Brother Benedict, the youth minister at St. Augustine Catholic Church here in the South Bronx, had some bad news and some good news the other day.
The bad news, he told me, was that the Baltimore Province of his religious order, the Redemptorists, had lost most of its endowment in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
The good news was that this may not be bad news.
“For years we’ve been rolling in money,” said Benedict, a 26-year-old African-American who grew up in the Holiness Church on Chicago’s South Side, converted to Catholicism in high school, and entered the Redemptorists at 18. “The order gave us credit cards and paid them from the provincial office. The superiors didn’t much look at what you racked up as long as it wasn’t too crazy. The brethren bought nice clothes and shoes, went out to eat at good restaurants. Now the superiors are checking every expense. It’s not like it used to be.”
That’s bad. What’s good? Read more..
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