they are now forced to make hard decisions - much the way

the automakers in the US are buying out employees so they can hire

new ones with better benefits.

How they have done this is wrong, but I do believe it correctly

reflects the dire situation in the Catholic Church.

To show exactly how disorganized the Catholic Church is, about five

years ago where I lived, a convent closed down due to lack of funding

and a lack of nuns. The nuns in the convent were going to get folded

into another convent that was also becoming less populated.

Preceeding the closing of this convent was a sale of all kinds of

things people had donated to the church over the last CENTURY that

the convent was open.

Now what do you suppose these donations were?

And how much do you think they were selling for?

Jewelry, artwork, coins, unused antique furniture, silver serving

trays and silverware, was literally going for bargain basement

prices. On the news back then they were showing some of these items.

Amoing them, a one carat diamond set in a solid gold band. It went

for somewhere around $500.00.

My dad used to be in the jewelry business. That ring, if it were

brand new, could sell for $2,500.00-$5,000 depending on the quality

of the diamond. And if it were an antique, that would raise the value

of the ring to three times as much.

There were some coins there that were bought up by dealers for five

or six times there face value, but they sold them (cheaply) for over

a hundred times their face value because, so far as they knew, most

such kinds were already bought up. These coins literally "

flooded " the market because they were so plentiful.

A Tifanny lamp with an estimated auction value of $25,000.00 went for

a few hundred dollars.

Now did the Catholic Church think to get an appraiser in there and

get an actual auction appraisal for all this stuff? Did they think to

actually auction it off? Did they think that they could take that

money and use it to pay for ailing infrastructure?

Nope. Nope, and nope.

I think the explanation for it was that the actual value of these

donations was considered to be a " reasonable " price affixed to the

original donation. So if some lamp originally bought directly

from got donated the day after purchase because someone did

not want it, the actual value of the lamp was the purchase price, if

not less because it was " used. " Thus on the books, the Catholic

Church would be reflecting less assets than it actually has.

So...

While the books correctly show the Catholic Church is hurting, the

fact is, they have whole unknown and untold treasure troves that they

could cash in and make money from. But like the US government, I

don't think the Catholic Church truly knows what it has. For all they

know, their may be whole warehouses sitting around with gold, silver,

jewelry, jewels, furnature and all kinds of stuff in them.

Here is the irony of it though: Whereas Jimmy and Tammy Fe Baker and

other tele-evangelists were obviousy rooking its parishoners, they

were at least accounting for income reasonably fairly. In the case of

the Catholic Church, I do believe that they are not corrupt in that

sense, but they are hoarding stuff (innocently) nevertheless.

Administrator