On being 'fully funded... in Christ

At this time of year, many are looking to prepare their tax returns and are reviewing budgets in the light of increased costs for heating and other unforeseen expenses. The parishes and schools of the Archdiocese are looking at possible new sources of revenue to compensate for reduced grants. Everyone is looking at an economic picture somewhat more somber than it was a year ago. Funding for the future is easier if there are savings from the past.

The Archdiocese of Chicago, like most other Churches and charitable organizations in this country, is asset-rich and cash-poor. People look at beautiful churches and forget that buildings do not produce money but absorb it. A statue may be worth a lot of money, if someone were to sell it; but as long as you own it, you have to dust it and maintain both it and the building which houses it. Most of what the Archdiocese owns is not productive in itself. To support its works and its workers, the Archdiocese relies primarily on donations, then on savings and small endowments and, finally, on some charges for services.

In the past, works were often financed by borrowing. Today, parishes still fund their building projects by borrowing from the Archdiocese, i.e., from other parishes’ savings kept on deposit in the Archdiocesan “bank”. Before there were parish savings, Cardinal Mundelein floated private bonds in order to build many of the churches and schools in the City of Chicago. Almost a century before him, Bishop Quarter bought land and used it as collateral to borrow enough money from banks to build the first parishes in the new Diocese of Chicago (which included the entire State of Illinois in 1843).

The Church has always been richer in people than in cash. The priests and sisters and brothers were a form of living endowment to fund the works of the Archdiocese. The sisters who taught received room and board, and their religious orders received thirty to fifty dollars a month in recompense for each sister in a parish. The parish priests received seventy-five dollars a month in pay, plus room and board and their Mass stipends. They were not allowed to own a car for five years after ordination. This sounds pretty grim, until one realizes that very few Catholic family men two generations ago would have had seventy-five dollars a month for themselves after supporting their families. In fact, of course, most priests didn’t spend their salaries on themselves but gave much of it to poor people and to various causes, as they still do.

About the only institution in the Archdiocese which comes near to being “fully funded”, i.e., with savings and endowments sufficient to cover all foreseeable costs in the future, is the Archdiocesan cemetery system. The Catholic cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago have been extraordinarily well managed. The funds given them for perpetual care of the graves are put aside and have created a form of endowment to be sure the promises made to the families of those who are buried in the cemeteries will be kept. This is one of the reasons why our Catholic cemeteries are so beautiful and are a model system for the entire country. Burying the dead is one of the corporal works of mercy, and we do it very well in this Archdiocese.

Still, I’m not sure what it means to say that we are better placed to take care of graves than we are of school children. Instructing the ignorant is also a corporal work of mercy, and teaching the faith is the core of the Church’s mission, but funding the schools is a constant preoccupation. The schools are funded mostly by tuition, paid by the parents or guardians of the children or through scholarships. But tuition doesn’t cover the full cost of running the school; every child in every Catholic school receives a subsidized education. About twenty percent of the cost of running a school is given by the parish which operates the school or, if the parish cannot afford it, the twenty percent comes from the Archdiocese directly or through the Big Shoulders Fund and other charitable organizations and foundations and businesses. The schools themselves organize dinners and events and search for business patrons to help cover the cost of Catholic education. We are still searching for some means to help finance what is a public service through some of the taxes paid by the parents of the children in the schools. It’s a balancing act.

By contrast to the schools, the services that Catholic Charities furnish to the poor, to the elderly, to single mothers and many others are funded in part by the state which asks Catholic Charities to take and care for delinquent children and others which the State has an obligation to care for. The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago are another institution to which other dioceses compare their own efforts.

Priests generally don’t like to ask people for money, even for very good works. I try to overcome my own reluctance by remembering that people’s salvation depends on their being generous to the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters. People with money need to give it away or they are in deep spiritual trouble. Asking for money for schools and charities and parishes and social works of all kinds is giving donors a chance to become holy.

Becoming holy means profiting from the riches that Christ died to give us. These are the Church’s permanent endowment. Once graced by Christ, we can cooperate with him in the work of salvation and be of help to one another. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the treasury of the Church: “In the communion of saints, ‘a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is...an abundant exchange of all good things.’ In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others.” (no. 1475).

The Church is now and always will be richer in people than in cash. People are forever. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago