Rorate Caeli

The Catholic Cash Cow

by Fr. Donald Kloster (Guest op-ed)


Nowhere is the modern upside down world more observable than with our Bishops and their misappropriation of the lay pecuniary donations in their coffers.


The following chart only lists 12 Dioceses, since many of the United States Dioceses are not forthcoming about their finances even though they publicly repeat the fallacy that they are “transparent” and have nothing to hide.  Around the country, there have been massive payouts because of the sexual scandals with minors; mostly post pubescent boys.  If we are being honest; homosexual acts.  Many of the chart numbers below are years in the past with no new updates. 


Archdiocese of Los Angeles  $740 Million  2019 NPR News

Archdiocese of Chicago         $200 Million  2019 AP

Diocese of San Diego             $198 Million  2007 AP

Diocese of Dallas                    $120 Million  1998 Buffalo News

Diocese of Syracuse               $100 Million  2023 NBC News

Archdiocese of Boston            $85  Million  2016 Fox News

Archdiocese of Philadelphia   $81  Million  2022 Catholic Philly

Diocese of Bridgeport             $56 Million  2019 Judge Holtzberg Report

Archdiocese of New York        $55 Million  2022 Reuters

Archdiocese of Hartford          $50 Million  2021 Fox News

Archdiocese of Miami              $26 Million  2022 Wikipedia

Diocese of Buffalo                   $17.5 Million 2019 Buffalo News  (Now Bankrupt 2023)


In 2018, Newsweek reported that the Catholic Church nationally had paid out over 4 Billion dollars in settlements.  That is a 5 year old number and it is still staggering.  By comparison, the total for the United States Public School Districts (same time period 1998 to 2023) sexual misconduct pay outs is a bit under 1 Billion; by the most reliable information I could find.  

The Catholic Church has paid out four times more than the USA school districts combined.  There are less than 30,000 Catholic priests in the USA and over 3.8 million teachers in our schools.  These are disparate numbers of an epic proportion.  The monetary damages are scandalous given the amount of predation in our schools going without a comparable recompense.


Keep in mind, Dr. Gene Abel did a 1994 Study of 435 pedophiles.  He found that the average pedophile had molested 148 children. Let that number sink in to your brain. These studies are not being done today because of social pressure and a huge lobby from many sectors not to shed light on what is happening.  Right now, it is safe to say that at least 200,000 minors are trafficked every year into the USA.  The US State Department says between 300,000 to 400,000 minors are trafficked over international borders worldwide, but the lion’s share come to the USA since there is a huge demand here.


There is still at least one nefarious website advocating for pedophilia.  NAMBLA has been around for decades and those featured on the website are ever pushing for a lower legalized age of engaging in sexual acts.  The argument they make, is that especially homosexual men look fondly on their past sexual exploits with minors.  It makes my stomach turn and it begs the question of this group why anyone was ever tried and convicted in the past for pedophilia.  These individuals have a creeping (pun intended) strategy to normalize pedophilia around the USA under the guise that it it a LBGTQ right.  Their aim is to argue that they are being discriminated against because of their misunderstood sexual proclivities.  It is rather like our clergy trying for decades to help regularize divorced and remarried couples only to have several Bishop’s conferences now allow them communion access.


The money extorted from the Catholic Church makes sense.  Monetary damages are designed to cripple the main mission of the Church to save souls.  Most of the cases in the Catholic Church were with post pubescent boys which is not pedophilia; it is ephebophilia.  When I was 14 or 15, I would never have allowed any man to molest me repeatedly. He might have gotten away with it once.  After that, I would have avoided him as a perverted deviant.  Many of the post pubescent boys now suing the Church as adults had long standing relationships with the priests who gave them money and gifts.  They are getting paid twice, except now the payouts are extremely excessive compared to any other institution or individual.  Imagine trying to sue a male relative for the same offense.  The world hates the Catholic Church for her gall to resist the new depraved sexuality and the scourge of abortion.  The interesting thing is the assault on several fronts against the Bride of Christ.  The lawyers see the easy money and the unscrupulous victims sue the Church.  The Church in turn pays out not the guilty clergy’s money, but the money of innocent Catholic donors.  This is not a Catholic Priest problem.  It is a societal problem.  Catholic priests are about half as likely to molest children as their Protestant clergy counterparts.  They are around one third as likely to molest children as a male family member or friend.


The devil uses three main avenues to advance his ends.  First, he tries to persecute the almost lone impediment to his designs on earth; the Catholic Church.  He next seeks to sow internal corruption from within the Catholic hierarchy which leaches down to the faithful.  His last tactic, is to twist the virtue of obedience into a spiritual suicide and a bureaucratic euthanasia.  Obedience to disordered or seriously flawed commands is itself a vice.  The virtue in obedience never promotes harm, nor will it ever undermine decency and the moral common good.


There can be little doubt that we are living in a time which faces a synthesis of heresies.  It is tough enough to fight one or two heresies at a time.  Today, we are fighting multiple fallacious and heretical ideas.  Then too, we are fighting against all five of the Council Demons who are directly subordinate to Satan himself.  Baal is in charge of all of the sexual sins.  Asmodeus is over the male homosexuals.  Lilith has custody of the passive female homosexuals.  Leviathan commands the butch female homosexuals.  The last of the five and the one who is now more prevalent today, is Baphomet.  He is in charge of child sacrifice; both abortion and the child sacrifice required in a ritual black Mass.


So yes, my connection of the various aspects of our Church conundrum includes a hypothesis that the devil is throwing "everything but the kitchen sink” at our society.  He is desperate and using any means possible to capture as many souls as possible.  He doesn’t have to necessarily garner anyone's consent, he just needs people to be at the very least discouraged and left without hope.


The antidote to the attack is countering or undoing the damage he seeks to inflict.  The devil provokes our hierarchy to be unreasonable.  Keep your wits about you.  Apply traditional teachings and principles of our traditional Catholic moral treasury.


The devil is unjust in all of his dealings.  Focus on being good, decent, and fair minded.  Give your fellow man the benefit of the doubt and yet cut evil no slack.  The devil is unholy.  He vomits wretched as well as debaucherous evil into the world.  Say your prayers devoutly, use the sacramentals copiously, and frequent the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion.