Catholic Church launches task force to try and boost donations from faithful after s£x scandal payouts

The Vatican has launched a task force to encourage donations from members in an effort to tackle financial woes caused by payments and legal costs surrounding sxual abuse scandals. The Commission was revealed this week after being signed off by the ailing Pope Francis on February 11, three days before he was admitted to the hospital with bronchitis. A priest, an archbishop, two nuns, and a lawyer will lead the task force to ‘encourage donations with special campaigns among the faithful, bishops’ conferences, and other potential benefactors’. According to the Vatican, the ‘Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede’ is explicitly ‘dedicated to promoting donations’, above all running fundraising campaigns and seeking out willing donors for specific projects eyed by the Catholic church. The Church recorded a 45.8 million deficit in 2022, the last time it released full financial data. This is partly due to a wider trend of falling donations and significant payouts around the church’s sex abuse scandals. Over a period of two decades, Catholic dioceses, eparchies, and men’s religious communities have spent more than $5bn on allegations of sxual abuse of minors, U.S. research published last month concluded. The Vatican has also been embroiled in a costly fraud trial at London’s High Court centred on a west London property that the church ultimately sold at a loss of about 115mn in 2022. The building was one of 5,000 Church-owned properties the Vatican has been accused of managing poorly. To recoup costs, the new Commission will act as a coordinating body for other fundraising initiatives, overseeing the wider ‘scope and strategy’ of the Church’s campaigns. Additionally, the Church says it will identify and assess projects requiring financial support, establishing priorities for funding. A plan for its implementation is ‘set to be finalised within three months’, a statement published on February 26 reads. Raising awareness and bringing in more cash will be the challenge of Monsignor Roberto Campisi, Assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. Campisi was previously appointed Assessor of the Secretariat of State in October 2022, 20 years after he was ordained priest of Siracusa, Italy in December 2002. Ed Condon, the editor of The Pillar, a Catholic news site, told The Times that ‘many departments operate on a shoestring’. ‘The doctrinal office costs 3 million a year to run not bad given it oversees a church of 1.4 billion Catholics,’ he said. Bad investments continue to prove a challenge for the Church. In 2022, the Vatican sold off a west London property at a loss of more than 100mn. Italian financier Raffaele Mincione sued the Vatican at London’s High Court, seeking declarations that he acted ‘in good faith’ in relation to the deal, but the High Court refused. The court did, however, grant the vast majority of the declarations Mincione sought and rejected the Vatican’s allegations that Mincione and his companies were involved in a conspiracy to defraud the Vatican.  The investment led to a long-running corruption trial which exposed infighting and intrigue in the highest echelons of the Vatican, ending with the conviction of a cardinal, Mincione, and others in December 2023. Mincione is appealing against his conviction and has also lodged a complaint with the United Nations’ human rights watchdog. The broader Catholic Church has also been blighted by huge payouts to victims of clergy sexual abuse.  Last year, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a staggering $880 million to hundreds of victims of clergy sxual abuse dating back decades, after previously paying $740mn. The Spanish government, also last year, approved a similar compensation plan to be financed by the church for victims in Spain.  A report by Spain’s Ombudsman concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sx abuse in Spain by people linked to the Catholic Church.   The post Catholic Church launches task force to try and boost donations from faithful after sx scandal payouts appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.