It is unjust and wrong-headed for American Catholic Bishops who have large and very expensive chanceries (with dozens of full-time employees and very expensive upkeep on the building and maintenance personnel) to tax the parishes of the diocese and to close parishes.
The bishop and the bishop's office should be self-sufficient. The Ordinary of the diocese should not tax the parishes. His expenses (and all of the expenses of the diocese) should be paid for by benefices separate from the parishes and apostolates, and from free-will benefactors. Stop squeezing the parishes. Close and sell the chanceries, not the parishes!
Furthermore, the criminal cases against priests and bishops should not be paid for by any money of the Church, the diocesan money or the parish money, none of which belongs to the priests or bishops. That money belongs to the people of God who freely gave it for divine worship, for the sustenance of the clergy, and for the assistance of the poor. All money thus wrongfully taken from the Church in the past three decades should be given back by the courts and by the State to right this great wrong. Individual criminals should pay for their crimes from their own assets, not from those of the Church or Parishes.
--Plinthos
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