[Excerpts]
The U.S. Roman Catholic Church reportedly received at least $1.4 billion (and possibly more than $3.5 billion) in federal funds courtesy of the Paycheck Protection Program, with hundreds of millions going to dioceses that have paid massive settlements or sought bankruptcy protection due to sexual abuse claims, according to Associated Press analysis.
Faith-based organizations are typically prohibited from lobbying for federal funds distributed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
However, Congress allowed churches and other nonprofits to apply for loans via the Paycheck Protection Program, as long as they abided by the SBA's "affiliation rule," which dictates that only entities with fewer than 500 employees are eligible.
Many parishes exceed the 500-person cap, but an organized lobbying effort from the Catholic church led to the Trump administration exempting religious groups from that particular rule, the AP reported.
The extensive use of this loophole, which the AP termed "a special and unprecedented exemption," resulted in Catholic dioceses, parishes and schools being approved for at least 3,500 forgivable loans.
According to AP analysis of the data, roughly $200 million was sent to approximately 40 dioceses that have shelled out massive sums to sex-abuse victims in recent years.
The Associated Press was able to confirm that the Roman Catholic collected between $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion. However, analysts believe that the actual amount is much higher. The report states that the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, an organization of Catholic financial officers, surveyed members and found about 9,000 Catholic entities received loans. That amount is nearly three times the number of Catholic recipients the AP could identify since the government's PPP data dump did not include the names of beneficiaries that received loans of less than $150,000 (a category under which many smaller churches would land). SBA data revealed that 86.5% of all PPP loans were for less than $150,000. The loans will be forgiven if they are used for wages, rent or utilities.
More @:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/07/10/us-roman-catholic-church-received-at-least-14-billion-in-taxpayer-funded-ppp-loans/#26cc9255250c
