
Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B - js2
https://apnews.com/dab8261c68c93f24c0bfc1876518b3f6
======
jawns
I'm a Catholic, and although I believe in my church's doctrine, I don't always
come to the defense of my church's leaders. Here's how I see this:

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of
Revenue that when public funds (e.g. grants, aid, forgivable loans) are made
generally available to any organization that meets certain neutral criteria, a
religious organization that meets the criteria cannot be excluded merely
because it is religious. The First Amendment's Establishment Clause requires
the government to be _impartial_ when it comes to religion, showing no
preference toward any particular faith, or toward religious believers in
general. But that doesn't mean that religious organizations must be barred
from funding that is otherwise generally available.

So, assuming the Catholic parishes, dioceses, and organizations satisfied same
the criteria for the PPP loans as everybody else, I don't think there's a
"separation of church and state" issue here.

Another consideration: What happens if they were ineligible to participate in
the PPP. They would likely be forced to furlough or lay off employees. Because
churches don't pay into states' unemployment programs, those employees would
not be eligible to collect unemployment insurance (or the federal government's
additional unemployment aid), which would put them in pretty bad shape. I
happen to think that churches SHOULD pay into unemployment programs or provide
similar unemployment benefits for laid-off workers, but that's not the reality
right now. And so having churches participate in the PPP is an available way
for the government to look after people who happen to work for religious
employers.

As for some of the more controversial details -- lobbying for special
classification with regard to employee size restrictions -- I would not be
surprised if the Church were in the wrong there, although it's certainly true
that the Church has an organizational structure that far predates and doesn't
map cleanly to U.S. corporate structures.

~~~
annoyingnoob
The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets,
something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church
had options beyond lobbying for relief.

~~~
jawns
Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not
liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real
estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed
to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited.

A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has
vast piles of money sitting around in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin.
Whereas if you look at the balance sheets of your average Catholic parish or
diocese, you'll see that their budgets are relatively modest, they sometimes
operate in the red, and to the extent that they have liquid assets, they're
generally set aside to fulfill pension obligations.

Even at the Vatican level, the annual operating budget is roughly equivalent
to a mid-sized U.S. city, and expenses tend to be fairly close to income. The
art in its museums is often mistakenly viewed as if it could be sold off like
gold or diamonds, but the Vatican actually acts more as a conservator than an
owner of the pieces. It does not consider itself at liberty to sell the art,
because it was entrusted to the Vatican's care under the expectation that it
would be perpetually maintained. In that sense, the art truly is priceless; it
can't be sold.

~~~
Theory5
"Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are
not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real
estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed
to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited."

I don't think that's true. Years ago in Boston MA during one of the big legal
where church leaders were accused of child molestation/rape/sex abuse, the
church was ordered to pay $85 million dollars to the victims, some 260 people
I think.

They took short term loans to pay that, then sold 15 buildings that netted
them over 100 million dollars. One of the biggest properties was the
archbishop's residence.

They didn't tap into the normal petitioners funds and similar, just took out
some loans, took some insuance payouts to cover the 85 mil, then less then a
year later sold those 15 buildings for over 100 mil.

The building packages were thought to be worth at minimum $1 mil per acre.

This was between 03 and 04.

In 2020, they were able to move around $2 billion to shield those assets from
being taken into account during more recent sex abuse payouts.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-01-08/the-
catho...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-01-08/the-catholic-
church-s-strategy-to-limit-payouts-to-abuse-victims)

They sure as shit can liquidate, or move very large amounts of assets around
to protect their own organization.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/us/church-in-boston-to-
pa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/us/church-in-boston-to-
pay-85-million-in-abuse-lawsuits.html)

They're not a small business in any sense of the word, and they took money
they don't need, seeing as it can take them less than a year to sell $100 mil+
worth of assets to cover payments to 260 sex abuse victims 15+ years ago, or
move around 2 billion worth of assets in a ploy to try and reduce what they'll
have to pay to victims of these leaders.

------
annoyingnoob
I want to avoid taxes but also get government support too. Who do I need to
lobby and how much will it take?

~~~
sushid
First, create a religion.

~~~
annoyingnoob
I find the L Ron Hubbard path distasteful. But I see your point. I suppose any
non-profit could work instead.

------
diegoholiveira
I saw a lot of people saying things like "tax them".

Why would you tax a non-profit institution that has like 5K hospitals and more
than 10K homes for the elderly, orphans and those with special needs?

~~~
klyrs
Because they exert, and lobby for, the right to refuse treatment on religious
grounds. Women's reproductive rights, and LGBTQ people are harmed where tax
dollars are redirected through "charity" and cannot be used to establish
secular services of the same kind.

They're great for the "right kind" of elderly, homeless and orphans. But
they've got a long history of screwing everybody else over, for example,
forced conversion of native american orphans.

Essentially, it's a loophole that you can pilot a "separate but equal"
aircraft carrier through. And then fail to even provide that "separate" care,
so equality is not achieved.

~~~
diegoholiveira
You're saying: they not perfect. And I agree with you. But who's perfect?

~~~
klyrs
Who said anything about perfection? I'm saying tax dollars would be better
spent providing services to all citizens, not just those whose lives conform
to a particular religion's norms. And thus we should tax churches for a
percentage of their tithe. And maybe not shovel money on them just because
they asked with cash.

------
12xo
Tax them.

------
noscrewstoyous
Well, time to tax.

------
sparrish
The government shut its doors involuntarily - essentially blocking the revenue
(donations) received. The government should have to provide compensation for
'taking away' the ability to minister to people and receive donations,
according to the 5th amendment of the Constitution.

------
annoyingnoob
In this case maybe the loans should not convert to grants, should not be
forgivable. Let the Catholics repay the loans with interest.

------
danso
The news peg for this particular story (i.e. why the Catholic Church and not
all denominations) is ostensibly the Church's ongoing legal battle and
settlements re: clergy sexual abuse, but also the fact that the church's
lobbying arm successfully argued an exception for religious organizations to
not be disqualified under the rule's dictate "that only businesses with fewer
than 500 employees, including at all subsidiaries, are eligible.":

> _The Catholic News Service reported that the bishops’ conference and several
> major Catholic nonprofit agencies worked throughout the week of March 30 to
> ensure that the “unique nature of the entities would not make them
> ineligible for the program” because of how SBA defines a “small” business.
> Those conversations came just days after President Trump signed the $2
> trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which included
> the Paycheck Protection Program._

> _In addition, federal records show the Los Angeles archdiocese, whose leader
> heads the bishops’ conference, paid $20,000 to lobby the U.S. Senate and
> House on “eligibility for non-profits” under the CARES Act. The records also
> show that Catholic Charities USA, a social service arm of the church with
> member agencies in dioceses across the country, paid another $30,000 to
> lobby on the act and other issues._

Also, the Catholic Church is just fundamentally a more hierarchical and
unified institution compared to other denominations. Sure, other denominations
have dioceses and bishops, but not as rigidly structured as Catholicism, e.g.
cardinals who work directly with the Pope.

~~~
voisin
$50k in lobbying for $1.4B (possibly $3.5B)? Seems like a hell of a ROI.

I’ve never understood why elected officials seem willing to acquiesce to huge
pork barrel projects for such little $$ in lobbying. “The Unreasonable
Effectiveness of Lobbying Dollars”?

~~~
exclusiv
Yeah it's crazy but I think the short answer is - they aren't giving up their
money.

~~~
voisin
In a competitive market, wouldn’t you expect the costs and benefits to
converge?

------
black6
It's a business, like any other--it just sells something that cannot be
redeemed until after death. Let's pull back tax benefits for religious
institutions and treat them the same as the rest.

~~~
bilekas
It's not just like any other though, it already recieves huge tax relief. Not
to mention the esitmated worth in 2018 at least was 30 Billion $

> The Internal Revenue Service automatically considers churches exempt. The
> reasoning behind making churches tax-exempt and unburdened by IRS procedures
> stems from a First Amendment-based concern to prevent government involvement
> with religion.

So it's okay not to pay taxes, but it can petition to recieve some. Doesn't
add up.

~~~
abetusk
This is some contorted logic. "We will not privilege religion, so we will give
a privileged tax exempt status to religion".

Ha, nice, the Satanic Temple is also tax exempt [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Temple](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Temple)

~~~
klyrs
I've been thinking a lot about the Satanic Temple recently. The supreme court
has been ferociously eroding the separation of church and state lately. I
wonder how they, and the public, would respond to public funding for a Satanic
charter school that openly discriminated against heterosexual teachers and
forced heterosexual students to undergo gay conversion therapy...

Edit: to be clear, I don't think that it would be a _good_ to do. But for all
the fearmongering about the "gay agenda" to make your kids gay, there's a
well-documented "straight agenda" that results in a high rate of suicide (and
very few enduring conversions) of its victims. If we _are_ equal in the eyes
of the law, zero or both must be valid.

~~~
true_religion
I’m not against a gay only school. It doesn’t sound too dissimilar to male or
female only schools, which only seek to employ teachers of the same gender.

------
mensetmanusman
It’s not a monolithic financial institution in the U.S.

It’s a large array of individually operating entities providing local food
banks etc.

~~~
valuearb
It's a long running MLM selling "eternal salvation" and spending a tiny
percentage of it's revenues on charity for PR cover.

~~~
rbecker
While not given as a percentage of revenue, this post estimates the Catholic
Church's charity as anything but 'tiny':
[https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/6ogy4p/source_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/6ogy4p/source_for_the_church_being_the_largest/dkhrydq/?st=1Z141Z3&sh=d663c0a2)

~~~
exclusiv
People also forget the huge network of Catholics who contribute their own
personal time for the benefit of the local communities (and also the non-
Catholics they activate with their local events).

It would be hard to quantify, but in the analysis you posted that's not
included.

------
mnm1
I'm not surprised they made an exception to allow the church to gain funds
despite having more than 500 employees but did not require companies with more
than 500 employees to provide sick leave for corona. Classic corruption. Send
the funds to our rich rapist (proven not alleged in this case) friends while
Americans are starving and getting evicted in the streets while sick because
they have no sick days or financial support. Many people are still waiting for
their first unemployment check from March but not to worry, the church won't
go out of business and little kids will continue to be raped by priests. We
have our priorities straight in America. Clearly raping kids is more important
than feeding, sheltering, or providing sick leave for ordinary Americans.
Message received loud and clear.

~~~
_--___-___
www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

Employees of the US public school system abuse several orders of magnitude
more children than the global Catholic clergy. Maybe I shouldn't be taxed to
pay the rapist employees of a system my family and I don't benefit from before
we start talking about the churches.

