OSLO, Norway — Norway’s Roman Catholic Church has reportedly been slapped with a $140,000 fine for inflating its membership numbers with names from the phonebook so it would be eligible for state financial aid.
The Diocese of Oslo denied the allegations, but it said there had been mistakes made, according to The Christian Post.
“We’ve never done anything illegal or received too much money,” the Catholic church said in an official statement. “We have always recognized that we have made mistakes and an unfortunate practice in parts of our registration. This was cleaned up a long [time] ago.”
But prosecutors said Thuan cong Pham, the church’s chief administrative officer, has been charged with aggravated fraud, and that the church had gone through phone books between 2011 and 2014 to get names of immigrants that looked as though they might’ve been from Catholic countries.
Many on the list weren’t aware church officials had added them, prosecutors said, but they say the diocese got government subsidies because of the reported size of its membership, the Post reported. (TAB)
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