Apparently there is a scandal brewing in the Archdiocese of Boston as they are planning on cutting priests' pensions, and a bunch of money raised for the express purpose of priests' pensions was used for unrelated expenses. Priests' pensions, under the plan, would be frozen at $1,889, and they'd be asked to shoulder more of their housing costs. Medical benefits would go down, and in some cases would now depend on financial need.
Here's the kicker though: "In Boston, the priests' pension fund is strained in part because the archdiocese made no contributions to it from 1986 to 2002, according to the Towers Perrin documents. Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, the archdiocese has held fund-raising drives in the parishes for priests' retirements, raising about $4.5 million a year. But for many years the archdiocese has used that money to fill other needs."
Imagine that — no contributions at all for nearly twenty years, and those contributions that had been solicited they used for other needs! How could they expect to maintain solvency with no contributions for sixteen years? (They maintain that the fund did not need additional contributions — can you imagine that?)
I suspect this will turn into another big scandal for the Archdiocese. Not only can we not trust the archdiocese with sexual matters, we can't trust it with financial matters, either.
