Reporter On Catholic Church Getting Over $1 Billion In Coronavirus Aid

From National Public Radio ➤ Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Michael Rezendes of The Associated Press on its investigation into the U.S. Roman Catholic Church receiving over $1 billion in coronavirus aid.

Mary Louise Kelly: ... Well, today we are learning, courtesy of The Associated Press, that the U.S. Roman Catholic Church managed to secure billions of dollars in loans from that rescue package through the Paycheck Protection Program. Reporter Michael Rezendes has been reporting on the Catholic Church for a long time. He is one of the reporters who has been crunching these numbers and trying to track where that money is going. Hey there. How are you?

Rezendes: Hey, not so bad. Nice to be here.

Kelly: How much money exactly are we talking about?

Michael Rezendes: ... we were able to identify between $1.4 billion and as much as $3.5 billion. And the reason there's a range here is because the Small Business Administration did not release precise loan amounts. They only released ranges of loans. And we identified 3,500 loans worth between 1.4 billion and 3.5 billion.

Kelly: OK. So a huge range, but we are talking upward of a billion. That's billion with a B. It's a lot of money. How has it been spent?

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