AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au
Revealed for the first time: Royal Commission into child sex abuse told of incredible wealth of Sydney’s Catholic Church
* Sydney Archdiocese controls $1.236b funds
* Church makes $43 million profit a year
* Spent $1.5m fighting $100,000 abuse claim
THE Catholic Church’s Sydney Archdiocese controls funds of an incredible $1.236 billion and that doesn’t include its schools and aged care homes.
It is the first time that the massive wealth of the church has been revealed as the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse delves into its finances as it looks at the church’s response to victims.
The archdiocese’s cash reserves are $320 million alone and the church has been making a profit of up to $43 million a year since 2001.
But the commission has been told that instead of settling former altar boy John Ellis’s sexual abuse claim for the $100,000 he requested, it spent $1.5 million fighting him in court. Most claims are settled for between $50,000 and $70,000.
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