Insight - As Pope visit nears, U.S. Catholic Church faces financial strain

Pope Francis attends a special audience with members of the Parish Evangelisation Cell System in Paul VI hall at the Vatican September 5, 2015. REUTERS/Tony Gentile -

BOSTON (Reuters) - When Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States this month he will face a national Catholic Church whose finances are staggering under a shrinking membership and huge payouts to sex-abuse victims, threatening to undermine its social influence.

With the Church still absorbing the roughly $3 billion cost of a clergy sex abuse scandal, another financial crisis is looming -- a potentially crippling shortfall in funding the pensions of its ageing priests.