11/06/05 Cardinal's Page

November 6, 2005

Mission and money

Toward the end of October each year, the universal Church celebrates Mission Sunday. That occasion speaks to the mission given to the entire Church by Jesus before ascending to the Father. The mission is to convert the entire world to Jesus Christ in his body, the Church. A collection is taken up each year on Mission Sunday and sent to the Propagation of the Faith Office in Rome for distribution among dioceses in Africa, Asia and Oceania to help the Church meet the challenges to her mission there.

But mission is also here. The Archdiocese of Chicago participates locally in the universal mission of the Church, and our mission also presents financial challenges. On Saturday, Oct. 29, pastors and parish finance council members came together for the first time at Guerin Prep with Mr. Tom Brennan, the Archdiocese’s financial officer, and two members of the Archdiocesan Finance Council, Mr. Jim Denny and Mr. Frank Considine. Also present were Father George Rassas, the Vicar General, Jim Lago, the Chancellor, and myself. It was a day about mission and money.

In governing a parish, a pastor has at least two councils to help him: the parish pastoral council and the parish finance council. Councils make sure the pastor is not isolated in his responsibilities. Finance councils also ensure accountability in the use of parish funds and make reporting to the entire parish easier.

Less than half of the parishes of the Archdiocese at this time are able to meet their financial obligations from current income. Other parishes are using their savings to pay their bills and still others must rely on grants from the Archdiocese. This places a great and ever growing burden on the savings and endowment of the Archdiocese, making it harder to fund ministries that serve all the parishes and institutions of the Church here.

At the Oct. 29 meeting, ways to make the parishes solvent were discussed by panels from different parts of the Archdiocese. Financial trends, Sunday offertory collections and the Annual Catholic Appeal were discussed, as were parish budgets and audits and the best practices that guarantee the proper collection and safeguarding of parish funds.

As a dimension of the Church’s mission, money concerns are best discussed as a matter of stewardship. A panel from Our Lady of the Ridge parish in Chicago Ridge made it clear that stewardship is rooted in discipleship. When one is truly converted to Christ, the gifts He gives a disciple have to be shared with others. Sharing Christ’s material gifts is called stewardship, as sharing the spiritual gifts is called evangelization. Both are necessary to mission.

In the recently completed and very successful Millennium Campaign, the Archdiocese raised over $220 million, 80 percent of which remained in the parishes to address their needs and to fund projects which renewed their physical plants and operations at the beginning of the new millennium. The remaining 20 percent of the money raised has been used to fund some capital needs at the major seminary, to build a retirement home for priests in Lemont and to fund youth ministry and catechesis and give more money to poorer parishes and schools whose own participation in the campaign needed to be supplemented. I am always immensely grateful for the generosity of so many of our Catholic families in the Archdiocese. Challenges, however, remain. Changing demographics, aging parish buildings, increasing costs for health care and pensions, the recent projected increase in the cost of fuel and energy will all continue to make great demands on our resources, just as similar challenges are facing every family in the Archdiocese in these times.

Recently, Liturgy Training Publications, the Archdiocesan publishing house, brought out a book called “Heavenly City: the Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago.” Authored by Denis McNamara with photos by James Morris, the book beautifully portrays some of the artistic treasures of our parish churches. (See the review on Page 25.) It is a bold and powerful statement about the generosity and self-sacrifice of generations of Catholics, many of whom came to Chicago as immigrants. Raised to the glory and praise of God, these buildings are part of the heritage of the Catholic family in Cook and Lake Counties. The burden of maintaining these buildings we have inherited and of sustaining so many other works of the Archdiocese is falling on fewer practicing Catholics. This is a situation which cannot be sustained in the long run. Either one fills institutions or one closes them. That is, of course, a larger question than simply meeting the parish budget this year or next. But the growth of the Church, the question of mission, is the context in which every issue about money has to be framed and discussed, parish by parish.

The meeting with pastors and parish finance council members was filled with such discussion and encouraged all those who participated in it. It will have good effect in our parishes and convinces me that, together as an Archdiocese, as God’s family here, we can meet the challenge of both money and mission. God bless you.