U.S. Catholic Church faces financial strain

How can this be?

All those smart Catholic social justice members with college degrees can certainly figure out how to solve financial problems for a 2,000 year old institution.

What's the problem? 

They know how to get Democrats elected.

Even more, the church now has a Jesuit for a Pope.

So, with all these smart people in the pews and at the pulpits and on the throne, why isn't this fixed already?    PB
----


From Reuters.com:

When Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States this month he will face a national Catholic Church whose finances are staggering under a shrinking membership and huge payouts to sex-abuse victims, threatening to undermine its social influence.

With the Church still absorbing the roughly $3 billion cost of a clergy sex abuse scandal, another financial crisis is looming -- a potentially crippling shortfall in funding the pensions of its ageing priests.

A Reuters review of U.S. Catholic financial disclosures shows the pension funding shortfall in 2014 likely approached $2 billion, with much of that coming due in the next five years as thousands of priests retire...

The financial woes and the destabilizing effect they could have on the Church's social and educational work will be a constant backdrop to the pope's Sept 22-27 visit to Washington, New York and Philadelphia...
------
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/08/us-pope-usa-finances-insight-idUSKCN0R80B020150908