This blog “follows the money”, which takes us to a a bill introduced in the Connecticut legislature, and withdrawn this week in response to protests, that would amend Section 33-279 of Chapter 598 regarding religious corporations.

The bill is in response to a long standing lack of financial accountability in some Roman Catholic churches. Father Emmett Coyne, a retired priest, notes that “I’ve seen pastors simply take money out of the collection before it was tallied.” in an op-ed today.

Here’s the text of the proposed bill – the red text in brackets would be deleted and the underlined text added. Here’s a summary of the changes.

Here’s the text of section 33-279 before this proposed revision – enter the section in the search box. Connecticut law requires corporations to have “one or more directors”. Previous law required religious corporations to have one lay person as a member of the board. This amendment stipulates that the board be composed of lay members only.