Jesus and the Money Launderers: Catholic Church Profiting From Dug Money

Is it legal or moral for a church to receive and profit from drug money - or any money made from criminal activity? The Catholic Church seems to think so. They think that donating drug money to their church "purifies" it, an ultimate form of money laundering.

Bishop Ramón Godínez openly and unapologetically admits that drug traffickers' donations are accepted, despite warnings from the government:

"At no time, under no condition, may anyone receive illegal money," said Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar. "No one may in this way aid in the laundering of money, and nobody can be in favor of organized crime acting with impunity."

Aguilar was responding to comments made Monday by Roman Catholic Bishop Ramon Godinez, of the central state of Aguascalientes, who said that donations linked to drug trafficking are not out of the ordinary -- and that it's not the church's responsibility to investigate their origin.

"If they have money, they have to spend it; I don't know why such a scandal has been made of this," Godinez said in a follow-up interview with the Televisa television network Tuesday. "If a drug trafficker gives, we are not going to investigate if he's a trafficker or not.

"Let me explain: We live on this, on the offerings of the faithful. And we do not investigate where they acquired the money." [CNN]

For a church that has spent so many years harboring, hiding, and coddling priests who sexually abused large numbers of children, I guess accepting money made by selling hard drugs to children is no big deal. Pope Benedict XVI has criticized the corrupt and drug trafficking in Mexico, but unless he does something about the donations of drug traffickers, his statements should be treated as effectively meaningless. The problem is "lamentable," but not a reason to refuse to profit from it when the opportunity arises.

Then again, perhaps Pope Benedict XVI is too busy worrying about queer priests in America to be troubled much by profiting from drug money.

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