Not all of diocese’s funds go to poverty fight

Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005 | 7:52 a.m.

Nearly 200 Roman Catholic dioceses nationwide receive no outside oversight over how they spend money that churchgoers donate in their parishes in order to fight poverty, church officials say.

In the Las Vegas Diocese, that has meant that nearly one of every four dollars contributed by churchgoers and maintained in a local account has gone to pro-life campaigns, instead of toward the program's stated purpose to "break the cycle of poverty" and "build community."

The 35-year-old program -- called the Catholic Campaign for Human Development -- is based on collections taken the week before Thanskgiving in parishes around the nation.

Each diocese -- including the 10-year-old Las Vegas Diocese -- keeps about one-fourth of the funds collected in a local account and sends about three-fourths to a national account.

Nonprofit organizations can then apply for grants from both funds.

Nationwide, about $10 million from 195 dioceses goes into the national fund each year, while a little more than $3 million is maintained in local funds scattered around the nation, according to Barbara Stephenson, spokeswoman for the program's national office in Washington.

The Las Vegas program has not been very successful, raising only $96,755 in the local account during the last decade -- $22,417 of which has gone to the National Catholic Human Life Amendment.

Stephenson would not comment on that use of the funds but said "local dioceses can decide how to spend their money ... (and) each diocese has discretion."

"Keeping track of how the money is spent is not our job," she said.

The national office monitors grants awarded from the larger, national pot of money, but has no information on how the local dollars are spent, she added.

There has been talk in the campaign's leadership about "trying to put together systems where it would be easy to do some accounting," but so far nothing has been done, she said.

An accounting system is "something we have not begun to implement," she said.

"There are a lot things in life you can't control."

Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or at timothy@lasvegassun.com.