BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Michael Paulson and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | October 21, 2005
Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, facing pressure from some legislators and lay Catholics to publicly report the church's financial holdings, today is making a public pledge to disclose fully the financial and real estate holdings of the Archdiocese of Boston.
But leaders on Beacon Hill pushing to mandate financial disclosure by the Catholic Church said O'Malley's pledge doesn't go far enough, and said they would not agree to a request from the archdiocese to drop legislation to require financial disclosure by Massachusetts religious denominations.
In a letter published in today's edition of the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, O'Malley said that he will release audited financial reports early next year with ''full disclosure" of the archdiocese's revenues and expenditures, as well as an explanation of the cost and source of all clergy sex abuse settlement payments. He also promises to release an accounting next fall of the finances -- including assets and liabilities -- of each of the archdiocese's parishes, which currently number 295. O'Malley said the disclosures would then be made annually.