Charging Monetary Malfeasance in the Church, by James P. McCartin, Boston Globe, July 15, 2011

Charging Monetary Malfeasance in the Church

By James P. McCartin
Boston Globe
July 15, 2011

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2011/07/15/render_unto_rome_alleges_monetary_malfeasance_in_the_catholic_church_hierarchy/

Peter Borre of Charlestown, is one of the few heroes in “Render Unto Rome,’’ which includes anecdotes about local figures including former Boston auxiliary bishop Richard Lennon as well as historical figures like Pope Pius IX. Peter Borre of Charlestown, is one of the few heroes in “Render Unto Rome,’’ which includes anecdotes about local figures including former Boston auxiliary bishop Richard Lennon as well as historical figures like Pope Pius IX. (Zara Tzanev for The Boston Globe/File 2007)

Today’s literary vogue seems to be the financial expose. Prominent financiers have avoided jail, but they haven’t escaped indictment by an army of authors who have revealed misdeeds and documented a testosterone-driven corporate culture. Passing over the architects of the recent recession, the latest contribution to the genre treats another group of powerful men - leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.

Among the first journalists to investigate clerical sex abuse during the 1980s, Jason Berry has now written a book alleging fiscal mismanagement and - worse - cynical calculation and practiced deception. “Money is a mighty force in any religion,’’ Berry observes - as it is in families, businesses, and governments, all of which can become corrupted by greed and bribery. But the details Berry presents as evidence impart the sense that monetary malfeasance is fairly common and that, like their counterparts in business, Church leaders cultivate, or at least allow, a distinctive culture that fosters bad behavior.

The story begins in the cash-strapped Vatican of the 19th century. Reeling from losing lucrative Papal States to Italian revolutionaries, ecclesiastics launched a desperate campaign for financial stability. “I may be infallible,’’ the imperious and droll Pope Pius IX is said to have quipped, “but I am certainly bankrupt.’’ In response, Americans who enjoyed the Church’s spiritual support and knew its heroic material generosity proved a crucial funding source. Their progeny continue to bankroll much of Rome’s finances, Berry contends.

American bishops, he says, found themselves both having to finance their own local operations and service Rome’s bottomless collection plate, a feat demanding mountains of cash. When a bishop ceremoniously deposited his million dollar check with Rome, others felt pressured to double or quadruple that amount to signal fealty and curry favor. More than a few bishops would also use diocesan funds to subsidize elegant lifestyles, complete with lavish homes and grand vacations, Berry asserts.

The book’s most remarkable allegation is that Church finances are rarely subject to external auditing, even when they are publicly reported. As a result, Berry writes, some Church accounts are allowed to remain “off the books,’’ leaving them susceptible to secretive plunder. One study he cites estimates a 10th of all Sunday Mass collections may be pilfered somewhere along the way. Parishioners have no reliable gauge for how much of their money stays in the parish, ends up in diocesan or Roman coffers, or indeed covers legal expenses for sexually abusive priests, he contends.

Berry makes a case that the absence of accountability is illustrated by Peter’s Pence, an annual collection that, according to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website, “unites us in solidarity to the Holy See and its works of charity to those in need.’’ But as Berry purports to show, of the $82.5 million collected in 2009, only $8.65 million made it to Cor Unum, a Vatican-sponsored international charity. The fate of the remaining millions remains a mystery, he says.

Clerical sex abuse has also highlighted troubling mismanagement. The book charges that as a Boston auxiliary bishop, Richard Lennon developed a mercenary plan to liquidate vibrant parishes to help fill the gaping budgetary hole opened by the scandal. Parishioners mounted sustained resistance, but to managers with no financial accountability to the faithful, such asset shifting was regarded as a right. After his appointment as head of the Cleveland diocese, Lennon launched a similar plan, Berry says, again stirring acrimony as churches were shuttered to cover operating costs in a notoriously corrupt diocese.

The book’s few heroes include Peter Borre, a Charlestown Don Quixote who has advanced appeals through the Vatican bureaucracy to protect parishes from ecclesiastical fire sales. Borre’s efforts have yielded mixed results, but Berry portrays him and other tenacious and indignant laity as the only hope against a hierarchical culture of secrecy and privilege that promotes “structural mendacity’’ and “institutionalized lying.’’

Berry also spotlights Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican second-in-command from 1990 to 2006, who, Berry alleges, abetted his Italian nephew’s ecclesiastical insider trading. Gaining privileged information on US properties to be sold for sex abuse payouts, the younger Sodano’s business partners swooped in to develop these properties for quick gain, Berry writes - until US law enforcement ended the scheme, along with the kickbacks that appear to have gone to the elder Sodano and another Vatican operative.

Then there is the story of Mexican-born Father Marcial Maciel, once perhaps the world’s most powerful priest. The book asserts that until shortly before his 2008 death, Maciel wielded assiduous orthodoxy and extravagant gifts to enhance the power of his religious order, the Legion of Christ, and divert attention from his life as a chronic drug abuser, voracious sexual predator, bigamist, and father of four. One of Maciel’s sons now claims to have endured the sexual abuse of his father.

After decades of Church scandal, Jason Berry remains a practicing Catholic. Indeed, his vocation appears to be ecclesiastical muckraking. With this book, he has created a picture of a Church renowned as much for its sinners as for its saints.

James P. McCartin can be reached at jmccartin@hotmail.com