The latest budgetary statement available from the ECUSA finance site is the (as yet unaudited) report for November 2009. With eleven-twelfths of the year’s income and expenses booked, the picture of ECUSA’s finances is becoming clear. ECUSA is no longer fulfilling its mission as a church. Its mission operations have been scaled back severely. The greatly reduced expenses help keep ECUSA’s deficit from being so large — and they help bury the unbudgeted drain caused by 815’s subsidies to the dioceses engaged in litigation over property. Meanwhile, ECUSA is able to show an operating “surplus” in part because — are you surprised? — its revenues from the Government are up….
Revenues from the Government? How very odd. Eschew obfuscation and all, but supporting religion with government money! Will hypocrisy never cease?
And to think I got castigated in seminary for suggesting in a liturgy class that we should go back to having the American flag in procession during the Sunday Eucharist. “Violation of church and state!” they screamed at me.
Well, just remember folks, “If you take Caesar’s coin, you eventually have to dance to Caesar’s tune when he asks.”
It seems to me that if there are allegations in this article, then maybe a forensic audit is called for.
These are indeed shocking numbers, and I am grateful for A. S. Haley’s explications. I was, furthermore, told that the Executive Council had authorized the use of unrestricted trust funds for covering legal costs. Does this appear in these kinds of accountings? How does one learn the actual amount of money, and their sources (whatever they may be), that the national church has used for the purposes of litigation in the present conflict?
One doesn’t have bishops ask for it, that’s for sure.
From my viewpoint the best news is:
[blockquote] just cut back by $1,000,000 in “Partnerships”, such as payments to the Anglican Communion (down by $344,841 from the $1,630,390 budgeted contribution)… [/blockquote]
The less money that goes there, the less influence TEC will have!
#4: There is no “National Church.” There is a Domestic and Foreign missionary society. Yes, let it be independently audited! Let there be transparency!
It is not just the Episcopal Church that profits from certain government contracting work. The Catholic Church, though the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, is by far the biggest profiteer in this arena.
This fiscal year the U.S. resettled almost three times as many refugees as all the rest of the countries in the industrialized world combined.
Despite the recession, growing poverty, unemployment and homelessness, the U.S. resettled 75,000 refugees, the highest number of admissions since 9/11.
This is only possible because what was once the calling of true sacrificial charity and private sponsors is now the responsibility of the American taxpayer. Traditional sponsor duties have been replaced by access to welfare upon arrival for refugees and an opaque stream of grant money from seemingly every government agency except NASA.
In recent years up to 95% of the refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or were the relatives of UN-picked refugees. Until the late 90’s the U.S. picked the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S.
Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration as family and social networks are established in the U.S., the U.N. is effectively dictating much of U.S. immigration policy.
A non-profit nation of 100’s of taxpayer funded organizations has grown up around refugee resettlement in the U.S. A government-funded study finds “U.S. resettlement communities are awash with ECBOs that exist in name only but provide little meaningful assistanceâ€. * (ECBO stands for Ethnic Community Based Organization, a government-defined category of grant recipients.)
The expansion of the fraud-prone refugee program and the transformation of refugee resettlement into a federal contracting business have given birth to a global refugee industry well-adapted to the federal grant and contract environment.
Catholic Charities with its parent the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB ) is the largest refugee agency both nationally and in Nashville. It is neither a charity nor Catholic, but more an extension of a state welfare agency.
65% of Catholic Charities USA’s $3.6 billion annual budget comes from government sources. Refugee resettlement, a relatively small portion of its services, is covered by the government at closer to 100%. For non-profits it is profitable to be in refugee resettlement and the executive directors of some of the 10 major resettlement agencies make almost as much as the President of the United States.
Nashville Catholic Charities devotes about 26% of its budget to “immigrants and refugees†** an amazingly high percentage considering most of that assistance is going to recent refugee arrivals – a fraction of 1 percent of Nashville’s population. Interestingly, Tennessee recently put Nashville Catholic Charities in charge of distributing and monitoring federal “refugee†grant money to other NGO’s in the state.
The possibility of a generous reception in the U.S. has created a “magnet effect†for refugees deciding between resettlement in the U.S. and integration in the region where they reside.
The once independent faith-based and civic organizations have suffered their own “magnet effect†causing a shift of efforts away from traditional works towards the more profitable refugee program. USCCB even lobbies for more business – that is, for higher refugee admission quotas.
Incentives built into refugee resettlement are behind much of its growth, especially as refugees themselves enter the federal contracting and lobbying business.
It is long past the time to lift the curtain of myth which protects this program from scrutiny.