LUXEMBOURG (OSV News) — Following a multimillion dollar fraud case at Luxembourg’s Caritas, the Church’s aid organization has been forced to stop its international aid projects. Dozens of them will be halted in the most vulnerable regions of the world.
Caritas Luxembourg said in a Sept. 14 statement that despite “working intensively to mitigate the impact on beneficiaries abroad,” the organization has not been able to keep the projects and employment that were in place before the scandal and more than 60 international projects will be canceled.
The organization lamented the consequences of “leaving thousands of people in precarious situations and thousands without the hope they had regained through the activities of international cooperation.”
Caritas Luxembourg said it is laying off around 30 of its 500 employees in the country and another 70 jobs in South Sudan and Laos are to be cut, according to the statement.
Continued support through international network
“Thanks to the international network of Caritas and other actors, some projects will be able to continue, others will be completed as planned,” Caritas Luxembourg said.
The organization’s work across the globe included projects in West Africa, Ukraine, Moldavia, South Sudan, Kosovo, Turkey, Laos, Bangladesh and the Middle East, where the country’s branch provided services “ranging from food security and humanitarian aid to development initiatives and support for vulnerable populations,” Caritas Luxembourg said Sept. 14.
The Caritas scandal broke amid preparations for a Sept. 26 Luxembourg stopover by Pope Francis, ahead of a four-day visit to neighboring Belgium for the sixth centenary of its Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve.
The Grand Duchy’s Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg, is one of the closest collaborators of the pontiff, a member of the Council of Cardinals and general rapporteur of the Synod of Bishops.
Details of the fraud investigation
Investigations continue into the reported theft of 61 million euros ($67 million) from Caritas, one of Luxembourg’s largest charities, in fraudulent bank loans and transfers.
Caritas confirmed July 19 it had filed a criminal complaint about misappropriated funds, pledging to “cooperate fully” with investigators, while continuing its mission of “supporting the most disadvantaged.”
Media reports said the money was diverted from the charity between February and July into bank accounts in Spain, while a female staffer had been bailed out after surrendering to police but denying theft charges.
Leadership’s response to the crisis
In a July 22 interview with the French-language RTL agency, Caritas Director General Marc Crochet said he felt “conned” and “dumbfounded” by the revelations, saying the Catholic organization, founded in 1932, remained “trustworthy.”
He added that the charity, which supports victims of poverty, homelessness and trafficking, as well as migrants and refugees, currently had 28 million euros ($30.6 million) in its account, mostly made up of government-assigned funds.
Catholics have traditionally made up two-thirds of the 662,000 inhabitants of Luxembourg, whose church was placed under direct Vatican supervision by St. John Paul II in 1988 and reduced its parishes from 274 to 33 in a 2017 reorganization to cope with falling Mass attendance rates.
Caritas Internationalis, which Caritas Luxembourg is part of, is the universal Catholic Church’s global federation of more than 160 humanitarian organizations.
