The AP reports that the Catholic Church in the United States has received somewhere between $1.4 billion to $3.5 billion from the federal government’s coronavirus aid package, making it one of the largest recipients of aid.
Besieged by thousands of child sexual abuse claims that cost the church, its diocese and its parishes tens of billions in settlements and fines, the Catholic Church and other religious groups lobbied Congress to allow religious organizations to receive federal aid.
The church then mobilized its internal communications network to instruct local entities to apply for the forgivable loans, leading to more than 3,500 local entities–including parishes, schools and historic sites–to receive aid.
This allowed the church to work around the regulation limiting recipients to have fewer than 500 employees.
The amount of aid and the number of organizations receiving that aid is likely an undercount because the only public information available is for applicants who received $150,000 each. Approximately 85% of all loans were below that amount.