Church Finances

HandBanana

Our church is in the red.  It has been in the red for the longest time.  Last year, our school was taken over by the archdiocese and along with it, the debt of the school.  We, my parish, is still responsible for the debt of the church.  Also, this year, our priest threatened to cancel first communion.  Two weeks ago our priest announced the possibility of closing our church.  He summed it up that our church had a zero balance and barely able to pay the salaries for the past week.  Obviously, our church hasn't closed but it feels never far. 

Of the envelopes sent out, only about 15% are returned weekly.  Attendance is low and the neighborhood has a tendency to point fingers at one another.  It went so far as creating a facebook group which said some very upsetting things about our priest.  The facebook group has since been deleted and our priest actually responded to the facebook group in his homily.  He said he didn't read it but he wished that instead of finger pointing everyone would return to church. 

I just wonder if any of you have similar experiences in your parish.  I'm feeling lost and discouraged by the parish reaction.

AND if I posted too much info someone please tell me and I'll delete.  I tried to leave out details about the exact amount but I don't think that is exactly private information.

ElisabethJoanne

It's a classic agency problem. Happens at lots of parishes. Because it's a whole bunch of people's job to keep the parish running financially, everyone feels it's not HIS job.

This assumes the parishioners really have the money, they just aren't giving it. If they don't have the money...

As a lay person, there's a few things you can do. The first is to charitably remind people of the Church's Laws on giving. The second is to play up the importance and need of the parish, encouraging people to direct their giving to the parish instead of other worthy Catholic causes.

If you know any professional salesman or fundraisers or marketers, you can talk to them about volunteering their services. My future husband is actually trying to get into just that kind of (paid) work.

[Deleted User]

The parish we came from in GA was hurting, but I don't think they were in the red. IMO, it was due to the poor decisions on the pastor's part and they were trying to build the actual church (we had mass in the parish/family life center). They should have done first things first instead of building the preschool and 5 star rectory. I think things are slowly starting to get better there though as we still talk to our friends from church.

The priest that married us actually moved to a parish that was in financial trouble right after our wedding for the very same reasons. I am not sure all the details or if it was at risk of closing, but this particular priest was know in the dioceses for being very fiscially responsible and frugal and the Bishop asked him to help get struggling churches back in order. Before I started going to our church, my H told me that our church was also in the same situation and the priest that married us straightenend things out.

Maybe you guys need our priest out there in Chicago to help fix things.

Calypso1977

i understand the financial problems. but i dont think the priest should be "threatening" to cancel sacraments as a way to boost income. 

bibliophile2010

I would also be wary of pointing fingers at building projects as the sole cause of church financial problems. My parish also has them (both a building projects and financial problems), but the reasons for the financial problems are complicated, a mile long, and too much to get into in a public message board.

In our diocese at least, building projects require tons of captial set aside in an earmarked fund. There are hoops and complications and things are never as easy as they seem. Like I say, our parish has a list of financial problems a mile long and none of them is really about the building project (which also has a mile-long list of issues).

I agree, though, that sacraments need to be conferred without threat to the faithful.

lalaith50

That's really weird about threatening to cancel first commonunion... He must have given more reason than that? Was it purely just a threat like, "tithe more or else..." or was there more rationale behind it like maybe, "We can barely keep this church going, and certainly don't have extra money for extra things like a special mass that will require people to get paid (eg, organist, sacristan, etc,) and the a/c running, etc...

ETA: or maybe even like, "all these people whose kids are getting first commuion have never given ANYTHING to this church, and we know that when we do have this special mass for them, we won't ever see them again, so why bother?"

I'm sure that is all too likely... :-/

mica178

I haven't experienced that, and I'm sorry that your parish is, Handbanana.

I mean, I've been to Mass where the church's finances are discussed, especially since 2008 when people started moving out of the HCOL areas that I used to live and/or donating less.  But no one has threatened to cancel the First Communion or anything drastic.  They just asked everyone to try to open up their wallets if they could (and started auto-donate programs online for people who might forget their checkbook) to protect the parish and its charity programs.

I wonder if your priest could talk with a neighboring church to hold a joint First Communion if the costs of holding it within your church are out of the budget.  When I was growing up we lived in a small town, so sometimes we had to go to a nearby town for some resources that our church couldn't cover (Church school, fundraisers, etc.).

ootmother2

Unemployment is over 9%, how can everyone still give the way they used to?

Churches are also only half full on Sundays, if that.

My church is doing a restoration project on the domes that will keep it a landmark building.  We found out last week that it's going to cost almost $1 million more than estimated.

I know that Boston College got a great deal on the land that Cardinal Law was forced to sell to settle the abuse charges.  That sure helped BC which is a private university but it only partialy paid off the charges.

I don't know the solution.  Hit up Rome for an assist?

HandBanana

We already owe money to the Church from loans.  They had to redo floors in the school basement because of asbestos.  This construction is a great example of how the attitude in the neighborhood warped a health fear related construction project into some sort of frivolous spending decision made solely by our priest.

He threatened to cancel because so many families owed tuition/fees.  It was something I prayed over and debated leaving our church.  I can not say exactly why he would threaten to withould something such as a sacrement but I can only imagine the frustration that lead to his statement/threat.  First communion happened (it was the morning before our wedding) and if it hadn't, we would not have been married at our church.  It was something H and I discussed thoroughly.

It really feels like a combination of lack of attendance, families not paying tuition or attending mass, and most of our parish being lower income.  Compound these issues with the fingure pointing.  Someone actually said that the priest should have an evening mass on Sunday because how can he expect 20 somethings to make it to an early Sunday mass.  I'm not even exagerating.  It is funny because the person obviously hasn't been to mass in ages because our priest tried that and no one went.  The whole attitude that the Church should bend over backwards to get them to go to mass when they should want and strive to be there. 

  Interesting but our priest noted that parishoners at our Latin mass give the greatest per parishoner.  It is also difficult as an "outsider" in this parish.  Apparently, 55 priests turned down appointment at our church because of the parishoners.  They aren't exactly warm to the idea of someone coming in and changing things or doing anything.