DC Catholic Diocese’s Financial Struggles Reflect Church Tensions

Faith, funds, scandals, and public trust intersect.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC, has announced broad layoffs and spending cuts that reflect ongoing fiscal struggles within the Catholic Church. Slowed church attendance during the COVID pandemic, an anemic economy, and scores of sex abuse claims against clergy have battered coffers. The archdiocese’s struggles in the nation’s capital mirror efforts to surmount challenges to faith as well as finances.

Fiscal Penance?

Dozens of US Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy oversight due to sex abuse violations, which spiked after many states relaxed statutes of limitations to permit claims. With church attendance rebounding and most abuse cases settled, Catholic churches across the country seek to reconcile past transgressions with continuing service to the needy. Concurrently, future priest abuses may be better policed by state laws that compel clergy to report knowledge of sexual abuse, even if gained through the sacrament of confession.

Revelations that Catholic Relief Services was the top recipient of USAID funding, amounting to some $4.6 billion from 2013 to 2022, suggest that ancillary money to individual Catholic churches could take a fiscal hit, but the DC diocese has been struggling for years. In a June 5 letter announcing spending cuts including at least 30 layoffs, Cardinal Robert McElroy revealed the diocese has suffered losses of some $10 million annually for the past five years, which he attributed to “the financial impacts of the pandemic and the fallout of the [former cardinal and leader of the archdiocese Theodore] McCarrick scandal, coupled with an extended period of inflation and volatile financial markets.”

This diocese featured prominently in the priest abuse scandal. Former Cardinal McCarrick, who passed away in Missouri on April 3, was a notorious sex offender of young boys and seminarians. His pernicious behavior had been reported but suppressed for decades, a blow to trust in the clergy and to the Church’s finances. Had he not been installed as DC’s archbishop from 2001 to 2006, victim trauma and monetary awards could have been prevented. Many prominent Catholic clergy strongly opposed McCarrick’s ascension to the position. Still, he appealed to Pope John Paul II, claiming “in the 70 years of my life, I have never had sexual relations with any person, male or female, young or old, cleric or lay, nor have I ever abused another person or treated them with disrespect.” His flagrant denials persisted even after he was defrocked following a canonical trial.

McCarrick’s fall fueled widespread outrage and calls for fiscal accountability to victims of priest sex abuse. Ironically, McCarrick was known as a liberal theologian, a DC power broker, and a prolific fundraiser. He officiated at the funerals of Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy and Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s son.

Catholic Ethics Struggle

While the DC diocese struggles to balance its books, Catholic leaders on the other side of the country have sued Washington state leaders over a new law requiring priests to break the confessional seal to report suspected child abuse. Such mandatory reporting requirements already bind other non-religious professions, but subjecting priests to possible arrest has raised separation of church and state issues. The constitutional barrier between the secular and the sectarian has faced many recent frictions, including the appropriateness of secular USAID billions diverted to an overtly religious organization and FBI spying on conservative Catholics.

The Spokane diocese filed for bankruptcy due to sex abuse claims, from which it emerged in 2007. Some Catholic leaders claim the new Washington state law is discriminatory because its requirements extend into the holy sacrament of penance, which will discourage offenders from disclosing their offenses. Others claim healing and abuse prevention are obligations, noting that concealing sex abuse secrets has not served the Church well morally or financially.

This controversial subject includes consideration of whether church bankruptcies better serve the Church (taking refuge in court from legal claims) or sex abuse claimants (preventing early victims from obtaining larger recoveries than those later). The financial struggles of the DC diocese reflect a similar persistent challenge in balancing those facing moral as well as financial bankruptcy: how to serve the most vulnerable by praying for (instead of preying upon) them.

(Originally published at Liberty Nation News.)