This Catholic News Service report said Catholic lobbyists worked, during the week the law creating the program was passed, to ensure that the rules being crafted by Treasury Department officials, that civilly separate Catholic entities from each other others are not considered as a single entity, which could place the consolidated entities beyond an eligibility ceiling of 500 employees.

In the canon law of the Church, parishes are legal entities distinct from each other and from dioceses, and while diocesan bishops exercise legislative and judicial authority over parishes, parishes are not branches of dioceses. . Nor are affiliated entities such as Catholic charities, Catholic schools and universities, or Catholic hospitals, which are usually overseen by lay councils in which bishops often only have ordinary voting members, if any.

The Catholic Church is a network of organizations linked by faith, mission, sacraments, and oversight, but these organizations are not uniformly administered as branches or under the direct control of local bishops.

While parishes generally pay annual fees to dioceses, funds from separate canonical entities may not be mixed in a permissible manner, and canon law requires that the civil structures of parishes, dioceses, and other Catholic entities reflect their canonical reality.

Nonetheless, the complex organizational structure of the Catholic Church made it possible for several Catholic entities in the same location to be considered by the SBA as a single entity. The USCCB lobbyists’ effort was to make sure this was not the case, the Catholic News Service report explained.

This effort was crowned with success.

An FAQ document of April 3 of the SBA explained that the general lending rules provided that if faith-based organizations had an affiliation related to “religious beliefs concerning the authority of the church or the internal constitution, or because legal, financial or other relationships between your organization and other organizations reflect an expression of such beliefs ”, they would benefit from an exemption from the rules which would normally count“ affiliated ”organizations as a single entity for the purposes of determining eligibility.

However, faith-based organizations “affiliated with other organizations only for non-religious reasons, such as administrative convenience … would be subject to the membership rules,” the SBA explained.

In the United States, parishes and dioceses face a serious financial deficits and in Rome, the Vatican has recorded large budget deficits for years. Although the Catholic Church has assets of artistic, cultural and historical value, these are not easy to liquidate and, with few exceptions, Catholic entities around the world have faced a serious shortage of cash for years. .

In his statement, Coakley acknowledged that “more than 100 Catholic schools have announced their intention to close, and hundreds more face an uncertain future. Businesses, hospitals, schools and churches across the country face many of the same problems. “

“We will continue to stand up for all those who are negatively affected by this terrible pandemic, praying for all the sick, for all who are dead and grieving, and especially the poor and vulnerable at this time of great need.”

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