Catholic Bishops Urge United States to Pay $661 Million in Back U.N. Dues

The U.S. Catholic hierarchy, pointing to United Nations help in the Persian Gulf crisis, has called on the United States to immediately pay the $661 million in back dues owed to the international organization.

Congress should free the funds needed “to meet all U.S. obligations to the United Nations,” according to Archbishop Roger Mahony, the Catholic bishops’ chief spokesman on international affairs.

Since the 1980s, the United States has withheld the money because of what it regards as a lack of U.N. support for American foreign policies. U.S. officials have also complained of waste and mismanagement in U.N. agencies.

But Mahony, in a recent letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, “It is time for the United States to resume the cooperative role in the U.N. it once played.”

The United Nations has re-emerged as “a highly effective institution in achieving specific security goals” in trouble spots around the world, the letter also said.

“It is not irrelevant to observe that the entire amount requested for the United Nations is less than the cost of one Stealth bomber,” he said in the letter, which was made available this week by the U.S. Catholic Conference.