I fear there will more where this came from.
As reported by The Los Angeles Times:
After Catholic schools and churches closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles urged parishes to continue paying their staff.
Those employees had accepted meager salaries for years, it said, and now wasn’t the time to abandon them.
“These people have responsibilities, have families. You’ve got to think of that,” Msgr. Albert Bahhuth, the vicar general for the archdiocese, said in a March 24 webinar. “If we lay them off, if we stop paying them, what’s going to happen to them?”
That didn’t stop St. Andrew Catholic Church and its school in Pasadena from going ahead with their furlough, without pay, of more than a dozen workers, a decision Father Marcos Gonzalez said was prompted because there was “no income to pay the employees.”
Workers, who spoke with the Los Angeles Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said they worried about being able to pay their bills and expressed disillusionment with the church.
“This was probably the last thing I saw coming,” one furloughed worker said. “At least being part of a Catholic church.”
The Archdiocese of L.A. said it is helping parishes and schools to continue to pay their employees and cover bills.
…Church employees described struggling to find work and to explain the situation to their families, especially their children.
“It’s still draining to see that this was the first resort,” one furloughed worker said. “In the midst of a crisis, this is how you’re going to do the people who kept that school going? It’s heartbreaking.”
“I’m left here stressed trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do,” another worker said. “This is how we’re treated? Like we’re the trash on the floor? We deserve more than that.”
Churches across the country are facing financial struggles. In a message to parishioners, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said it “may be necessary to implement an archdiocesan-wide salary furlough of up to 25% for all employees.”
It is unclear how many church employees in the Archdiocese of L.A. have been furloughed.
