America’s 70 million Roman Catholics, the largest denomination in the United States, significantly scaled down their donations to the Church after a sexual abuse crisis erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston in early 2002.

Yet this loss of financial heart, during which only 2 per cent of American Catholics stepped up their contributions in 2002, proved to be only temporary. As the scandals have drifted from the headlines, donations are now back up to their previous level, of about $7.5 billion (£3.8 billion) a year, according to Charles Zech, the author of a study into Catholic church finances and director for the Centre for the Study of Church Management at Villanova.

“Donations to the local parish only dipped a little bit because donors think of their own priest when making them. Donations to the diocese fell a bit more, because the distance was greater, while national contributions took the biggest hit because the various scandals turned people against bishops as a group.”

Although donations rebounded, the scandals may have a more permanent impact on the Church’s accounting proceedures. After it emerged that the Catholic Church had been making out-of-court settlements relating to sexual abuse for years, its business conduct came under scrutiny – and it turns out that the American Catholic Church does not bear much scrutiny as a business.

A survey by Mr Zech this year found that 85 per cent of America’s 174 Catholic dioceses had discovered embezzlement of Church money in the previous five years, with 11 per cent reporting that more than $500,000 had been stolen. In one extreme case, two priests from Palm Beach, Florida, have pleaded not guilty to stealing $8.6 million over more than 40 years. In his survey Mr Zech recommended random internal and external audits of parishes and the disclosure of every member of the Diocesan Finance Council, along with their conflict of interest guidelines.