The Christian Science Church, battered by staggering losses in cable television and other media investments, has disclosed it posted a $115 million deficit in the past 12 months, but said its endowment and pension fund were safe.
Opening its annual meeting to the press for the first time in the 126-year history of the usually secretive church, officials Monday also predicted the books would be balanced by the end of the current fiscal year, which began last month."We're not poor. We're not broke and we don't owe any money to anyone outside the church," said spokesman Mike Born.
But church leaders did disclose they had lost a whopping $259 million over the past six years on its cable TV operations, including the Monitor Channel, which is being closed down June 28, barely a year after it was started. Published reports have estimated the church has lost another $600 million on other investments since 1986.
The church's chronic financial problems prompted a major shake-up in its top echelons earlier this year along with a decision to scale back its investments in television and the church's newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.
More than 4,000 church members, who usually are discouraged from attending annual meetings, packed the auditorium of the Mother Church in Boston for Monday's four-hour session, along with dozens of reporters.