Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves. / Office of Communication Society of Jesus.
Vatican City, Jan 28, 2022 / 05:33 am (CNA).
Donations to Peter’s Pence fell by around 15% in 2021, the Vatican announced on Friday.
In an interview with Vatican News published on Jan. 28, Fr. Juan A. Guerrero, S.J., prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, said that, while donations were still arriving from some countries, there was a marked decrease compared to 2020.
“Roughly speaking, I can say that in 2021 there has again been a decrease compared to the previous year, which I would venture to quantify at no less than 15%,” he said.
“If in 2020 the total collection of the Peter’s Pence was 44 million euros [around $49 million], in 2021 I do not think it will amount to more than 37 million euros [approximately $41 million].”
“The decrease in 2021 is in addition to the 23% decrease between 2015 and 2019 and the 18% decrease in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.”
Peter’s Pence is the Holy See’s annual collection to finance the pope’s charitable works and other priorities, including the Roman Curia.
The annual collection is usually taken up in Catholic churches around the world on a weekend close to the June 29 Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
“We are very dependent on uncertain income, which we see decreasing every year in this time of pandemic,” Guerrero said.
“It has to be this way, since the way we receive most of the donations from the faithful is through the collection of the Peter’s Pence in the churches, and the attendance in times of COVID has been reduced.”
“This should make us think about other methods of soliciting the help of the faithful and receiving donations.”
Guerrero said that he would present the final figures for Peter’s Pence in 2021 after the accounts are closed at the end of February.
The interview with the Spanish Jesuit was published as the Vatican released more information about its budget for 2022.
The total deficit expected for 2022 is €33 million (around $37 million), compared to the €42 million ($47 million) shortfall budgeted for 2021.
More to follow…
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Vatican City, Jun 3, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis pointed to an experience of 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal as an important testimony of how one can sense the living presence of God in personal prayer.
Anna Del Duca (right) and her daughter, Frances, traveled from Pittsburgh to attend a pro-life rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 1, 2021, in conjunction with oral arguments for the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 4, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).
Three legal experts are expressing optimism for a pro-life victory in the U.S. Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that directly challenges Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationside.
“I am hopeful that the court will take the opportunity in Dobbs to correct the grievous error of Roe v. Wade, and get the court out of our nation’s abortion politics,” Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, told CNA after the Supreme Court heard arguments on Dec. 1.
The case involves a Mississippi law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks and centers on the question of “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional,” or whether states can ban abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb.
In Roe v. Wade, the court ruled that states could not ban abortion before viability, which the court determined to be 24 to 28 weeks into pregnancy. In 1992, the court largely upheld Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. If Roe is overturned — one possible outcome of the Dobbs case — abortion law would be left up to each individual state.
“Today the court did a great job articulating its constitutional role: not to pick winners and losers on divisive issues like abortion, but to remain ‘scrupulously neutral,’ as Justice Kavanaugh said,” Severino tweeted just hours after the arguments. “The way it works out will look different in different states, but the Court should let the people decide.”
Although the arguments were held in December, the Supreme Court generally releases decisions in high-profile cases, such as this one, at the end of its term in June.
Keara Brown, originally from Columbus, Ohio, came with her Washington, D.C. team from pro-life group Live Action. They attended the pro-life rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 1, 2021. Katie Yoder/CNA
“I am very encouraged by oral argument and the prospect of a favorable decision this summer, but we should keep up our prayers for the justices,” legal scholar Erika Bachiochi told CNA.
Bachiochi serves as a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a senior fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she founded and directs the Wollstonecraft Project.
She identified one part of the oral arguments that she found surprising.
“Although I suppose shouldn’t have been, I was surprised by Justice Sotomayer’s naked pro-abortion rhetoric, especially with regard to her question concerning the ‘religious’ source of a 15-week abortion ban,” she said. “Does she really not know the science of fetal development?”
During the oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned Scott G. Stewart, the solicitor general of Mississippi.
“How is your interest anything but a religious view?” she asked. “The issue of when life begins has been hotly debated by philosophers since the beginning of time. It’s still debated in religions.”
She added, “So, when you say this is the only right that takes away from the state the ability to protect a life, that’s a religious view, isn’t it — because it assumes that a fetus’ life at — when? You’re not drawing — you’re — when do you suggest we begin that life? Putting it aside from religion.”
In anticipation of the oral argument, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, documented information about 15-week-old unborn babies, who can, among other things, already exhibit whether they prefer sucking their right or left thumb.
Earlier this year, Bachiochi, together with law professors Teresa Collett and Helen Alvaré, filed an amicus brief representing 240 women scholars and professionals and various pro-life organizations in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
In a piece published by the National Catholic Register, Alvaré, a professor of law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, found the oral argument “promising for the pro-life cause.”
But, she added, “it would be impossible to cram into the few minutes of an oral argument all the reason, facts, principles, analyses — and hopes — of 50 years of pro-life argumentation,” she wrote. “There was no time to call out abortion advocates’ lies, more lies, and made-up statistics. No time to show that women have not depended upon abortion for their dignity and freedom, but that the opposite is true. No time to detail the miraculous, the beautiful humanity of the unborn.”
“Based strictly upon the oral arguments, it is clear that Justices Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan will vote to uphold abortion rights,” she said. “It is more difficult to pronounce where the remaining Justices might fall, but their comments were largely promising.”
As a note on the convoluted tangle of worldly with clerical events, we might recall that the Peter’s Pence collection began as a funding source for the construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome (recently inhabited by Pachamama!). But, when conveyance of these funds from Germany to Rome was blocked by the emerging German nation-state, a more aggressive local sale of indulgences resulted, igniting the explosive ecclesial grievances of one Martin Luther.
And, today, we witness the continuing turmoil in Germany, far beyond anything even Luther imagined, where failure to pay the state’s church-tax (!) is branded as “apostasy” (!!) and is cause for automatic excommunication (!!!). No sacraments for disloyal peasants!
Meanwhile, what’s left of the Church in Germany (many intend a German Church awash in rising funds even as membership erodes year by year), there’s this post-Luther thingy called the German “synodal way”—which history will record as the drop of cyanide in the punchbowl called the global Synod on Synodality.
Moreover, the corrupted tin-cup marketing of indulgences in the 16th century by a priest named Tetzel pales in significance compared to the mass-media marketing corruption of a priest named James Martin, and his tribe of other enablers, and worse, now metastasized throughout all echelons of clericalism.
Since 2015, is the sorry slide in Peter’s Pence charitable collections due only to COVID lockdowns?
First priority of the clerical movers and shakers in charge is to keep the money flowing.
-Guerrero states regarding the decline in Peter’s Pence revenues,
“This should make us think about other methods of soliciting the help of the faithful and receiving donations.”
“The Catholic Church was simply very good at jumping through the bureaucratic hoops required to get a PPP loan. Diocesan finance offices proved to be very competent. Good for them.
Likewise, the hierarchy is “simply very good” at and proving “very competent” at wrecking architecture, ignoring liturgical protocol, facilitating sexual sins and endorsing sacrilege.
I thought first priority should be praying and making sacrifice for the sins of their flocks – concern for the salvation of souls.
Just wondering if it has ever occurred to Guerrero, Reese, Cupich, Marx, Bergolio, Dolan and their ilk, that the dear faithful are coming to realize that the care and salvation of souls is not even on the radar of the shepherds at large. In other words, the little ones on the peripheries are wising up, so we’ll have to look for revenues elsewhere and hold forth with the New Synodal Way.
I think decline in Peters Pence funds has not much to do with the lowly virus, as the little flocks have always been a generous lot and would have found other ways to contribute to the PP collection.
Today the Church should be conducting a root cause analysis; “The decrease in 2021 is in addition to the 23% decrease between 2015 and 2019 and the 18% decrease in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.”
Considering the absolute trainwreck that is the Francis Pontificate, with it’s nonstop doctrinal confusion, attacks on the laity, and scandals involving financial corruption and sexual abuse, not to mention the closure of Churches during the Lockdowns, my only surprise is it didn’t fall further than 15%.
“Peter’s Pence is the Holy See’s annual collection to finance the pope’s charitable works and other priorities, including the Roman Curia.”
The quote, sans rhyme, implies reason for an intellect remaining open.
One notes a cause for thanks and praise due the Vatican: It expects a 2022 deficit of only 37 US million. A mere pittance.
As a note on the convoluted tangle of worldly with clerical events, we might recall that the Peter’s Pence collection began as a funding source for the construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome (recently inhabited by Pachamama!). But, when conveyance of these funds from Germany to Rome was blocked by the emerging German nation-state, a more aggressive local sale of indulgences resulted, igniting the explosive ecclesial grievances of one Martin Luther.
And, today, we witness the continuing turmoil in Germany, far beyond anything even Luther imagined, where failure to pay the state’s church-tax (!) is branded as “apostasy” (!!) and is cause for automatic excommunication (!!!). No sacraments for disloyal peasants!
Meanwhile, what’s left of the Church in Germany (many intend a German Church awash in rising funds even as membership erodes year by year), there’s this post-Luther thingy called the German “synodal way”—which history will record as the drop of cyanide in the punchbowl called the global Synod on Synodality.
Moreover, the corrupted tin-cup marketing of indulgences in the 16th century by a priest named Tetzel pales in significance compared to the mass-media marketing corruption of a priest named James Martin, and his tribe of other enablers, and worse, now metastasized throughout all echelons of clericalism.
Since 2015, is the sorry slide in Peter’s Pence charitable collections due only to COVID lockdowns?
First priority of the clerical movers and shakers in charge is to keep the money flowing.
-Guerrero states regarding the decline in Peter’s Pence revenues,
“This should make us think about other methods of soliciting the help of the faithful and receiving donations.”
-Fr.Thomas Reese when he speaks of diocesan offices applying for grants during the Covid lockdown at https://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/signs-times/yes-catholic-church-benefitted-federal-ppp-loans-good-them.
“The Catholic Church was simply very good at jumping through the bureaucratic hoops required to get a PPP loan. Diocesan finance offices proved to be very competent. Good for them.
Likewise, the hierarchy is “simply very good” at and proving “very competent” at wrecking architecture, ignoring liturgical protocol, facilitating sexual sins and endorsing sacrilege.
I thought first priority should be praying and making sacrifice for the sins of their flocks – concern for the salvation of souls.
Just wondering if it has ever occurred to Guerrero, Reese, Cupich, Marx, Bergolio, Dolan and their ilk, that the dear faithful are coming to realize that the care and salvation of souls is not even on the radar of the shepherds at large. In other words, the little ones on the peripheries are wising up, so we’ll have to look for revenues elsewhere and hold forth with the New Synodal Way.
I think decline in Peters Pence funds has not much to do with the lowly virus, as the little flocks have always been a generous lot and would have found other ways to contribute to the PP collection.
Today the Church should be conducting a root cause analysis; “The decrease in 2021 is in addition to the 23% decrease between 2015 and 2019 and the 18% decrease in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.”
Considering the absolute trainwreck that is the Francis Pontificate, with it’s nonstop doctrinal confusion, attacks on the laity, and scandals involving financial corruption and sexual abuse, not to mention the closure of Churches during the Lockdowns, my only surprise is it didn’t fall further than 15%.
Though government and ‘other’contributions no doubt more than made up for the decline