St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill is one of the most elite parish locations in the United States. Thanks to it being the official local parish of the House of Representatives, one regularly expects to share kneelers and holy water fonts with congressmen, prominent members of the media, and the assorted “that guy” provincial celebrities of the Beltway Catholic family.
For as long as anyone can remember, St. Peter’s has done more than its share in the annual Archdiocese of Washington “Lenten Appeal” (which used to be known as the “Cardinal’s Lenten Appeal” until recent events necessitated a change). The Lenten appeal is the main fundraising drive of every Catholic diocese and is one of the principal ways any diocese is funded each and every year. Each parish is given a financial target, and pastors become carnival barkers for the bishop in the weeks leading up to the Season of Lent (a task they universally hate).
According to the St. Peter’s website, the annual fundraiser for the archdiocese met 113% of its parish giving target as recently as 2017. By 2018, the front end of the “summer of shame” when the Cardinal Theodore McCarrick revelations came fully to light, St. Peter’s only raised 91% of its parish target for the campaign. And in 2019, only 59% of the fundraising goal was achieved.
This isn’t an isolated event. The Washington Post this past week reported that in the Archdiocese of Washington as a whole, the Lenten appeal has suffered a year-over-year decline of one-third. Across the river in the nearby Diocese of Arlington, the decline is a still serious 7% drop. We should expect more anecdotal tales of financial body blows to trickle in from the other 200 or so U.S. dioceses.
Meanwhile, in Rome, larger donors have gone on a giving strike after millions of dollars was stolen from them in order to prop up a loan at a corrupt Italian hospital (orchestrated by none other than McCarrick). Peter’s Pence, the annual collection advertised by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as raising money for the charitable works of the pope, is the subject of a class-action lawsuit after the Wall Street Journal reported that only 10% of money raised actually went to help the poor (the rest ending up in the hemorrhaging Vatican general fund).
Needless to say, people are sitting on their wallets when asked to give by the bishops. It’s the only avenue laity have to give them a vote of “no confidence.”
It seems the U.S. bishops are the only people in America who aren’t benefiting from the booming Trump economy. Gallup has released a series of poll findings this week which indicate people are feeling pretty good about the country and their own financial affairs. About 61% of people think they are better off than when President Trump was elected three years ago (a higher number than any third-year president in living memory). About 69% expect their financial situation to improve over the next year (a number only matched in the go-go late 1990s). Consumer confidence is reported at levels not seen in several decades.
People ought to feel good about their financial affairs. The total return on the stock market is up nearly 65% since Trump’s election, which is good news for the majority of families which have 401(k)s, IRAs, and 529s. Wages are finally growing smartly above inflation again, and faster for those at the bottom of the income ladder. Inflation is well within Federal Reserve safety limits. Housing prices are up almost everywhere. You can get a 30-year mortgage with just over a 3% interest rate, the same rate at which you can get a loan for a brand new family car.
Unemployment is at or near record lows by any measurement or for any subgroup of Americans. There are more jobs than there are people seeking work. Labor force participation is up, as millions of discouraged potential workers come off the sidelines and back onto the job force. Anyone who wants a job can easily get one and is in a strong bargaining position to demand a solid salary and benefits package.
Needless to say, the economy is booming. As a result, charitable giving is rising for everyone — everyone, that is, except the Catholic bishops. We’re as prosperous as we’ve ever been, charities are getting more money than ever before, and the Catholic Church is seeing plummeting donations.
If people have it so good, and Catholics are presumably well represented in these boom times, why are the bishops not only seeing their donations fail to keep pace with the rising tide but actually going down?
The answer is two-fold. First, lay Catholics are fed up with bishops who aren’t listening to our demands to get to the bottom of the culture of sex abuse cover-up and financial corruption that the bishops themselves have spent decades creating. Second, the bishops are so isolated from the rest of us that we have no other way to make our voice heard other than to close our checkbooks.
If the bishops want to turn this around, they have to stop acting like nervous, embattled CEOs and start acting like shepherds. Pursue justice swiftly against those who have committed sexual abuse and financial crimes, or those who hid the truth about that behavior — no more excuses, no more delays, and no more bishops covering for other bishops.
Publicly and fraternally correct each other when you see a brother bishop failing in his duty. Commit yourself to real transparency and lay oversight of finances. Sideline your chancery praetorian guards and actually talk to the Catholics you are appointed to lead.
Most of all, show us lay Catholics that you care and are angry like we are. Stop hiding behind a corrupt episcopal culture that tells the rest of us to pray, pay, and obey.
Ryan Ellis (@RyanLEllis) is president of the Center for a Free Economy.
