My Son's School

Originally Posted at Talk to Action

This past January, my wife and I learned that The Diocese of Brooklyn-Queens plans to close St. Finbar, where my son attends Catholic elementary school, in June. Among the factors to its closing, the one that stands out to me is the Church's refusal to be accountable over the most basic matters of integrity and concern for the safety and well being of Catholic families. This, combined with distorted doctrinal and political priorities, are the underlying causes of a declining membership, and the hemorrhaging of Church funds.

St. Finbar's is a parish with Catholic school located in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Throughout its history it has provided students from Pre-K through the eighth grade with a Catholic elementary school education. In recent years it had smaller class sizes (my son's second grade class has five other students besides him). But we didn't mind because it kept him on his toes while providing him with a lot of personal attention from the teacher.

The parish has been known for its open-mindedness. Its priests spoke in favor of fair treatment for gays and lesbians, and of emphasized the Catholic social justice tradition of Dorothy Day's over the neoconservative bloviations of such reactionary bullies as George Weigel and Michael Novak. For obvious reasons, it was a good fit for my family.

Twenty years ago the Bath Beach section of Bensonhurst where the school is located, was heavily Italian and Jewish with some Irish and Polish families. But since then it has slowly become dominated by Russian and Chinese émigrés. Additionally, there are recent Hispanic newcomers in the area. But many Italian-Americans remain as well.

Citing changing demographics, the Diocese plans to close the school. But it seems to me that the demographics actually justify keeping the school open: the increasing Hispanic population is overwhelmingly Catholic.  

But if a changing demographic is not the major issue, then what is? Instead it is about money and criminality on the part of some of its leaders. Beyond that it also it is a response to the hierarchy's gross distortions of American politics that hold abortion and homosexuality above and beyond all other matters: In doing so they are making the Catholic Church more akin to their fundamentalist Protestant allies of  the  Religious Right than of any semblance to the Church that most Catholics believe to be true, and many still hope for.

As a recent New York Times story on the state of faith in America illustrates the number of American Catholics are slowly on the decline. As the Times noted:

The percentage of Catholics in the American population has held steady for decades at about 25 percent. But that masks a precipitous decline in native-born Catholics. The proportion has been bolstered by the large influx of Catholic immigrants, mostly from Latin America, the survey found.

When the representatives from the diocese announced the school's closing at a parents' meeting, they said that the primary issue was money combined with the changing nature of the neighborhood. The auxiliary bishop said that the Catholics that used to be in Bath Beach are now in Florida, North Carolina and other Sunbelt locations.

But this explanation ignores the fact the steady exodus of the Church's membership can be traced back to the Pope Paul VI's 1968 ban on artificial birth control. It continues to this day in response to the Church's opposition to embryonic stem cell research; and use of abortion and opposition to marriage equality as the primary, if not exclusive litmus test for evaluating candidates for public office. The alienation of the membership is not, of course, limited to such matters.

Let's take a quick look at institutional criminality:  The National Catholic Reporter recently reported that an astounding 85% of Parishes have reported some form of embezzlement. The reporter, Joe Feuerherd observed:

Sacred Heart parishioners and residents of Bath, Pa., were shocked last month when Elizabeth Fields, mayor of the tiny borough, was charged with stealing about $10,000 from the church's Sunday collections. Fields was secretly videotaped in the parish rectory as she allegedly altered the collection tally sheets so the funds she pocketed would not be seen as a shortfall.

The community's stunned reaction is typical, say experts, but theft at the parish and diocesan level is hardly surprising. In fact, it's the norm.

Feuerherd continued with the shocking details:

A whopping 85 percent of U.S. dioceses have detected embezzlement over the past five years, according to Villanova University researchers. "No question about it, it's a large number," said Charles Zech, director of the school's Center for the Study of Church Management and coauthor of the 15-page paper, "Internal Financial Controls in the U.S. Catholic Church," that details the findings. Supported by a grant from the Louisville Institute, Zech and Villanova accounting professor Robert West surveyed 174 diocesan chief financial officers. Seventy-eight responded.

The researchers don't put a precise dollar figure on how much was embezzled, but the range indicates it's significant. In 11 percent of the dioceses at least $500,000 was stolen over the last five years (meaning that a minimum of $4.3 million went missing) while one-third of the dioceses reported thefts of under $50,000. "You can only wonder about those [96] dioceses that didn't respond to our survey," said Zech.

Dishonest church employees and volunteers are the immediate cause, but the heart of the problem lies elsewhere, say the researchers.

"Unlike corporations which provide quarterly financial statements to the SEC and hold quarterly conference calls with outside analysts, the church is subject to almost no recurring outside financial scrutiny," according to the report. Further, while "many dioceses provide parishioners with an annual financial and administrative newsletter, which provides a highly summarized view of the cash flows for the year and the results of social and spiritual programs offered by the diocese -- many other dioceses do neither."

This scenario has played itself out in the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois where the independent-minded lay group Call to Action points to the actions Bishop Edward K. Braxton, whose abuses included "...taking money from a charity fund to buy expensive vestments." The abuse has provoked such outrage that CTA reported in a March 14, 2008 press release that diocesan priests have demanded Braxton's resignation.

But the issues are not limited to theft and misappropriations. There was, of course, the recent shell game of moving pedophile priest from one parish to another instead out of the priesthood altogether.  (And the related law suits that have cost the Church hundreds of millions of dollars.)  And we are still in the age where one arrogant bishop evicts nuns from a mansion just so that he can live in it; and the erection of an Opus Dei headquarters recently valued at $42 Million: All money that was needlessly wasted on pomp and abuse.

Then there is also a priesthood that pays more attention to conservative politics than tending to their flocks. One priest recently complained to me about organizations such as Fr, Frank Pavone's Priests for Life's controversial political activities, while noting that there is a serious  shortage of priests, such that everyday Catholics are increasingly denied basic religious attention. There are no longer enough parish priests to visit the sick or help provide assistance to the poor, but Father Frank has time to attend anti-abortion rallies.

But when parents of Catholic school children, such as my wife and I question any of this nonsense, we're fed a red herring: If only the state would provide us with vouchers or tax credits for my son's tuition, everything would be just dandy.

I beg to differ.

If certain members of my Church's hierarchy would direct its treasure and mission towards its flock; lose its single-minded obsession with certain political causes; and make itself more financially accountable -- we would have all the students to fill the classes of St. Finbar's and many other Catholic schools. And beyond that, we would have the money necessary to provide a Catholic education to just about any child who wanted one.

The Catholic Right: A Series, by Frank L. Cocozzelli