The Vatican, Inc.
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The bottom line for organized religion is……..the bottom line
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It has been reported this week that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, when head of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, advised the Vatican to place some $57 million of church funds in a trust that protected them from being tapped by sex-abuse victims through lawsuits. “By transferring these assets to the trust, I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” he wrote, a year after the archdiocese spent more than $10 million on litigation and compensation to victims. The Vatican quickly approved the transfer.
Associated Press
In 2008, Vatican authorities recommended the imposition of a 10-year precept, or suspension, on Thomas Trepanier, a self-admitted offender. Then-Archbishop Dolan asked the Vatican to instead defrock the priest. “If word got out that the Holy See had left the door open for a reconsideration of Father Trepanier’s case in 10 years our credibility would be seriously damaged,” he wrote in a letter to Rome. The Vatican ended up restricting the priest from ministry indefinitely. Cardinal Dolan was right to be concerned about the church’s credibility but given that it takes a ferocious public position against same-sex relations between consenting adults yet is missing in action when children are abused, Cardinal Dolan only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Holy See’s credibility challenges.
In a statement Monday, Cardinal Dolan denied he transferred the funds to shield them from insolvency proceedings, calling that assertion an “old and discredited” attack. For those old enough to recall the Cold War, such a reaction sounded very similar to how the Kremlin would respond when accused of wrongdoing. Next up, the Vatican will lament the level of cynicism in society. Such is also the lament of rulers who are used to being unchallenged.
It is very possible that such funds should have been transferred as they were collected under the pretense of cemetery maintenance. But $57 million is a lot of landscaping and obelisks for the cemeteries. And the timing of such transfer is dubious, to say the least. This seems a far cry from the hand-to-mouth institution that Christ implicitly advocated when he was on this earth. And it’s doubtful the Holy Trinity would’ve approved of the billions that churches around the world collectively have in various investments.
Since its inception, the church and other organized religions have claimed that they are not democracies (translation: keep your mouth shut and your wallet open when the collection basket rolls around). But in the last several decades, because of technological, political and social evolution, people now are able to question institutions like the church that they never have before, much to the good of such institutions despite what its ossified leadership might claim.
Inevitably, the Catholic Church will always be prone to being questioned so long as its primary focus is operating as a business and not its stated mission of spreading the Gospel of Christ.
-I.M. Windee
