05:27 PM MST on Tuesday, August 17, 2004

By Stephanie Innes / Arizona Daily Star

A new survey about Catholic giving indicates that the majority of American Catholics have not changed their donation patterns, even in the wake of a national crisis over clergy sexual abuse and multi-million-dollar settlements to abuse victims.

The results of the University of Notre Dame survey, which also says that 6 percent of Catholics have increased their giving since the national scandal arose in 2002, are consistent with financial reports from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, which is weighing filing for bankruptcy while facing 20 pending lawsuits over allegations of priests sexually abusing children.

In the Tucson diocese, plate collections are steady and, through Monday, this year's Annual Catholic Appeal has reached a record $3.3 million - up $200,000 from a goal of $3.1 million.

"Sometimes, a time of crisis can strengthen a person's faith. My prayer is that this is a time of spiritual renewal for Catholic priests and for us as God's people," said the Rev. Liam Leahyof St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, on Tucson's Northwest Side.

The church takes in between $7,000 and $10,000 in the collection plate from its 500 member families each weekend, has raised $37,324 in pledges for this year's Catholic Appeal, and recently paid off $800,000 of its $1.8 million parish debt - all through donations.

Full results of the national Catholic survey are expected to be released this fall.

Of the 90 percent of 1,119 Catholic survey respondents nationwide who had heard reports of priests abusing children, 12 percent said they decreased their giving to the church. Six percent had increased their donations, 80 percent said they had not changed their giving, and the remaining 2 percent didn't know whether their giving had changed.

"This is good data to report. It's a nation-wide poll and among a lot of other findings, there was a small impact on financial contributions. In general, it depends on how many instances of sexual abuse there were locally," said Dean Hoge , a professor of sociology at Catholic University of America who conducted the survey in October 2003 with James Davidson of Purdue University and the Princeton Survey Research Association.

"In general, in the U.S., there was some negative impact, so don't think it was zero. It seems like a mild but measurable impact."

The country's 66 million Catholics give between $6 billion and 10 billion each year in weekly plate collections to the church, according to Hoge's estimates. In Tucson, plate collections are expected to be $19 million this year, up from $18.2 million in 2003. The Washington D.C.-based Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities Inc., a consortium of 50 private foundations that donates an average $200 million each year to Catholic-sponsored activities, like Hoge has found no appreciable difference in parishioner giving in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal.

"We have seen some changes in strengthened attitudes about financial accountability," the consortium's president, Francis J. Butler said. "With the exception of cities hard-hit like Boston, Catholic giving is staying about the same. In dioceses where the leadership has had problems and there are good, new changes in leadership, people have come through with even stronger support for the church."

The Rev. Christopher Coyne, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, said its Annual Catholic Appeal plummeted from $17 million in 2002 to $8 million in 2003. This year's appeal collected $10 million from the archdiocese's 2.3 million Catholics, indicating some recovery but still a big drop from its pre-scandal numbers, Coyne said.

In Tucson, which has a growing Catholic population, new leadership provided by Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas , who took over as bishop of the diocese's 350,000 Catholics in March 2003, may be one explanation in the growth of the local Annual Catholic Appeal, which took in $2.6 million in 2002, $2.78 million in 2003 and a record $3.3 million this year, buoyed by an estate gift of $330,000.

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©The Arizona Daily Star, 2004