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CNN Live At Daybreak

Sex Abuse Cases Are Costing Catholic Church Millions of Dollars

Aired April 25, 2002 - 06:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The sex abuse cases are costing the Catholic Church millions of dollars. Our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, looks at the financial impact of the scandal.

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WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (on camera): Sexual misconduct is one sensitive issue the Catholic Church is struggling with. There is another one too: money. They are related. Just how much is this sexual abuse scandal costing the church?

(voice-over): The Catholic Church has the image of immense wealth, magnificent cathedrals, priceless art treasures, but there is another image of the church, vows of poverty, devotion to the needs of the poor. On matters of faith, the Catholic Church is rigidly centralized from the pope to the cardinals to the bishops to the priests. But on matters of finance, the church is extremely decentralized. The money is not controlled by Rome.

Take the Catholic Church in the U.S., 64 million members, 20,000 parishes organized into 194 dioceses, every one of them, from Cleveland to Kalamazoo, a separate legal and financial entity managed by a bishop. On matters of faith, the bishops obey the pope. On matters of finance, they are on their own.

The money comes in, some $7.5 billion a year, mostly in contributions from the faithful. It goes out for salaries, expenses, thousands of Catholic schools and charitable institutions, plus legal settlements in cases where priests have been accused of sexual misconduct.

In 1985, a church report predicted sex abuse cases could cost the church more than $1 billion, a number some church sources suggest is reasonable. No one outside the church knows for sure. Many of the records are sealed. More money being paid out is one reason for the financial squeeze on the church; less money coming in is another.

In a recent CNN-USA Today Gallup Poll, 30 percent of Catholics said the sexual abuse scandal makes them less likely to contribute money to the church.

The financial impact of the scandal varies enormously from one diocese to another. Some, like Dallas, Boston and Santa Fe, have been forced to make costly settlements.

Take Cardinal Law's Boston, where the scandal started. His archdiocese has been hit with nearly $30 million in settlement costs. The church, a spokesman says, will have to pay 10 million of that. The cardinal is trying to raise 25 million from wealthy contributors for a special fund. But will they be willing to pay the costs of priests' wrongdoing? So the archdiocese is having to cut services and sell property.

Will the Vatican come to the rescue? Don't bet on it. As a Vatican spokesman put it -- quote -- "It's not the practice of the Holy See to bail out dioceses.

(on camera): How much is the Vatican worth anyway? The official figure is $5 billion in assets. That's an incredibly low figure. The Mormon Church with far fewer members is worth $30 billion. Bill Gates is worth $53 billion. Ah, but a Vatican spokesman explains that if Vatican property is used for church purposes and can never be sold, its value is counted as nearly zero.

So before you name the Vatican in a lawsuit, keep in mind that the Sistine Chapel is considered commercially worthless.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Washington.

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