March 04, 2021
11:43 AM ET
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The Archdiocese of Washington addressed $2 million given to retired Cardinal Donald Wuerl for “ministry activities” in a Thursday statement.
The 80-year-old cardinal resigned from his position in October 2018 after evidence of complicity in sexual abuse cover-ups in Pennsylvania.
The Daily Caller News Foundation repeatedly asked the Archdiocese of Washington on Wednesday and Thursday to address why Wuerl was allocated this increased sum, and what the retired cardinal has used the money for.
The Archdiocese of Washington addressed $2 million given to retired Cardinal Donald Wuerl for “ministry activities” in a Thursday statement, saying that the funds have “have accumulated over time” and were donated expressly for Wuerl.
March 8, 2021
Most Catholics would probably agree that a priest caught lying to the public and who was an instrumental figure in the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church probably shouldn’t be receiving millions of dollars a year in church donations. But that’s what is happening in the Archdiocese of Washington.
Investigative journalists at The Pillar revealed that the archdiocese set aside more than $2 million in donations from the Catholic faithful to retired and disgraced Cardinal Donald Wuerl, former archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, for undisclosed “continuing ministry activities.”
Upon review of the archdiocese’s financial statements, The Pillar noted that the $2,012,639 allocated to support Wuerl in the 2020 fiscal year was “a 35% increase from the $1,488,059 allocated to Wuerl’s ministry in the 2019 fiscal year reports.” The figures were recorded in a section of the financial report for net assets “without donor restrictions.”