Puerto Rico debt crisis faces crucial date; church opts for jubilee

The Pilot

Wallice J. De La Vega

AGUADILLA, Puerto Rico -- As Puerto Rico's government marches on toward a critical financial deadline regarding its $72 billion "unpayable" debt, the local Catholic Church, too, has been increasingly feeling the fiscal crunch all the way down to the pews, and there are hopes for a jubilee as espoused in Scripture.

Even this city's central parish, located in one of the island's few financially sound municipalities, is struggling.

"I'm not an economist," Father Delroy Thomas Scott, pastor, told Catholic News Service. "But we hear of how many people have left for the U.S. ... so naturally, there are fewer coming to the Eucharist" and donating to the parish.

Continue reading...