USCCB spokeswoman blasts Economist article on Church finances
August 24, 2012
The director of media relations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is strongly criticizing a recent Economist article on Church finances.
“The article is filled with errors, such as its guess that church giving dropped by 20 percent because of the sex abuse scandal heralded in the media in 2002 and henceforth,” writes Sister Mary Ann Walsh. “Real data from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) indicate, however, that church giving increased significantly in recent years.”
“Most annoying is [The Economist’s] blithe statement that local and federal government ‘bankroll’ Catholic schools,” she adds. On the contrary, she writes, “the government gets huge help from the Catholic Church, to the tune of about $23 billion dollars a year. That is what the government does not have to pay because Catholic schools educate about two million US students annually.”
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Further information:
- Catholic schools give America more than chump change (USCCB Blog)
- The Catholic church in America: Earthly concerns (The Economist)
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Posted by: happyseaotter8027 -
Aug. 27, 2012 1:54 PM ET USA
"We think?" "It appears?" Is this objective journalism? No. The entire article is a mish-mash of relative terms which shows only that the author(s) have no concept of objectivity. Unfortunately, this is the type of article that people will eat up eagerly, confirming their negative views of the Church. The photo, with a misleading caption, was a nice touch. Very disingenous but not at all surprising.
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Posted by: jimr451 -
Aug. 26, 2012 7:50 PM ET USA
Hopefully this kind of shoddy journalism is going away, as these publications are outed by internet fact checkers and rebuttals.
