Big Religion Bears Watching

When I read this morning that the Cathlolic Diocese of Los Angeles would be paying $660 million in an out-of-court settlement with sexual abuse victims of predatory priests, my jaw dropped. But it wasn’t the figure of $660 million that made my jaw drop. It was the disclosure that the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles possesses more than $4 billion (that’s $4,000,000,000.00) of wealth in real estate alone. The wealth of the Diocese of Los Angeles has helped to protect the wealth of the Diocese of Los Angeles, ensuring that it won’t have to pay even a majority of the reported settlement: it will have to pay only $250 million, with insurance companies picking up hundreds of millions of dollars more thanks to insurance policies paid for off the backs of church members in long anticipation of such a morally bankrupting event.

With a net worth of $50 billion, Bill Gates has attracted the ire of people worldwide who have questioned how dangerous it might be for Gates to amass so much wealth, and thereby so much power. But the Catholic Church has concentrated wealth of $4 billion, and that’s just in Los Angeles, and that’s just in real estate! Add up the wealth amassed by the Catholic Church in community after community after community, and imagine how many billions in wealth the sum must be. That wealth surely must dwarf the wealth of Mr. Gates.

If Bill Gates is a dangerous man because of the power of his accumulated resources, the Catholic Church is a much more dangerous force. Like Gates, the Catholic Church says it is on a mission to do good through its exercise of power. The Catholic Church voices its beneficence as a bulwark against interference. But like Gates, like any powerful institution, the Catholic Church bears careful watching.