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‘Mission-Driven’ Catholic Credit Unions Offer Members Essential Financial Lifeline
(OSV News) — At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Catholic dioceses across America struggled to keep employees on the payroll as offices and schools closed. With churches empty and donations in decline, their best hope for help was the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, known as the PPP.
Established by the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020 — and implemented by the Small Business Administration with support from the Treasury Department — the PPP provided funds for payroll costs, including benefits.
All that was required was to apply through a participating lender.
But that’s where things got tough — some big banks not only didn’t want to help dioceses with loans, they wouldn’t even talk to them.
Robert Kloska — a trustee of Catholic Credit Unions of America and director of partnerships at Notre Dame Federal Credit Union — told OSV News that one California diocese reported, “Our bank won’t even return our phone calls — they’re completely ignoring us.”
That’s when Notre Dame FCU — a Catholic credit union launched in 1941 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, with more than 54,000 current members — put nearly $900 million in assets to work for the church. It ultimately arranged $230 million in PPP loans — including to 17 dioceses and 850 Catholic parishes and schools.
“We were one of the top PPP lenders in the country,” Kloska said, “because we didn’t prioritize profitability — we served our mission. And in a bank, if there are more profitable things to do, they can ignore the church. But we didn’t do that.”
In 1960, there were more than 825 credit unions in the U.S. with Catholic affiliation. Now, there are fewer than 100.
Credit unions—not-for-profit financial institutions owned by their members—are, Kloska noted, a unique reflection of Catholic values.
“Credit unions, by structure, instantiate many aspects of Catholic social teaching,” he explained. “The idea of people participating and being empowered in their own financial health — by owning the institution they bank with — takes them from being customers at the whim of the corporation,” Kloska said. “They become stakeholders.”
Brian McCue — president and CEO of Unity Catholic Federal Credit Union, founded in 1942 and serving 9,000 members in the Diocese of Cleveland — agrees.
“We can support our community more closely because we’re in touch with them — we know their needs and we’re more agile in making decisions,” McCue said. Unity Catholic, with $94 million in assets, will lend to someone a bank might not consider, “because we know who they are and we know where they’re coming from,” he said.
Operational priorities, McCue emphasized, are different.
“As credit unions, we’re not beholden to shareholders to make a profit and make money — we’re beholden to our members to help them manage their lives,” he added. “Just as you would be supported in your faith at church,” McCue suggested, “when you come to us, we support you with your finances.”
Popes past and present—including Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, St. Paul VI, St. John XXIII, and Pope Pius XII—have advocated credit unions. St. Pius X—as a parish priest—even organized credit unions for his flock.
Canadian-born American priest Monsignor Pierre Hevey — pastor of Sainte-Marie Parish in Manchester, New Hampshire — is credited with founding the first U.S. credit union, La Caisse Populaire, Ste-Marie (The People’s Bank), in 1908.
Intended to serve Monsignor Hevey’s parishioners—predominantly French-American mill workers—it still operates in Manchester. Its website proudly states: “It costs no more to be a member of St. Mary’s Bank now than it did in 1908. For only $5, anyone can become a member by purchasing a share of the capital stock.”
When St. Ann’s Arlington Federal Credit Union opened in 1949, manager Mary Green said, it helped members with mortgages. But by 2024 — with $3 million in assets and the average home listing in Arlington, Va., at $809,000 — its offerings have necessarily changed.
Located in the Diocese of Arlington — a suburb just outside Washington — the bulk of St. Ann’s business now is new and used auto loans and auto title loans, as well as unsecured (signature) loans up to $10,000.
“There are people sitting in the pews next to us at St. Ann Parish in Arlington who don’t know how they’re going to put food on the table,” Green noted. “You don’t know who these people are — because they don’t wear a sign around their neck that says so. But Arlington is a very expensive place to live, and there are people in great need.”
About a dozen large accounts — on a percentage basis — make up the bulk of deposits. Their holders, Green said, keep their money with St. Ann’s because they believe in its ministry.
“People of all income levels will borrow from us,” she shared. “But our ministry is making unsecured loans to people to keep them away from predatory lenders and to keep them out of credit card debt.”
In Virginia — which has some of the weakest consumer protections in the United States — short-term loan and title lenders can charge annual percentage rates in excess of 300%.
“I consider it a victory,” Green said, “when someone who has borrowed from us comes back to me before they make a financial mistake.”
Green also offers credit counseling. The sessions, she said, always start the same way.
“I will say three things: It’s all confidential; there’s no judgment here; and you didn’t get into this situation overnight, and you’re not going to get out of it overnight. But we’re going to try to look at your situation and find solutions,” she explained.
“And I can’t tell you how many times, that’s when someone starts crying,” Green told OSV News. “What they usually say is, ‘I never imagined I could get to a place like this, and someone would do this.’”
Holy Rosary Credit Union in Kansas City, Missouri — founded in 1943 by Italian immigrants, all parishioners of the city’s Holy Rosary Parish — is also no stranger to the payday lending industry.
“When I came to Holy Rosary, that was my main goal: I was going to fight payday loans,” said President Carole Wight, who diligently crafted a program to combat them.
“But I realized, ‘Carole, that’s not enough. They need to have cars to drive to work.’ And then I realized, ‘Carole, that’s not enough. They need to have decent homes to live in,’” Wight recalled. “And then I thought, ‘Carole, that’s not enough. They need businesses, because immigrants typically gain wealth by starting businesses.’”
And so it is for Wight, who in 16 years has grown Holy Rosary’s assets from $8.9 million to $43 million. Two recent robberies — no one was injured in either incident — were the only such incidents in his era.
Holy Rosary’s Italian immigrant founders “joined this credit union to survive,” Wight explained. “They literally couldn’t borrow a dime anywhere to buy a mattress to lay their heads on.”
Immigrants faced extreme discrimination, Wight noted.
“The chairman of the board — when I arrived — told the story of (how) as an 8-year-old boy, he was walking to see his grandmother, who worked in the garment industry as a seamstress,” Wight said. On the way, he was stopped by police. “He had gone under the bridge into town — he had left the neighborhood,” Wight explained. Put in a police car and taken to the station, he was later brought back to where he was picked up, but with a warning: “‘Never leave your neighborhood again.’ So that was the kind of prejudice they had to face.”
Holy Rosary still largely serves people in poverty — 97 percent of its members struggle financially.
Wight proudly tells the story of Anna, a homeless mother of three boys. The family was living in their car when they were referred to Holy Rosary by a local social services provider.
“Anna did everything we asked her to do,” Wight shared. “And we closed on her home with a 740 credit score just one year after our first meeting.”
“We meet needs that otherwise would not be met,” Wight emphasized. “We are truly mission-driven. We seek out the people that others don’t want to serve.”
Kimberley Heatherington writes for Virginia’s OSV News.