Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-10-17
PAYING cHuRcH DEBTS.
A New Way Originated by the Roman
 Catholic Church.

n N0W way Originated by the Roman Catholic Church.
 new way has been found by the Roman Catholic clergy of New York to provide for the payment of church debts. It IS found in what are considered the profitable provisions of the tontine en- dowment policies issued by some of the larger life insurance companies of this city. The scheme has been in opera ton two years, but has been conducted with such secrecy as to escape public attention. A Times reporter called up- on the managers of several of the more prominent companies before he found authorizations of the suggestion that the authorities of the Roman Catholic church were carrying policies upon the lives Of regiment or more of their young men.
 In the office of a Broadway company one or the governing officials, himself Roman Catholic, introduced an agent to whom belongs the credit of working up the scheme. This agent an Irish gen. tleman, is also member of the Roman Catholic church. He said:
 some years ago, when the plans for the Roman Catholic University at Wash ington were being considered, had a l for gift to that object. That plan fell through, but this one grew out of 1t. You know-at least every clergyman of every denomination knows-how diffi- cult 1t Is to raise money to pay of a large church debt
 Well, by this plan priest has the lives of a few of the young men of his congregation insured-young men be- | cause the nrauniup,S Aho benefit of the church. Generally a twenty-year endowment policy of the semi-tontine kind is obtained upon the life of any young man who is willing to serve for the purpose and who can pass the medical examination. Of course, If young men are willing to pay the premiums they are encouraged to do so. But in the great majority of cases the church assumes the paying of the premiums, and as outside of that there is little or no objection to having ones life insured, the young men do not hes 1tate to consent to the priests applica- | tion.
 | When the plan was first broached it was necessary to get the consent of the Archbishop to it. He went into an ex- haustive investigation and considera. tion of the matter and gave it his hearty approval Then proceeded to lay 1t before the priests of such churches as were in a condition to profit by 1t. Some of the priests at first felt that the burden of interest upon the church debt and premiums upon the in- surance policies would be too great; but when asked them if they didn't in- tend making some provision to pay off the principal of the debt, they saw that the burden was there anyway, and the thing to do was to arrange as easy a plan as possible for removing it.
 Under this plan there is a saving in the course of twenty years ot about forty per cent. on the principal, where there are no deaths and where the endowment policies are full paid up. If out of the eight or ten young men insured in each congregation there were one or two more deaths in the meantime the debt would be paid off so much the quicker. It is a practical sinking fund for the extinction of the church debt, and is about as easy a man. ner of making provision for the payment as can be. l can not tell you what churches have adopted this plan, but there is large number of them, and the amount of the policies reaches up into the hundreds of thousands of dol lars No, there Is no good reason why churches of the Protestant communion should not engage in the same plan for the extinction of their church debts. But two life ins trance companies have as yet issued policies to any extent under this scheme, but that is not their fault"-N. Y. Times.