October 13th Special Meeting on Diocesan Finance / Increased Offertory
Echoing Bishop McManus, I also want to tell you how much I appreciate your presence here this afternoon. The two largest groups represented here today are our priests and the finance representatives from the parishes who are able to join us. There are others as well, and we welcome all of you.
In my memory, a meeting like this has never occurred before in our diocesan history, where the time is taken to address our overall financial challenges as a Diocese.
I want you to know that we had a similar, early-morning meeting last week for all those who are members of the various diocesan committees and boards which address finances in some way - Diocesan Finance Committee & its ‘subcommittees’ (the Diocesan Investments Committee and the Diocesan Audit Committee); the Board of Governors of the Diocesan Expansion Fund; the Diocesan Building Commission; the Diocesan Pastoral Planning Committee; the leadership of the Central Catholic Schools; the Director of the St. John’s Cemetery System; the editor of The Catholic Free Press; and the Director of Catholic Charities.
Most of you know, I’m sure, that Catholic Charities is an independent corporation, with its own special challenges, but which requires diocesan support along with considerable funding from government.
The audiences for these two meetings are broad-based and we all need to work together in dealing with our shared concerns.
A little over a year ago I became the Director of the Office of Fiscal Affairs. Though I have collaborated with that office for the past 14 years, you never have a chance to absorb all the data until you take on a new role.
Throughout the past 14 years, I’ve always had a great deal of respect for the staff of our Diocesan Finance Office. There are 9 employees there. They’re at their work all day long and often put in overtime. They all multi-task.
Because of my other diocesan roles, I especially rely on the excellent work of Carol Adams, our Manager of Accounting, and Jerry Jussaume, our Manager of Finance. Both of them have served over 20 years in our Finance Office and bring the ‘institutional memory’ that is so important to our operations. They have assisted me greatly in preparing for this presentation.
We also appreciate the voluntary contributions of time, talent and treasure of all of you who serve our parish communities. Our parishes and our Diocese are much stronger for having your advice.
I want to say at the outset that many, many of our pastors are excellent administrators, who act with great prudence, and meet not only their spiritual challenges on a daily basis but their fiscal ones as well. Many don’t spend what they don’t have. Many make sound fiscal decisions and do so in dialogue with their parishioners. Many sacrifice a lot.
It is also true that many, if not most of our parishes are pressed by a whole new set of challenges – the aging of parishioners, the changing demographics of our cities and towns, and our whole state for that matter, and changes in our society where church participation just isn’t what it used to be.
*****
One of the key tasks we have is educating. If we know the problems we can begin to address them. So, comes from a need to educate.There is an abundance of misinformation about the Diocese, as there is often enough within our own parishes and among our parishioners. It is probably a pretty fair statement that most of our parishioners just don’t appreciate the strain that either parish or diocese are under.
For example... Every year the Diocese conducts an official audit. Every year we make an audit report to the people of the Diocese. We invite the people to ask for a copy. Anyone can get a free copy. No one ever asks.
From that audit, in recent years, Ray Delisle, in his Communications role, prepares an annual report. In it we include a colorful, easier-to-understand, 4-page report on finance and ministry to the people of the Diocese. It is widely distributed. Still, most are not aware of our challenges.
As you know, each parish is required by Canon Law to have an active Finance Committee, prepare an annual budget, and make a report to their people. All of that is required by Canon Law.
Some parishes do all of that. They have an active finance committee that meets regularly, has a voice, works together to prepare an annual budget, and makes a report to the parishioners.
Some do that. Others don’t.
For those that do, I’m sure that many of those pastors wonder if their parishioners really understand the picture or “get it.”
From whatever our vantage point, we know that today the great financial burdens are being shouldered by the few.
I often think of the words of Winston Churchill when he spoke about the herculean heroics of the Royal Air Force after the Battle of Britain and said, “Never have so many owed so much to so few.”
For years now, the financial vitality of our parishes and our Diocese have fallen to a relatively small minority of donors.
So, ‘education’ and understanding is central and the primary purpose of our meeting is to provide a view of the true overall picture of diocesan finances.
Though it is less true of those on those parish or diocesan committees, who grapple with the financial challenges, often on a daily basis - thousands of laity and some clergy as well - have a view that the Diocese has plenty of money.
We will learn today that this is not true. And, together, we need to dispel the illusions.
What we will also purposefully avoid today, is laying any blame for our challenges at the doorstep of any person, parish, diocesan agency or institution, or even groups of such.
The issues are far too complex to lay blame or become negative.
The issues we’ll review have been developing over a period of years, in some cases decades. No person, parish, school or diocesan agency is to blame for the overall picture.
The indebtedness of some parishes and institutions have been more recent in some cases, and older in other cases. Some pastors have inherited fiscal problems that have been developing for many years.
So, one purpose for this meeting is ‘educational’ - to share information - some of which you might be aware - and some of which you are unaware
- so as to come to deeper awareness of our challenges
The second purpose is to address the importance of a new diocesan initiative.
Thus, our meeting will fall into two parts - first, a kind of state of the union, with a pause for some questions and a brief dialogue, and second, to focus on a plan to increase our income, with the recognition that this new initiative will only begin to address some of our concerns.
This meeting may also inspire other suggestions, other outcomes, other strategies, other initiatives with a far greater result down the line. We’d like to think it would.
*****
With those things said, I would like to offer a brief overall glimpse of our Central Administration, that is to say the Bishop’s Office and some of the essential departments in the administration of our diocese. Some of them are funded through the Cathedraticum. Most aren’t, but are funded completely through the Annual Partners in Charity Appeal (there are 29 departments and agencies funded from that).
For those unfamiliar with the concept of the cathedraticum, it refers to that small portion of the ordinary annual income of the parish that is shared with the Bishop or the Central Administration of a Diocese...to sustain the Diocesan operation. In our Diocese the cathedraticum has been set at 7.5% for many years. That means for every dollar the parish raises, seven-and-a-half cents is given to the Diocese. In some dioceses that number is higher. I believe that one New England diocese has a cathedraticum of 25%.
The special concerns of the indebtedness of the Central Administration of the Diocese has been more of a concern in the last decade or so, which is to say that until about 1998, the Diocese was able to fund all of its expenses. In the past ten years, however, the Central Administration has had to borrow many millions of dollars from the Diocesan Expansion Fund to meet its own obligations and those of some parishes.
When the Central Administration borrows to meet its obligations, it pays interest to the DEF, which while on the one hand is a helpful thing for the DEF, diverts critical monies away from our ministries simply because of interest fees. Thus, this limits what our Diocese can do in our various ministries.
In recent years, for example, over a million dollars a year is expended from the operating budget of the Central Administration for interest payments. This represents about one-half of the annual budgeted cathedraticum income.
So, if about $2 million is generated from the cathedraticum of all our parishes, about $1 million is expended annually simply to pay interest on loans, without impacting the principal owed to the DEF.
Last year, in order to reduce the amount of interest paid, to bring those interest payments under $1 million, the Diocese had to sell $6 million of its very limited invested holdings. Even though that had some fiscal impact, we still had to borrow additional monies from the DEF to make it through the fiscal year. We spent $6 million and really only paid down $2 million - because of the increased need to borrow from the DEF.
It is not a good thing when 50% of what you receive in the Cathedraticum is paid out in interest expense. This means that over 30% of our overall operations budget is being paid out for interest expense. This has severely impacted our ability to enhance our pastoral ministries, add needed staff support, or save any money.
The Chancery staff, for example, is much smaller than it was just a few years ago.
Without resolving the deeper issues the interest expense will creep upwards again.
Recently, with the economic downturn and some parishes generating lower offertory overall, the cathedraticum, still set at 7.5%, as it has been for decades, produces fewer dollars for our diocesan operations, and the interest payments could conceivably require greater than 50% of the Cathedraticum.
*****
Now, I’d like to begin with what the Diocese DOES have in assets.
What we will not include today is real estate assets.
Since it isn’t especially pertinent to our conversation today, we won’t consider the value of real property of 117 parishes and 4 missions, the Chancery building, the building used by The Catholic Free Press, the Bishop’s Residence, cemetery properties and some parcels of land which may be owned by parishes.
We’ll limit today’s conversation to cash, investments and debt. And, the figures we’ll be using are our figures for the close of the Fiscal Year this past August 31st.
*****
We’ll start with what is called ‘the Master Investment Account’
The Diocese maintains a Master Investment Account. These are its invested holdings. Its managed by outside professionals and guided by outside investment counsel. The Diocesan Investments Committee oversees its activity.
As of August 31, 2009, the Diocese had $35,405,989 in our Master Investment Account. The vast majority of this amount is invested for specific ‘reserved’ areas and cannot be used for other purposes.
Let’s start with the largest amount. They are in the Forward-in-Faith investments. The Forward-in-Faith endowments are valued at $15,875,388.
With the exception of those clergy ordained in recent years, or those laity relatively new to the Diocese, the vast majority of you remember the Forward-in-Faith capital campaign which took place in 1999. The purpose was to create special endowments for key diocesan initiatives. The parishes shared in what was raised. The Bishop’s Fund didn’t occur that year. Instead, $4.5 million was applied from Forward-in-Faith into our operations in 1999. An additional $500,000 was allotted for the Bishop’s Fund in the following year, knowing that people committing to two pledges at the same time is difficult.
The goal of the campaign was $40 million dollars. In all, $52,567,194 was pledged.
Relatively unknown, is that there were many unfulfilled pledges.
The uncollectables are simply unfulfilled pledges. Deaths may contribute to that - or folks moving away from the area - or unemployment - or some other change in personal circumstances - or simply a change of heart. The uncollectables were $10,130,578.
Obviously, you don’t know in the beginning how much will be ‘uncollected.’ It takes years for that to unfold. Some of it surely happened because of major slippage in the financial markets in 2001-2002 when people were still trying to finish their pledges.
The same thing happens every year in Partners in Charity. For one reason or another, the uncollectables each year are about $200,000. So, you say we raise so much. In the end, we have less. And, we ‘budget in’ the uncollectables. We know that it will happen.
Thus, in the end, for Forward in Faith only $42,436,616 was actually collected.
The largest individual amounts of what was raised and have been paid out went to the parishes themselves. That amount was about $14,000,000 and the parish shares were paid out first. As the Diocese collected more monies from pledge payments over a 3 to 5 year period, it then began to fund the other specified endowments.
Catholic Charities received funding for $2.5 million, to use but one example.
Millions of dollars have been expended from these endowments in the intervening years, which is exactly what the campaign was designed to do. A couple of examples would be the funds used to support students in Catholic Schools and for Catholic Schools Technology Assistance. There are other examples which could be used.
During the fiscal crisis of the past year, when everyone’s portfolio had dropped considerably, and
there was nothing you could do about it, the total we now have invested in Forward-in-Faith initiatives is $15,875,388, as I said earlier.
These funds are all in our Master Investment Account. They’re part of the $35,405,989 I mentioned. Some of the other categories break out this way:
Catholic Schools Financial Aid - $7,678,071 Care for Retired Priests - $4,959,284 Catholic Schools Technology Assistance - $1,707,426 Pastoral Formation & Religious Education - $1,548,554 Vocations - $8,971 (a Forward-in-Faith gift in the form of an annuity, of about $1.1 million, had dropped to a value of only $8,971 by the close of the Fiscal Year. In fact, it was exhausted in the month of September.)
So, as I said, the total invested amounts for Forward-in-Faith endowments is $15,875,388. Next, we turn to other specific accounts in our Master Investment Account.
The next highest amount would be our funding for Retired Priests. We have over 60 retired priests. Their support, for salaries and residential costs, is nearly 3 million dollars each year.
Priest Retirement Fund has a value of 7,944,630.
This is a combination of wills and bequests made many years ago, in addition to what is called the Msgr. Griffin Fund. When St. Vincent’s Hospital was sold in the early 1990s the Diocese received a share of a few million dollars for the sale of a hospital that we did not own. That amount, named the ‘Msgr. Griffin Fund,’ has always been used to help us with our Priest Retirement programs, which represents our largest single annual expense.
Next is what is called the Diocesan Management Fund. This amount is $6,937,573. It has no particular “strings-attached.” Along with the Bishop’s Discretionary Account of $814,059, these amounts total what the Diocese could potentially ‘tap’ of its “own money” since it cannot take from any other specified endowments.
We faithfully adhere to the principle that monies must be apportioned according to the intentions of the donors. For that reason, we do not take money specified for one purpose and use it for another. But the Diocesan Management Fund is a source of income for our Central Administration, and is needed on an annual basis.
The Master Investment Fund also: * invests for the parish endowments of 2 parishes...in the amount of $1,104,754 * We have ‘untouchable’ Workers Compensation Funds in the amount of $730,898
* Since church employees are not eligible to participate in state-provided unemployment benefits, we have ‘untouchable’ Employment Transitions funds in the amount of $626,130. When a diocesan or parish employee loses their position, for a few months they receive limited support in lieu of state-provided unemployment benefits. Such was the case in the past few months with a number of Catholic Schools teachers in our Central Schools who lost their positions.
We have burses in the Master Investment Account for the funding of seminarians of only $642,542. There is an additional Catholic Schools funding source of $416,390. These are funds invested for the Adopt-a-Student program and other funds.
Finally, we have an endowment for Annuity pay-outs for $313,428.
Annuities work this way. A donor gives the Diocese a gift of a certain amount, and that sum is invested, with the obligation that a fixed amount goes back to the donor each year. There are certain tax benefits for the donor. Until the donor or donors die, each year the Diocese pays back a certain pre-established amount of money, on which the donor or donors live.
The Diocese invests the total amount of the donation. The key is to invest the money at a rate of return higher than the annual pay-back to the donor. If you do that successfully the invested sums grow. When the donor or those included in the annuity die, the Diocese keeps whatever part of their initial donation remains and for whatever purpose it was intended (vocations or a Catholic school or whatever the intention of the donor was).
Generally, the rule-of-thumb is that at the time of the death of the annuitant, the donor, you expect about 35% of the original gift to remain.
In the 1990s the Diocese entered into a few such annuity plans. And Wall Street investment returns at the time were very positive. So, the negotiated rate of return to the donors was set at 9% per year in one case, 11% per year in another, and so forth. Within a short time the revenue expected began to decline and we were not getting anything close to 9% or 11% return. But you still have an obligation for the annual pay-outs to the donors at those rates.
Currently, our annual pay-outs to those annuity donors are in excess of $600,000, and we have only $313,428 total remaining for this purpose. This essentially means that during the fiscal year that we are now in, we will have exhausted all the invested sums from those annuities and we will have to allot an amount to pay out to the donors, from general operations, in the years ahead.
There have been no further annuity arrangements made since the 1990s. *****
So, that sums up the state of the Master Investment Account.
I’m going to stop here for a few moments and ask if anyone has any questions about our Master Investment Account?
***** Next, let us turn our attention to the Diocesan Expansion Fund
*****
The Diocesan Expansion Fund was established decades ago. Its purpose was for the expansion & improvements & growth of parishes and diocesan initiatives. Its purpose was to assist these institutions, not just to save money and have it grow, like a private portfolio. The idea was to use the money to build up the Church, and that has been happening.
Also, by having the DEF, the Diocese and our parishes could avoid going to the commercial banks, where normally you’d pay higher commercial rates on loans.
There are times in our diocesan history when we probably paid a lower interest rate on savings than commercial banks. At a few points, certificates of deposit were producing double-digit interest rates, but that is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Thus, over the long haul, it has been to the advantage of the Diocese and the parishes to have and to use the DEF.
All dioceses moved in that direction several decades ago, to avoid having to go to the banks.
*****
I want to note here that all parishes/cemeteries/agencies, etc. have been required to place their savings in the DEF for several decades.
Thus, in the DEF, there are several hundred individual savings accounts, far more than the overall number of parishes. Many parishes have multiple accounts for special reasons (e.g., regular savings, the organ fund, the school, the Ladies Guild scholarship account, whatever).
We have general savings accounts for our diocesan and parish cemeteries. Those pastors or administrators that oversee these cemetery funds can make whatever improvements they wish with these funds.
And there are special savings accounts for the perpetual care of cemeteries. These are highly restricted funds and governed by the laws of the state. We are very cautious in authorizing the use of these funds.
As all savings are to be placed in the DEF, all parishes / cemeteries / and agencies, when they need a loan, are required to take their loans from the DEF, once again to avoid the use of commercial banks.
*****
Another note I wish to make here is that all parishes and agencies have access to their DEF savings on a daily basis.
Literally, there isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t cut checks to the parishes or agencies when they need access to their savings. So, as so many of you know, we turn your money around quickly.
*****
Monies on deposit in the DEF, are also invested. They are invested largely in bonds, which are historically more conservative, more prudent.
Where the Master Investment account has a mix of equities (stocks) and fixed income (bonds) - which is theoretically a more aggressive way of investing, the DEF has always been more conservative, recognizing that this is the savings of the people of our parishes.
***** As of the close of the Fiscal Year this past August 31st, the monies on deposit in the DEF totalled $56,893,822.
*****
This brings us to the relationship to debt and the DEF.
The last year that we can look back and see that the Diocese was technically debt-free was 1997. This was the last year that our Central Administration owed nothing to the DEF.
But in 1998 that changed. That year, the Central Administration had to borrow $1,084,000 from the DEF. And that number has been growing ever since.
Since that time, since 1998, we’ve had repeated years of deficit budgets in our Central Administration, and we have reported that to the people of the Diocese each year.
One reason for this development is that the financial markets have been much more volatile in the past decade. You’ll recall the crisis in the financial markets in 2001-2002, and no one needs to be reminded of the much more serious one in the fall of 2008 and the early months of 2009.
The indebtedness of the Central Administration to the DEF, by virtue of taking necessary loans each year, has grown considerably. Currently, the Central Administration owes to the
DEF $18,667,530.
Let me provide a few illustrations as to why.
The largest single amount owed to us is the area of Accounts Receivable from parishes. That amount is $5,348,004.
Represented in that gross number is the debt owed by 65 parishes (some with multiple accounts), 3 parish schools (which are not included in the number for parishes), and 9 other accounts (such as Catholic Charities, Pernet Family Health, and 7 others). 65 parishes is over one-half of all the parishes in the Diocese.
A point of interest is that 39 of those 65 separate accounts add up to over 90% of the Accounts Receivable. So, some institutions owe a great deal of money and others much less.
Currently, the St John’s Cemetery System has a debt of $1,972,665. You should know that, operationally, St. John’s Cemetery was doing fine when it was a stand-alone cemetery. If it were a stand-alone today it would also be doing fine. In the last decade, however, to assist parishes which found their parish cemeteries to be too fiscally burdensome, St. John’s Cemetery was asked to take over responsibility for about another dozen cemeteries, the thought being that we could distribute costs in a fair and economic way by running them as a system. But that hasn’t worked out very well. Our weaker cemeteries, producing little revenue from sales of lots, continue to produce very little revenue, income they need to sustain themselves.
The Priest Retirement Fund, severely underfunded, owes $1,709,597.
Our 4 Central Catholic Schools owe $1,075,170.
The Catholic Free Press owes $978,075.
And, finally, when you need to borrow so heavily each and every year, the real killer is compound interest. That amount owed is $8,687,664.
When parishes, schools & agencies owe the Central Administration money for unpaid bills (insurances, priest retirement, custodial care, etc.) THEY, those parishes, schools and agencies, have not historically been paying any interest, the prevailing thinking being that if a parish or school or agency can’t meet its regular operational bills just adding interest on top of it would be counter-productive. It would just be overlooked and not paid.
But the key is that the Central Administration of the Diocese must pay the interest in borrowing from the DEF.
Here’s another point...
In close to 20 years, we haven’t raised the annual premiums for priest retirement and/or their custodial care.
Parishes and agencies have paid $3,000 a year for their active priests for our priest retirement needs for 20 years, without that going up.
Parishes and agencies have paid $2,500 a year for their active priests for custodial care for 20 years, without that going up.
As we all know, the costs of providing health care in general, and certainly for the retired priests and for custodial care have risen sharply. But because so many institutions already find these costs burdensome, and in many cases cannot pay them, the annual premiums have remained fixed. We’d just be adding another burden on the parishes. So, here, we are severely underfunded.
We know that the number of priests who are retired has doubled in the past twenty years. These men, like so many others in our society, are also living longer because of improved health care.
And, the number of the retired is only going to grow in the next few years.
So, the Central Administration is paying a lot of bills, on an annual basis, and has been going deeper and deeper into debt.
This really has to be reversed.
***** Now, we turn to other DEF-debt obligations - to those parishes, schools & agencies which owe money directly to the DEF. That amount, as of the close of the Fiscal Year, was $15,658,748. There are 37 individual parish and school loan accounts which owe a total of $15,658,748. A few of them have multiple loan obligations.
This breaks out as -
26 individual parish loans accounts
10 school accounts
1 other account
I think I should note here that the GOOD NEWS is that of our 117 parishes, 91 parishes have no outstanding DEF obligations.
On the other hand, while they may not owe money to the DEF, many of these parishes owe money to the Central Administration, which as I told you, has to borrow to pay their outstanding bills.
Also owed to the DEF is what we call the ‘Plant Fund,’ which refers to the building of St. Peter-Marian High School and Holy Name High School in the 1960s. Neither school was built with a capital campaign. They were built with borrowed monies. The current balance owed the DEF from the Plant Fund is $2,802,744. Over the years we have been paying this down.
***** To summarize, if you add these three overall categories together, you’ll see that
- the Central Administration of the Diocese owes the DEF - a mix of our parishes/schools/agencies owe the DEF - and the Plant Fund, those 2 Jr.-Sr. high schools, owe the DEF
$18,667,530 $15,658,748 $ 2,802,744
Thus, the total owed the DEF is $37,129,022. These monies are owed against total deposits of $56,893,822. Of $56,893,822 of total assets, we have debt obligations of $37,129,022. Another way of saying that is that 65% of the DEF is out there in loan obligations.
Without citing any particular institutions, you should know that there are also commitments to new loans and/or likely commitments to new loans in the year ahead of $5,300,000.
Thus, without taking into consideration any unexpected emergencies (and DEF money has frequently been used in true emergencies), a year from now the approximate indebtedness to the DEF will be $42,429,022 on deposits of something less than what we have now, on predictable total deposits of $54,893,822.
Not a week goes by that we don’t learn about some new major structural problem with one of our institutions, institutions almost never prepared to address these concerns.
All of our institutions simply need to work within their means! *****
Now, I want to say this. The outstanding debt at a parish or a school is not necessarily a sign that there isn’t a lot of good happening in that parish or school or institution - that there isn’t a lot of spiritual vitality.
In some cases, you can have a mix of spiritual vitality and considerable debt, though you’d like to see spiritual and fiscal vitality.
In other cases, predictably, major debt accompanies a kind of languishing of the institution. It cuts both ways.
There are some parishes which owe a great deal of money but are very active in other ways and, at this time, are not under any threat of closing.
When it comes to pastoral planning concerns and decisions, the financial piece is not the only piece we look at. *****
I just want to touch on a few other challenges that we face, and then take some questions before we move on to the second part of our program.
I want to look, for a few moments at our Vocations Program & Funding for Seminarians. We all know that it is essential for the Diocese to prepare more priests for service to the Church and our program has been expanding in recent years.
Those programs related to vocations and the training of seminarians this year will cost $754,835.
They include the Vocations Office ($94,068), the House of Studies on Illinois Street in Worcester ($134,802), health insurance for seminarians ($79,965), and the largest expense - tuition and stipends for seminarians - ($446,000).
Now, we do have some burses (donations) that were left for the training of new priests, largely from the past.
There are two categories of these funds:
1) We have severely restricted funds in the amount of $843,621. These are funds limited to candidates who might come from a certain parish and/or who speak a certain language...but funds which cannot be applied to any other candidates. Since no candidates come from that parish or speak that language, and may not have in 50 or 60 years, you can’t ‘touch’ the funds. They’re protected by the laws governing bequests. The Diocese has tried for years to have these reviewed and reversed. Unfortunately, they just sit there and there’s nothing we can do about it.
2) And then, there are funds with no restrictions on their use, either their principle or their interest. They amount to $822,969. These are invested as well and we use an average of 4% interest for spending every year, or about $33,000 this year. There have been times when we have needed to reach in deeper.
So, our overall expenditures for Vocations and Seminarians in the year ahead is $754,835, and we can apply only $33,000 from restricted funds.
The Annual Partners in Charity Appeal provides all the rest, over $700,000 this year, for this purpose. That’s just one reason of many why Partners in Charity is so important each year.
***** Another area of concern is Tuition Assistance for Catholic School Students.
This year, from a variety of sources, we were able to award $1,146,245 in financial aid to our students. Of that: $350,000 comes from Partners in Charity.
I was a headmaster at St. Bernard’s High School from 1990-95. What we then called the Bishop’s Fund, and now call Partners in Charity, was awarding $350,000 in those years. Tuitions have more than doubled since then but the available funds for financial assistance from the annual appeal hasn’t grown at all.
Additionally, this year $305,500 was awarded through the Adopt-a-Student program, which is a separate entity and raises its own funds through the goodness of its benefactors but not directly from diocesan funding.
And the year ahead will see $490,745 awarded from the Forward-in-Faith endowment, which I mentioned earlier.
In toto, that’s $1,146,245. It sounds like a lot. But its only about 30% of the true demonstrated need of the students in our schools. In other words, the need for financial assistance is more than three times greater than what we can afford.
And the deferred maintenance of school buildings, another issue altogether, is considerable, but we can’t go there today.
*****
We are all aware of the challenges of The Catholic Free Press. No diocesan newspaper in the country, of which we are aware, is profitable, and we still need to find a way to continue to fund The Catholic Free Press and/or a variety of ways to communicate our message in a changing world of communications.
This is under review and we know that many have concerns over our “quota system.” But when you look at the overall picture of all that I am describing today, the indebtedness of The Catholic Free Press is one of the smaller pieces.
*****
Retired Priests
Today, the Diocese has over 60 retired priests. They receive salaries and excellent health care. And we provide, in a variety of fashions, for their residential needs.
This year alone the cost of providing their salaries, health care costs, housing, nursing home expense and other amounts will be $2,713,855.
But the total funding available is only $1,392,900. We fund it this way: Each parish or institution is assessed $3,000 per active priest for the priest retirement program. Each parish of institution is assessed $2,500 per active priest for custodial care. From the recent Partners in Charity Appeal, we’ll apply $500,000. There are some other minor funding sources.
So, for the overall care of retired priests, in this one year alone, with the costs set at $2,713,855 and the available funding set at $1,392,900, and if all the parishes were to meet the obligation for priest retirement and custodial care, which will not likely be the case, we will be ‘underfunded’ by $1,320,955.
