The results of this Catholic Standard and Times poll indicate there will always be those who continue to participate and contribute despite Archdiocesan criminal behavior. While 25% say they will donate less, 15% say they will become MORE active in their parish and 38% say the current crisis won’t affect their participation at all. Visit and take this poll online. It’s in the left column on the main page.
Are you still giving? Have you diverted funds to other non-diocesan Catholic charities? If so, which ones? Please include why you chose the charity.
Stopping donations shouldn’t be the only solution. If 50% continue to donate, the Archdiocese will work around it and children will still be at risk.
We’d like to hear from pastors. From what we understand, they have to send a stipulated amount to the Diocese. That amount is reviewed every few years. If the amount was set four years ago and then giving drops significantly this year, the pastor still owes the same amount. They have to make up the difference from within their budget. Parishioners are then shortchanged. The hierarchy doesn’t get hurt at all.
We need to be creative and effective in growing the numbers of “informed” Catholics. With the support of a larger base we can fight for legislative change and put the needed pressure on the archdiocese to change in much the same way the Boston laity and religious did.
The work you are doing is no less important than the uprisings in the Middle East. Whereever there is the heavy of authoritatian control and power, unresponsive governance and lack of constitutent participation there will be rebellion.
Is the parish a franchise?
There must be ways of contributing that restrict funds to the parish.
Restrict funds to the parish? Rebellions? Meaningless, expensive studies by Universities? Millions of dollars spent on attorney fees and court costs?
I have a great idea. Why don’t priests stop raping children? Maybe the Vatican should take a more proactive approach and expell priests, nuns, and laypeople who abuse children! How about handing over child rapists to legal authorities? Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Why not alienate the Church like they’ve alinated you from the specific and “secret” information that details clergy who abuse children?
Loyal customers of any organization would boycott those who abuse children, then attempt to hide it, then lie about it.
The Church can’t hide it anymore, because we the victims are not keeping silent. We are finding our voices all over the world and we will get our damn justice… in this life or the next.
http://www.saintraymond.net/stewardship/parish-financial-statement/
http://olmc-sophilly.org/Parish%20Financial%20Report.pdf
All pay an assesment as stated above – if not enough parishioners pay then it comes from the general fund. Some hide it in their statements and some show it. Should be able to get these statements from your parish.
Also, church schools are a big expense.
Walter:
As I mentioned previously, according to Mark Chopko, former general counsel to the USCCB and current chair of the non-profit group at Stradley and Ronon (Phila. archdiocesan counsel), parishioners have NO “collective rights.”
And priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia are classified as “independent contractors”
Would have a few questions about that but the Hatch Act pervents me.
2002 article
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_15/b3778001.htm
10 years later – are they in dire straits?
Since I am not allowed to receive communion – I don’t go. Actually, would get communion, doubt if they would have enforce that letter they sent me.
Ed, thanks for the link to that Business Week article— very informative.
All this is a “crying shame” as my parents would say, back in the day. An insight to what is going on in this whole mess is-
each of us is in a somewhat different place in our knowledge of the Word of God.
Contrary to what some still champion, and support, there is no substitute (idol) for the Word of God in people’s ultimate salvation– but many choose to trust in idols and by doing so , turn away from God’s truth, confirming their own slavery to the ways of this world’s darkness. You can’t have it “both ways,” it is either the Lord and His Word, or this world, its men and their evil practices.
IMO the pew donations are not necessary for the bishop’s support. There is enough hidden in most dioceses, and it is supplemented by income from the rich, the powerful who use the RCC as a tool, and the foundations set up by the RCC itself.
Want a Vatican II Church? Found a non-profit and start one of your own. The non-ordained have no more need of the bishops than they do of cancer.
Am I the only one that thinks that the Catholic church would be dishonest about the results of their poll if they thought dishonesty would benefit them?
Here is a different slant regarding money as a consideration.
Has anyone determined if the recent child pornography and pedophile, Shawn Ratigan of the Kansas Diocese and any other perpetrators may have had influential and wealthy families whose support of the church caused him to be protected and hidden from the parishoners?
Could the coverups be motivated by financial support when the church has lost so many members due to the abuse crisis?
(See: http://www.catholicnetwork.us/uncategorized/any-other-institution-that-lost-one-third-of-its-members-would-want-to-know-why/
Marcel Maciel Delgaddo brought in millions to the church through his patronage by wealthy women due to his charismatic smoothness while he was a known abuser of adolescents.
George Soros has spent huge sums of money to try to infiltrate the Catholic and other mainline churches with the pansexual message.
The John Jay study has been called a two billion dollar exercise and a compromise with Political Correctness and it is criticized by two of the most influential conservative Catholics, William Donohue and George Weigel for this reason.
Donohue and Weigel call the JJ Study the third truce with the homo/pansexualists which has allowed unbiblical stances against the teachings of Scripture and the Church to continue.
The first ‘truce’ occurred in 1968 when the Vatican prevented a US Bishop from disciplining 19 errant and dissident bishops who supported homosexuality as a viable alternate lifestyle and contraception in response to Humanae Vitae.
The second truce occurred in 2005 when the Vatican had decided new homosexuals would not be qualified for the priesthood. This truce essentially guaranteed no bishop would again seek to discipline regarding this issue.
These first two truces were also pointed out by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus in addition to Weigel and Donohue. The third truce is the John Jay Study as Weigel and Donohue have both stated in their responses.
To stand with Scripture against homosexuality would be costly, but far less costly than the toll it is taking on the church, financially, morally and spiritually and in the loss of members, credibility and honor.