DENVER (CO)
National Catholic Register
July 5, 2019
By Edward Pentin
As more reports emerge of donations and gifts received by several high-ranking Vatican officials from retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, how licit were these gifts and what are the Vatican’s regulations on receiving donations?
Last month, The Washington Post reported that several Vatican cardinals and bishops received checks from Bishop Bransfield, former bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, who distributed $350,000 in total to 11 high-ranking Church leaders. Bishop Bransfield is currently under investigation for sexual harassment of adults and financial misconduct.
None of the checks are reported to have had conditions or favors attached, and the Vatican officials have not been accused of acting illicitly. But several of those in receipt of such donations have now pledged to return the money after Bishop Bransfield was accused of serially sexually harassing or coercing seminarians and young priests and misusing diocesan funds on a lavish lifestyle that included $2.4 million spent on travel and $4.6 million on renovations of his residence.
The Post said it was not clear — from documents it had obtained — why Bishop Bransfield gave the gifts. The funds apparently derived from a wealthy New York heiress who left a large tract of land in West Texas to the diocese in the late 1800s. Decades later, oil was discovered on the land, leading to diocesan income from mineral rights that would average nearly $15 million a year.
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