A group of Spanish priests on Friday placed their faith in the country’s trade unions as they decided to fight salary cuts imposed by a bishop who lost millions of euros of church money on internet stocks.
The General Workers union said it had been approached by some of the 200 priests in the diocese of Castellon, eastern Spain, after Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla reportedly suggested they dip into their church’s alms boxes to make ends meet.
”We see them not as priests but as any other worker who is treated badly. The church is another big business,” spokesperson Tino Calero said.
Bishop Reig Pla imposed pay cuts of 30% or more, without prior warning, in January after his diocese’s total debts rocketed to â,¬10-million.
”The stock exchange is a place where the rich win and the poor lose. Why was the church playing there?” asked Father Alvaro Miralles, a priest in the town of Vilafranca.
Father Miralles said his own salary had been cut from â,¬520 a month to just â,¬295. ”We priests have to live off something,” he said.
Many priests said that, although the bishop had told them to find funds in their own parishes, they had nowhere left to turn — and could not pay basic bills for electricity, telephones or gas.
”The bishop has lost it,” another parish priest, Guillen Badenes, said. – Guardian Unlimited Â