Members of Voice of the Faithful of Greater Philadelphia learned last week—as did other Catholics—that because of a shortfall in revenues, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia plans to close Camp Neumann in Bucks County and cut back other youth programs in the archdiocese.

While there may be adequate reasons for taking such steps, VOTF/GP is also aware of what the closing of the camp and the reduction of youth services will mean to the thousands of young people who benefit from these programs every year.

The same Philadelphia Inquirer story that reported the archdiocesan cutbacks, however, also noted that "the archdiocese does not make its income or budgets public." Since any budget is essentially a statement of priorities, there is no way for the Philadelphia Catholic community to know whether the reduction of services to youth is justified when compared to other expenditures.

VOTF/GP notes that the archdiocesan leadership has not cancelled its plans to build a retirement home for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, a project that has been criticized by many church members. Moreover, there is looming the potential of multimillion-dollar damage claims from Catholics who were sexually abused by priests. Given the secrecy still surrounding such claims, lay Catholics who contribute to the collection basket every week do not know whether and to what extent the Philadelphia Archdiocese will share in that liability.

Last October, Cardinal Bevilacqua stated publicly that the Archdiocesan Finance Council "is seriously studying the feasibility" of making public financial reports and archdiocesan spokeswoman Catherine Rossi said the Finance Council "has heard the call for more openness and accountability."

VOTF/GP believes that it should not take the archdiocese six months to make a decision about something so obvious as financial openness and accountability. It is, to say the least, highly unusual that such a major institution refuses to disclose information about its budgets, income and expenditures to the very members expected to fund the organization. If other nonprofit institutions were as closed and secretive about their finances as is the archdiocese, contributions would soon dry up.

We love our church, but we do not love its secrecy. We bring this concern directly to our leaders in the hope that they will respond to this fundamental need of the Faithful.