By Laura Crimaldi
Boston Herald
February 11, 2007
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=182298
Hundreds of distraught Boston-area priests are facing stark cuts in their retirement benefits as the Archdiocese of Boston scrambles to shore up its teetering pension system after decades of poor fiscal management.
"I see all of this as unjust and a failure to observe our canon law," said the Rev. Richard Craig, 71, who retired four years ago as pastor of St. John the Evangelist in North Chelmsford. "It leads me to wonder, are we, the senior priests, becoming objects of elderly discrimination?"
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| Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley took over for Cardinal Bernard Law after the priest sex-abuse scandal. |
Church documents show that as of April 2006, the pension plan - the Clergy Retirement/Disability Trust - faced an $85.4 million gap between the money on hand and what it is expected to have to spend for hundreds of priests, active and retired.
Frightened senior priests have seen monthly stipends frozen to amounts as low as $1,889, with other benefits such as health and housing also diminishing.
In multiple interviews, retired priests described the following pinches on their already meager finances, which consist of the $1,889 monthly allowance, $600 of which is for housing:
No cost-of-living increase for the monthly stipend since 2005 and none expected soon;
A $200 cut to the housing allowance;
The end of Medicare reimbursements for eligible priests - a cash burden of almost $1,000 a year.
Archdiocese officials insist senior priests are better paid than their active counterparts.
Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley "is completely committed to ensuring that we provide for the medical, retirement and financial needs of our priests, which is why he has sought the professional advice of outside experts who can assist us with strengthening the Clergy Benefit Trust," Terrence C. Donilon, archdiocese spokesman, said in a statement.
But some priests see it differently. "I don't have peace of mind. I won't have peace of mind until I know that they are not going to take anything away," said one disabled priest, who did not want to be identified out of fear the church would strip his financial support. "The priests' morale is horrible."
The funding gap and cost-cutting measures would not be in place if pension management had been better, according to a January financial analysis by the Council of Parishes, an advocacy group for closed churches that has been critical of the archdiocese.
The group says at least $70 million in donations collected between 1986 to 2002 from parishioners -who were often told the money would fund priests' retirements - went instead to other purposes, notably a fund drawn on extensively by former Cardinal Bernard Law before he left Boston.
That fund - the Clergy Benefit Trust - was used to pay millions of dollars for legal bills, psychological treatment and other expenses associated with dozens of priests accused of sexual abuse, according to church documents, interviews, letters and memos signed by Law.
"The archdiocese has never explained what was done with this money," said Peter Borre, co-chairman of the Council of Parishes, which has been documenting pension fund troubles and demanding the release of audited financial statements of the two trusts set up to pay for the priests' retirement.
"The net result," he added, "is that many, many retired priests who have served honorably and faithfully are suffering economically because monies donated for their retirement went instead to fund priests accused of sexual abuse who had been placed on leave."
The Rev. Mark O'Connell, who supervises the Clergy Retirement/Disability Trust, vigorously defended the diversion of millions in holiday collections. He saidthatduring that 16-year period, archdiocesan actuaries said the retirement fund was fully funded and even overfunded, and did not require a transfer from the Clergy Benefit Trust, the account that takes in the Christmas and Easter donations.
The retirement fund faltered, he said, after nursing-home costs, previously taken from a medical fund, were reassigned to the pension account and new actuaries started accounting for the likelihood that retired priests would live longer than expected.
"To think that something bad happened to that money or that it was used for something else that the good people of the archdiocese gave it for is simply false," he said.
In recent months, the archdiocese has taken steps to catch up on the underfunding. It cites a $10 million reduction in the shortfall between planned assets and liabilities, and another $5 million infusion from the Clergy Benefit Trust. The church has named former Boston Red Sox [team stats] executive John S. Buckley and former interim archdiocesean finance director James K. Hunt as advisers, according to a January letter signed by O'Connell.
O'Connell said the cost-cutting measures, especially the shift from making cost-of-living increases annually to doing so on an as-needed basis, will save millions. "The recent letter was designed to say to the senior priests, 'Don't worry,' " said O'Connell. "We are going to rethink it, we are going to have new financial help from experts."
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