The
Sydney Morning Herald,
12 February 2018:
The Catholic Church in
Australia is worth tens of billions of dollars, making it one of the country’s
biggest non-government property owners, and massively wealthier than it has
claimed in evidence to major inquiries into child sexual abuse.
A six-month investigation
by The Sydney Morning Herald has found that the church misled the
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by grossly
undervaluing its property treasures in both NSW and Victoria while claiming
that increased payments to abuse victims would require cuts to its social
programs.
The investigation was
based on intricate data from local councils that allowed more than 1860
valuations of church-owned property in Victoria. That showed that across 36
municipalities - including nearly all of metropolitan Melbourne - the church
had land and buildings worth almost $7 billion in 2016.
Extrapolated nationally,
using conservative assumptions, the church owns property worth more than $30
billion Australia-wide.
This put the Catholic church
among the largest non-government property owners, by value, in NSW and
Australia, rivalling Westfield’s network of shopping centres and other assets.
It dwarfs all other large property owners.
"These figures
confirm what we have known; there is huge inequity between the Catholic
Church’s wealth and their responses to survivors," said Helen Last, chief
executive of the In Good Faith Foundation.
"The 600 survivors
registered for our Foundation’s services continue to experience minimal
compensation and lack of comprehensive care in relation to their Church abuses.
They say their needs are the lowest of church priorities.’’…..
Monetary payments to
abuse survivors have averaged just $49,000 under Towards Healing, the national
compensation system established by the church in 1996……
The church also has
extensive non-property assets including Catholic Church Insurance and its own
internal banks - often known as Catholic Development Funds - with nearly $1
billion in assets in Sydney alone.
And it has other investments,
including in superannuation, telecommunications and in the stock-market. A
Church-owned fund manager has more than $1.4 billion under management.
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