It has been reported that the U.S Roman Catholic Church received at least $1.4 billion in federal funds from the Paycheck Protection Program.
What We Know:
- According to an analysis done by the Associate Press, millions of those funds went to dioceses that have paid massive settlements or sought bankruptcy protection due to sexual abuse claims.
- This is surprising because faith-based organizations are normally prohibited from lobbying for federal funds distributed by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Despite this, congress allowed churches and other nonprofits to apply for loans via the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) as long as they abided by the SBA’s “affiliation rule”. Thsi rule states that only entities that are eligible are those with fewer than 500 employees.
- Even with specfied rule, many parishes exceed the 500-person cap. After an organized lobbying effort from the Catholic Church, the Trump administration made the decision to exempt religious groups from the affiliation rule. The extensive use of this loophole resulted in Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools being approved for at least 3,500 forgivable loans.
- After facing pressure from Democratic lawmakers in conjunction with lawsuits from various news outlets, the federal government released comprehensive data this week on the entities that received PPP loans.
- According to the data that was released, roughly $200 million was sent to approximately 40 dioceses that have shelled out massive sums to sex-abuse victims in recent years. The Archdiocese of New York received 15 loans, worth at least $28 million, just for its top executive offices.
- In 2016, New York’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese set up a victim compensation fund and in less than two years, they had reportedly paid out nearly $60 million to 278 victims. In 2019, dioceses and religious orders nationwide paid north of $280 million to approximately 4,500 victims of abuse.
- In defense of the church, a spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Chieko Noguchi said, “these loans are an essential lifeline to help faith-based organizations to stay afloat and continue serving those in need during this crisis”. He continued, “The church and affiliates were able to give paychecks to more than 400,000 employees because of the loans”.
So far, 4.9 million Paycheck Protection Program loans have been approved according to the Small Business Administration.
