The mainland’s booming religious institutions have been ordered to report their finances regularly following official warnings of rampant malpractices in places of worship.

State-sanctioned temples, monasteries, mosques and churches will have to hire accountants or agencies to prepare and submit their financial reports at least once a year, the State Administration for Religious Affairs said in a new set of regulations.

The heads and financial controllers of the institutions will also be subjected to financial audits when they leave office and religious groups will only be able to use financial resources for charitable and religious activities.

An anonymous administration official told Xinhua yesterday that the regulations were introduced after reports of widespread financial mismanagement in religious institutions. Once a taboo under atheistic, communist rule, religion has made a strong comeback as robust economic growth spawns legions of disciples seeking to fill a spiritual void.

Among the five state-sanctioned religious practices, Buddhism and Taoism have the most followers and government support because of the their deep roots in Chinese culture, lack of foreign influence, and loose organisation.

Donations have flooded in to temples as followers pay their respects to deities and living religious figureheads. But complaints about the commercialisation of temples have also grown, with reports about overpriced entrance fees and incense and monks driving expensive cars.

Zhao Xiaomin, director of Alliance of Religions and Conservation’s China office, said most Buddhist and Taoist temples in China, and their incomes, were controlled by abbots and head priests.

No one can challenge the use of donations and nobody really knows how much donations have been raised except the abbots and head priests, Zhao said.

Like many donors, Sun Feng, a Shanghai businessman, said his parents would not think about checking up on the use of their donation as the money was given as a gesture of faith.

Sun has donated money to a temple in Zhejiang on his parents’ behalf.
The followers would think it’s disrespectful to think about how their donation will be used, he said.

The influx of donations had seen new temples mushrooming and old ones expanding in Zhejiang and neighbouring regions, Sun said.

Some temples are headed by young abbots in their 20s and 30s. They are very good at socialising with the wealthy businessmen. In many temples, almost everyone drives expensive cars like Lexus or Mercedes-Benz, he added.

Xinhua cited the administration official as saying some religious institutions and figures had embezzled donations and illegally seized properties belonging to the institutions.

But Zhao said the regulations would be ineffective without the supervision of a third party.

[State Administration for Religious Affairs] has very close ties with religious institutions and it would be impossible for them to carry out impartial supervision, he said.

Zhang Jiyu, deputy chairman of the China Taoist Association, said donations made specifically to religious heads in temples would be spared from financial reporting.

This raised further doubt about the outcome of the regulations because many donations are made specifically to abbots or head priests.

Critics also raised concerns over whether the regulations would restrict funding and whether they would be used as a means to curb religious freedom.

The State Administration for Religious Affairs was set up to oversee religious affairs but has been accused of suppressing religious groups that it does not approve of, such as underground churches and Tibetan Buddhists worshipping the Dalai Lama.

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