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Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

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Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#31

Post by klyrs »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #29

I saw a lot of people saying things like "tax them". Why would you tax a non-profit institution that has like 5K hospitals and more than 10K homes for the elderly, orphans and those with special needs?

Because they exert, and lobby for, the right to refuse treatment on religious grounds. Women's reproductive rights, and LGBTQ people are harmed where tax dollars are redirected through "charity" and cannot be used to establish secular services of the same kind.

They're great for the "right kind" of elderly, homeless and orphans. But they've got a long history of screwing everybody else over, for example, forced conversion of native american orphans.

Essentially, it's a loophole that you can pilot a "separate but equal" aircraft carrier through. And then fail to even provide that "separate" care, so equality is not achieved.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#32

Post by true_religion »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #27
jawns wrote: post #26

I'm a Catholic, and although I believe in my church's doctrine, I don't always come to the defense of my church's leaders. Here's how I see this: Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that when public funds (e.g. grants, aid, forgivable loans) are made generally available to any organization that meets certain neutral criteria, a religious organization that meets the crit…

The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.

30 billion would but them at 1/10th the net wealth of Walmart.

They are a 2000 year old charity. They rich compared to other charities (e.g. the Red Cross has 1.8 billion net worth ), but even a for profit department store chain like Walmart can accumulate more assets.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#33

Post by 29_29 »

jt94mf90d wrote: post #17
29_29 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't given tax relief. They aren't paying the thief like the rest of us.

how would society work if the vast majority of working people dont contribute to maintence?

maintenance is one thing. We have an empire, welfare state, huge entitlements and red ink of pension obligations as far as the eye can see. As soon as people fail, they look to the government to bail them out.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#34

Post by annoyingnoob »

jawns wrote: post #30
annoyingnoob wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.

Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has vast piles of money sitting around in a…

One should be able to leverage some amount of value of those assets for loans. When you have assets you have options. And I'm sure they have lots of followers that will give money until it hurts to keep their Church from failing - a business can't ask its employees to fund things for a while in the same way a church can ask its followers. The church has options that others do not have and lobbying should not come first.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#35

Post by sparrish »

The government shut its doors involuntarily - essentially blocking the revenue (donations) received. The government should have to provide compensation for 'taking away' the ability to minister to people and receive donations, according to the 5th amendment of the Constitution.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#36

Post by mrbonner »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #27
jawns wrote: post #26

I'm a Catholic, and although I believe in my church's doctrine, I don't always come to the defense of my church's leaders. Here's how I see this: Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that when public funds (e.g. grants, aid, forgivable loans) are made generally available to any organization that meets certain neutral criteria, a religious organization that meets the crit…

The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.

Not as enormous as the Mormon church my friend. I read from an WJS article that they have to the upper of $100B.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#37

Post by Theory5 »

jawns wrote: post #30
annoyingnoob wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.

Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has vast piles of money sitting around in a…

"Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited."

I don't think that's true. Years ago in Boston MA during one of the big legal where church leaders were accused of child molestation/rape/sex abuse, the church was ordered to pay $85 million dollars to the victims, some 260 people I think.

They took short term loans to pay that, then sold 15 buildings that netted them over 100 million dollars. One of the biggest properties was the archbishop's residence.

They didn't tap into the normal petitioners funds and similar, just took out some loans, took some insuance payouts to cover the 85 mil, then less then a year later sold those 15 buildings for over 100 mil.

The building packages were thought to be worth at minimum $1 mil per acre.

This was between 03 and 04.

In 2020, they were able to move around $2 billion to shield those assets from being taken into account during more recent sex abuse payouts.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-01-08/the-catho...

They sure as shit can liquidate, or move very large amounts of assets around to protect their own organization.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/us/church-in-boston-to-pa...

They're not a small business in any sense of the word, and they took money they don't need, seeing as it can take them less than a year to sell $100 mil+ worth of assets to cover payments to 260 sex abuse victims 15+ years ago, or move around 2 billion worth of assets in a ploy to try and reduce what they'll have to pay to victims of these leaders.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#38

Post by rdsnsca »

jawns wrote: post #30
annoyingnoob wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that I have is that the Catholic Church has enormous assets, something like 30 billion in net worth globally. I'm feeling like the church had options beyond lobbying for relief.

Those assets are, in large part, the church buildings themselves. They are not liquid assets. Indeed, they are even more illiquid than most other real estate, because the market for church buildings, all of which are constructed to meet the needs and functions of a particular faith, is quite limited. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church has vast piles of money sitting around in a…

Three church buildings have been sold within 20 miles of me the last few years. One is now a brewery / bar, one a town library and the last two offices, They all still look like churches outside, one just has to think outside the box.

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#39

Post by voisin »

exclusiv wrote: post #18
voisin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50k in lobbying for $1.4B (possibly $3.5B)? Seems like a hell of a ROI. I’ve never understood why elected officials seem willing to acquiesce to huge pork barrel projects for such little $$ in lobbying. “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Lobbying Dollars”?

Yeah it's crazy but I think the short answer is - they aren't giving up their money.

In a competitive market, wouldn’t you expect the costs and benefits to converge?

Re: Catholic Church lobbied for taxpayer funds, got $1.4B

#40

Post by _--___-___ »

mnm1 wrote: post #8

I'm not surprised they made an exception to allow the church to gain funds despite having more than 500 employees but did not require companies with more than 500 employees to provide sick leave for corona. Classic corruption. Send the funds to our rich rapist (proven not alleged in this case) friends while Americans are starving and getting evicted in the streets while sick because they have no sick days or financia…

www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

Employees of the US public school system abuse several orders of magnitude more children than the global Catholic clergy. Maybe I shouldn't be taxed to pay the rapist employees of a system my family and I don't benefit from before we start talking about the churches.

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