Today we are judging Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s extremely right wing religious fringe choice for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Much is being made of Barrett belonging to a group of Charismatic Catholics called People of Praise. They’re headquartered in South Bend, Illinois but have another robust branch in Minnesota. According to their federal tax returns, the two main branches have a total of $35 million in assets. That’s a lot of money for a small religious group.
What’s interesting is that in both of those branches, the amounts spent on salaries dwarfs any good the group might be doing giving grants to anyone. And it’s unclear where all the money is coming from into People of Praise. But we can see where it’s going.
The South Bend chapter claimed $16.5 million net assets for 2018. Of that, their salaries were three times the amount they gave away: just $540,333 in grants to someone, $1.433,218 in salaries.
The Minnesota group’s filing is much the same. They claimed $18 million in net assets. The group, in St. Paul, Minnesota (they spell out Saint on their tax form) gave absolutely NOTHING in grants in 2018 or even 2017. But they paid $431,000 in salaries to their staff.
Even better. The Vancouver, Washington branch claimed only a little over $1 million but almost all of it goes to salaries. None of it, of course, goes to grants. All three offices– South Bend, St. Paul, and Vancouver– claim huge office expenses, too. It’s not cheap being this religious!
As my grandmother used to say, Nice work if you can get it. And now a member of this group will go to the Supreme Court. We are disgracing the history of the Court.
