Practice what you preach

I'm not a numbers person, in fact I usually refer to myself as a numeric moron, but despite my ignorance, I have to admit that figures don't lie.

Of course, creative accounting could play tricks on the untrained eye, but when you dig deep into aggregated balance sheets, the truth is bound to jump off the page and hit you straight in the face.

A couple of weeks ago The Church published its financial and pastoral report for the year 2009. It was accompanied by a short write-up ‘explaining and justifying' some of its main points.

Knowing that the numbers and the financial jargon would confuse the living daylights out of me, I wasn't going to bother with reading it at all. Instead I took one look outside my terrace and spotted seven Church domes and a couple of chapel roofs. This is all I need to know about the Church's financial situation I thought, but went on to read the first paragraph of the report:

"The latest Pastoral Plan for the Church in Malta, launched by His Grace the Archbishop Paul Cremona in 2009, invites Christians to distinguish between living their faith merely as part of their tradition or to live their faith out of conviction, as a conscious choice."

With such a valid and intriguing introduction I expected the rest of the report to harp on true Christian values, like loving your neighbour, giving the shirt off your back to the needy, curbing greed and excessiveness. In short, the introduction framed me into expecting the following:

That the Church had finally decided to sell some of its 70 parishes, cathedrals, land and other property in order to distribute its wealth more justly.

That it would educate the faithful to worship in humble buildings.

That it would liquidate its works of art, antiques, and gold, in order to help those most in need.

That the Church will finally dig deep into its pockets and compensate those who fell victim of sexual abuse and molestation from the various priests and who are still awaiting closure.

But of course, that was just naive wishful thinking on my part. Instead, this is what jumped off the page to hit me:

The Church's Net Assets at the end of 2009 amounted to €165,010,431 - that's one hundred, sixty five million, ten thousand, four hundred, thirty one Euro. Please note that Net Assets means the value of everything an organisation owns after all the debts have been taken account of.

€4 million of this amount is cash in hand.

Before my killer migraine ensued, (as it tends to do whenever faced with idiotic contradictions such as this), I scrolled down to the bottom of the report hoping to find something to soothe my pain. What I found however was this ridiculous cry for help from what is essentially one of Malta's healthiest business:

"In order for the Church to continue to be as effective at a pastoral and social level as it is being today, it is necessary that Maltese Christians acknowledge these realities and commit themselves to provide their service and support to the Church in every possible way, including through financial means."

Here are just a few expenditure items that were listed in the report. These figures need no further commentary, and make the Archdiocese's priority list crystal clear:

€8,000 were spent on an environmental awareness campaign.

€43,000 were invested in pastoral work with youths.

€154,000 went for the Foundation for Theological Studies which caters for the academic formation of priests.

€170,500 went towards programmes and efforts to strengthen marriage and the family, like Cana Movement etc.

The Church subsidized the amount of €242,000 for a number of homes and Id-Dar tal-Providenza.

€351,000 were allocated in order to support RTK, the Church's TV unit and Gensillum online.

The Church invested €505,000 in order to support the Ecclesiastical Tribunal - a 15% increase over 2008.

Despite the contributions of the State (aka our taxes) The Church ended the year with a deficit of €870,000. This they claim is due to various factors, one of which being the ever-increasing costs required for maintenance and restoration of historic buildings. (Own not, restore not!)

The Church paid €2.2million in remuneration to priests.

The Church received over €9.5 million Euro in donations and collections.

According to this Balance Sheet the Church's property amounts to only €2.5million

The Church paid 60% less taxes in 2009 when compared to 2008

The full report can be viewed here - http://maltadiocese.org/lang/en/news/financial-and-pastoral-report-for-the-year-2009rapport-finanzjarju-u-pastorali-ghas-sena-2009/