The Boston Globe offers up its story on the Boston archdiocese’s financial report yesterday, including reactions from the usual suspects.
‘‘The motivation for the transparency is to help people feel a part of the archdiocese,” O’Malley told a packed news conference at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. ‘‘We’re not trying to keep secrets from people. We’re not trying to deceive them. We’re trying to use the limited resources we have for the mission of the church.”
And those suspects include people from Voice of the Faithful and Council of Parishes. If you really want to know what they said go to the link above. In short, they were happy.
But then I think this was a good thing too. Let’s get everything into the open so we can all deal with it. Better for everyone to have the knowledge than a small coterie of insiders.
Update: The Boston Herald finds some disagreement from the usual suspects, quoting Peter Borre of the Council of Parishes questioning the figures regarding the priests’ pension plan.
[O’Malley] declined to say whether he would cut priests’ benefits, however, to compensate for a $135 million pension shortfall, which David Smith, the archdiocese’s outgoing chancellor, attributed to a weak stock market and increases in health insurance costs. Health costs and pensions for priests come from the same fund.
The reporter, the infamous Marie Szanislao, who so butchered the story about the Catholic Men’s Conference, also questions why salaries for the archdiocese’s top figures were not disclosed. Cardinal O’Malley is a Capuchin Franciscan. I have a feeling I already know what his salary is.
Some people, including state Sen. Marian Walsh, a Catholic who has turned on the archdiocese and who sponsored the original financial transparency legislation, just won’t be satisfied.
