Only 52% spent by US bishops’ Catholic Relief Services collection went to CRS, report shows

January 10, 2025

Only 52% of the funds expended by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Catholic Relief Services Collection in 2023 were allotted to Catholic Relief Services, according to the collection’s 2023 annual report, which was released in early January 2025.

The collection received $13,669,210 in contributions in 2023. Investment revenue brought in an additional $264,489, for total revenues of $13,933,699, according to the annual report (p. 6).

Out of total expenses of $13,163,258, only 52% ($6,849,470) was allotted to Catholic Relief Services, according to the report (p. 7). The percentage of total Catholic Relief Services Collection revenues ($13,933,699) that went to Catholic Relief Services was even lower: 49.2%.

Much of the collection was allotted to offices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), though some funds were directed elsewhere:

• 15.4% ($2,031,216) of the total expenses were allotted to the USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services
• 13.5% ($1,775,187) was allotted to the USCCB’s Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church
• 6.1% ($801,732) was allotted to the USCCB’s Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development (now the Secretariat of Justice and Peace)
• 6% ($787,866) was allotted to CLINIC, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
• 3.8% ($500,000) was allotted to the Holy Father’s Relief Fund

Administrative and promotional expenses were minimal, totaling 3.2% of expenses.

The Catholic Relief Services Collection had a $4,247,314 gain in net assets in 2023, from $26,068,210 at the beginning of the year to $30,315,524 at the end of the year (p. 6). The difference between revenue and expenses accounted for $770,441 of this asset gain; unrealized gains on investments ($3,476,873) accounted for the rest.

The collection was administered by the USCCB Committee on National Collections, which in 2023 had a chairman (Bishop James Wall of Gallup, NM), a chairman-elect (Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg of Reno, NV), seven other bishop members, and a USCCB lay staff member (p. 3).

“The Catholic Relief Services Collection shares its name with the flagship international relief and development agency of the Catholic bishops of the United States, but it also supports four of their other initiatives,” as well as the Holy Father’s Relief Fund, Bishop Wall wrote in a letter for the report (pp. 2-3). He concluded:

Whether literally, by funding a water tap in Tanzania, or spiritually, by supporting a Mass for migrants, your gifts to the Catholic Relief Services Collection brought the water of life to those who thirst. Thank you for your generosity.

The $6,849,470 allotted by the bishops’ Catholic Relief Services Collection to CRS in 2023 is a very small percentage of CRS’s revenue, which totaled $1,468,809,000 during its Oct. 2022—Sept. 2023 fiscal year, according to CRS’s audited financial statements (p. 9).

The Catholic Relief Services Collection’s allotment of $2,031,216 to the USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services had greater significance: Migration and Refugee Services had $129,626,673 in revenue from government grants and $130,546,911 in total expenses in 2023, according to the USCCB’s audited financial statements (pp. 14, 28). Thus, the Catholic Relief Services Collection’s allotment (along with any other revenue sources) allowed Migration and Refugee Services to avoid a deficit and instead run a surplus of at least $1,110,978 in 2023.

(The USCCB’s audited financial statements did not specify total revenues for Migration and Refugee Services—nor did they specify revenues or expenses for the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity and Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development.)

The Catholic Relief Services Collection’s allotment of $787,866 to CLINIC had a substantial impact on CLINIC, which had $16,041,239 in revenue and $16,661,029 in expenses in 2023, according to its tax return. If $787,866 had not been allotted from the Catholic Relief Services Collection to CLINIC, then CLINIC’s 2023 deficit of $619,790 would instead have been $1,407,656.

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