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Last week, the Brooklyn Diocese and an after school program were set up with four people who were frequently abused in a Catholic church, agreeing to pay a total of $ 27.5 million. The historic sum was reported at the end of a summer that has become a public relations fiasco for the Vatican around the world, causing some sort of identity crisis in its own walls. In the last few months alone, Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, resigned from the College of Cardinals when he became the most senior cleric to be directly charged with sexual violence. Weeks later, a grand jury report from Pennsylvania concluded that since the 1940s, approximately 300 priests had abused at least 1,000 children in some states only.& # 39;s dioceses. On a trip to Ireland shortly after, Pope Francis was called to resign by a former senior church official, who said the pontiff was aware of McCarrick's allegations before they were made public. In addition, attorneys general in the states of New York, New Jersey and other states have launched their own polls in local dioceses.
It sometimes seems that you can undermine in perpetuity a list of scandals of sexual violence against Catholics. The pope, for his part, has barely reacted by summoning the world's bishops to the Vatican for a meeting this winter to discuss the current crisis.
Given the impossibility of criminal consequences for clergy and the fact that many of these cases of sexual abuse have far exceeded the limitation period, the final question appears more and more as a matter of financial responsibility. But can the church settle with the survivors forever? Will he ever, somehow, completely run out of money to do it? By settling sexual abuse complaints, the church would have spent or agreed to spend at least $ 3 billion in the United States alone, and about 20 American dioceses have filed for bankruptcy. There is little evidence that will slow down or that the price will not continue to climb. (In Pennsylvania, for example, the bishops said they supported a fund to compensate survivors if they could prove that they were being abused, but because of the state's statute of limitations, they could no longer bring a lawsuit.)
But the details of the church's finances, like virtually everything that goes on behind these doors, are hard to come by.
Just ask Jack Ruhl. He is an accounting professor at Western Michigan University and is interested in the finances of the Catholic Church in the early 2000s, when he discovered a personal connection with an abuse scandal. in his hometown of Chicago. It has become more than a mere research interest for him, now, more like a passion like the one your uncle might have to trace your family lineage to 1651 using Ancestry.com. In 2015, Ruhl and his wife Diane published their findings in National Catholic Reporter-The first attempt to give a correct estimate (they claimed nearly $ 4 billion) for how much sexual abuse had cost the church since 1950.
VICE discussed with Ruhl, among other things, how he evaluates the finances of the church (there are secret bank accounts and potential frauds), how does this happen, when a diocese goes bankrupt and how long the Vatican can withstand a multi-billion dollar liability.
VICE: How – and why – did you start digging into church money?
Jack Ruhl: It started in 2004, when I was reading a pair of articles from Chicago-Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune which referred to charges against a Jesuit priest, Father John Powell, who was a professor at Loyola University. I was studying there, as well as my wife, Diane, in 1975. He was also the author of several self help books …Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?, The secret of staying in love, and He touched me. He had turned the conversation [with Diane] to the way he was going to help her open up to her sexuality, so that she did not spend her life "watching a microscope". Diane was and is quite studious; she was a victorious class in her veterinary class. Ultimately, the allegations were that he had abused girls. It so happens that my wife and I knew Father Powell – in fact, he was even the priest of our marriage – and I asked my wife when he had done this to her, and she said Yes. So, that is what really interested me.
What has been your process since then?
First of all, the Catholic Church has no obligation to provide financial information to anyone. The result is that only the hierarchical circle obtains a faithful picture of the finances, and sometimes even they do not know what. Nevertheless, some dioceses publish financial information. What has interested me is how many dioceses have done it. There is [about 200] The dioceses in the United States and myself went online and we could only find financial information for 80 or 90 people. Sometimes financial information is audited, sometimes not. Unaudited financial information is worthless. This is not a hyperbole.
Unverified financial information is like this: I show you my check register which indicates that I am richer than Warren Buffett. I say, "Believe me, because I am a bishop who never lies and hides money, and I turn the bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord." Unaudited statements are like this: a lot of financial statements without any proof of reliability.
And you still do it, even with all the obstacles? Do you collect financial information from the Church (or at least try to do it) for about ten years?
[[[[Laughs]I am sitting at my desk now. There is a mathematical technique that listeners use to see if their customers are manipulating the numbers. So, what I have been doing for six months is the bankruptcy data collection of the Diocese of San Diego. To make a long story, the bishop is there at the time [in about 2007], Robert Brom – there have been a number of lawsuits [over alleged sexual abuse], and they eventually went bankrupt. And for that, you have to go to court [with a team of church lawyers] and basically present all your assets. What they have shown is for the chancellery-For the headquarters – and for the parishes, there were hundreds (literally hundreds) bank accounts. So, the bankruptcy court hired an expert, a chartered accountant, and what he discovered, is that just before going bankrupt, a number of parishes went to the banks and asked for new TINs – taxpayer identification numbers. There was a bank – Union Bank of California – and they knew that San Diego was bankrupt, and they said, "We will give you a new taxpayer identification number," but we must have a letter from bankruptcy. court. What eventually happened was that there was a judge – there was so much media, so much publicity – that she was crying out the survivors' stories and that she was in the middle of the night. he read how this diocese had tried to minimize its assets.
Why continue to do that? What do you hope to achieve?
Transparency. Many people do not understand this, but online financial statements are only about headquarters – millions and millions of dollars are available in parishes.
So how many have these parishes and dioceses? How do these churches make money?
Well, a number of ways. In a set of financial statements, there are items such as the income statement and the balance sheet, and there are also notes to these financial statements. If you look in the notes, you'll find that a lot of them have money in stocks, mutual funds – that's a solution. Then, of course, there is the weekly collection for people going to Mass. And then sometimes you meet – I found, in one case, for example, where someone had died and gave an area or building to the [local] church. A very big donation, bequeathed after a death.
And then this is directed upwards – which means that the parishes end up giving money to the Vatican?
Yes, they send money, it was formerly called Peter. It is essentially the Vatican tax.
How much is the Vatican worth? TIME estimated at $ 15 billion in 1965.
I'm glad you brought that up. A few years ago, just to entertain, I was able to get financial statements from the Vatican. My first real question is who decides financial standards and reporting standards for the Vatican. Well, it's the Vatican city-state – so the person who finally decided that was Pope Paul VI. [He was the pontiff from 1963 until 1978.] Of course, what does he know? Let's just say that he was not specially trained to create accounting standards.
So what I did, I was stunned. On the Vatican's financial statements – in fact, why not guess? I know you have not asked for games. But guess what is the valuation of St. Peter's Basilica?
I do not know. Hundreds of millions of dollars.
A Euro
Well, I have my next question: why?
[[[[Laughs]Basically, they just want to appear as a poor church – for me, it's dodge. So, people can not say that it's rich – it's actually worth "x" million or billions or billions of dollars. People with the only real idea of the value of the Church, as I said, are the highest placed inside.
When a diocese settles with a survivor or survivors, how much does it pay tens of millions of dollars?
Well, it's a good question. Looking at their financial statements – the most recent financial statements go back to 2016. Let's take an example: there is a bank called Allied Irish Banks, and some dioceses, including Los Angeles. I will use it as an example. If you remember, a few years ago, the Los Angeles Archdiocese paid hundreds of millions of dollars and some of that money was borrowed from that Irish bank. Surprisingly, what some churches do – and very few people know – are obligations. Apparently, the bonds, they say, are sold to renovate the gym or something.
Technically, then, would the Church be able to pay these settlements forever?
Yes. Let me also explain to you how the insurance companies intervene. What happens, for example, the archdiocese will pay the survivors, then the churches will turn around and tell the insurance company, "Hey, guys, you have us covered, so we expect to be covered for $ 25 million ", or whatever. The fighting will begin between this archdiocese and the insurance companies.
Let me say it differently. Is there a conceivable way that the Church – the Vatican – can go bankrupt?
No, for one thing, there are so many bank accounts that we do not know. And they will not talk to anyone about it.
What is the most delicate thing about the money that the Superior Church has made, that you do not think you know, or that you think people have forgotten?
Father [Timothy Dolan], the Archbishop of New York – and I think he's trying to pre-empt the continuing scandal – has hired a former judge to conduct a study on whether the church does what it does. she really says do in matters of help for survivors. What I think a lot of people forget is that in 2007, Cardinal Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee, and he transferred $ 57 million to the cemetery fund. [to hide the amount of money and assets his diocese had, so as to not have to pay survivors demanding compensation]. At the same time, he was crazy enough to write a letter to the pope.
In fact, I can quote it – I have a quote right here on my desk: "I expect better protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability".
In truth, we could talk about it forever.
This interview has been slightly modified and condensed for clarity.
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