The 2013-2014 financial report showed slightly fewer registered households than in the previous two years, at 4,535, for a total of about 10,300 parishioners. “I came to realize prayer is a huge part of it.”įrom having been more than half a million dollars in debt a decade ago, being close to breaking even is a solid accomplishment, Deacon Beehner noted. Morneau of Green Bay started encouraging the concept of stewardship as a commitment he wanted people to make after praying seriously on the topic, “I thought he was taking the easy way out, not really talking about money,” Deacon Beehner said.
Part of bringing the budget under control came by linking spirituality with the concept of stewardship, Deacon Beehner said. Francis budget, including its support for the regional elementary and middle school, came in at $4.2 million, with about a $33,000 deficit between income and expenditures. “To pull everything under one central operation we had to be really creative.” Two of the former parish complexes were sold, which also cut down on maintenance expenses. Francis existed, it ran a $500,000 deficit.įirm business principles eventually got the parish on better financial footing, Deacon Beehner said. The last year for the six churches, the parishes’ collective budgets ran $570,000 in the red, Deacon Beehner said. Among the growing pains of the reorganization was getting out of debt. Francis is a relatively new parish, founded in 2005 to replace the city’s six previous churches. Francis of Assisi Parish in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Deacon Bob Beehner said the stewardship approach helped get his parish out of the deep red of about a decade ago. While tithing is still preferred, after the parish was forced to tap reserves to cover an operating deficit of more than $79,000 in the year ending June 30, 2014, the Finance Council decided money issues needed to be brought to parishioners directly, and bluntly.Īnnual parish income at Sacred Heart was a bit more than $1 million, while expenses topped $1.1 million.Īt St. Individual members would speak at weekend Masses occasionally about the concept of tithing and what it meant to their families to be able to support the parish in such a committed way. Sacred Heart had for years urged parishioners to tithe, keeping talk of money on the sidelines.
But the members of the Finance Council decided they had to boost income to end the need to cover annual deficits with money from parish reserves.įather Alvarado acknowledged he does not like to talk about money at Mass, preferring to use the bulletin to inform parishioners about weekly collections with a comparison to the previous year. That concept was part of the parish’s identity as a tithing community, whereby people contributed what they could privately. Previously, Father Alvarado explained, collection baskets were located around the church for people to leave their contributions. The first involved passing collection baskets through pews at each of the three weekend Masses. In South Plainfield, Sacred Heart’s tight financial situation was attributed to the region’s slow recovery from the recession and declining membership as longtime parishioners, especially retirees, moved to less expensive communities.īut things have improved financially at the parish in the Metuchen Diocese Sunday collections increased after the parish Finance Council implemented two changes. This package of stories, American Parish, presents a glance at some of the kinds of communities Pope Francis might see if he had the time to visit a variety of parishes on his visit to the United States and learn about how they handle some of the challenges facing them.