This Thursday, August 15, is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a holy day of obligation with masses on Wednesday, Aug. 14, at 7 p.m. (and confessions beforehand at 6 p.m.), and Thursday, Aug. 15, at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. I encourage you to join us as we honor Our Lady’s assumption into the heavenly realm. With school classes starting that same day for CtR Catholic School, and the following Monday for our local public schools, it’s an excellent opportunity to give thanks to God for the gift of the Virgin and to invoke her intercession upon all students and teachers in this coming year.
Speaking of the start of the new academic year, I look forward to standing at the door on Thursday morning with our principal, Dan Courtney, to greet the 475 students as they enter. The first day of school is one of awe and wonder – and maybe a little fear too for the newbies – and of course there are always some tears (mainly just from the moms!). It’s the beginning of our second decade at CtR School of educating minds and hearts in a way that truly makes a difference. I thank the parish of CtR for its wonderful support of the school and ask you to please pray for its success. As we’ve said since the first day 11 years ago, the school is a ministry of the parish and a beautiful example of how we at CtR, in many and varied ways, seek to live out Christ’s commandment to “go and teach all that I have commanded you.” (Mt. 28:20)
In other news, we began a new fiscal year on July 1, and I want to take the opportunity this week to share with you the financial state of our community. One of the chief responsibilities of a pastor is sound management of the Church’s temporal goods and prudent and balanced management of all financial responsibilities. I can report that we are in good financial health at CtR. Our budget is tight, of course, but it is balanced, our bills are being paid, and we are in good standing with all our Archdiocesan obligations.
The people of CtR are primarily responsible for that being the case. You continue to be generous stewards of God’s gifts to you and in turn we do our best to be good stewards of the gifts you share with the Church. I thank each of you for your continued sacrifice, week in and week out, to support the ministries of the parish. Only with your support are we able to do the work of the gospel. Thank you very much.
Our offertory collections for this past year from the previous year were up by 5.3 percent (actuals over actuals). Again, thank you for making that possible. It’s a sign of your generosity and an indication that our parish continues to grow as we now number more than 7,500 registered families. I’ll have more to share on the pastoral side of that growth in the coming weeks. Most of all, it’s a sign of your dedication to our mission to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, and for that I am most appreciative.
As we look to the new fiscal year, we are projecting a modest one percent increase from our 2023-24 actual (not budgeted) numbers. Our total budgeted income for this new fiscal year is $5,852,420. Of this amount we anticipate Sunday and Holy Day collections to be $4,099,400 with the remaining income generated from facility rentals, R.E. registrations, investment income, and other donations. Our total budgeted expenses of $5,389,940 are allocated in the following ways:
• Ministries: $2,321,619 (43 percent): All expenses associated with nearly every one of our more than 80 ministries, including Religious Education and catechetical formation departments (children, Youth Ministry and Adult Faith Formation, including RCIA), as well as Liturgy, Music, and Social Ministry outreach to services like CAM and others. This is up about six percent and that’s understandable (and wonderful!) as it means we are growing and reaching more and more people.
• Parish Administration: $1,206,447 (22 percent): All costs associated with the operations of the parish office (personnel, benefits, Information and Technology, equipment and supplies).
• Plant Operations: $1,112,278 (21 percent): All costs associated with the maintenance of our facilities, including utilities and general maintenance and repairs of buildings and grounds. This is up about four percent, and that, too, is understandable as our buildings and physical plant are aging and there is a constant need for maintenance and repairs on various items.
• Archdiocesan Obligations: $414,272 (8 percent): Building Fund Tax and Cathedraticum tax (assessed to every parish to help pay for the administrative departments of the Archdiocese).
• Capital Expenditures/Stewardship: $135,000 (3 percent): All costs associated with interests on our Archdiocesan loan and ongoing Stewardship efforts.
• Pastoral: $200,324 (4 percent): All costs associated with the priests, deacons, and rectory.
We will continue to keep a close eye on our discretionary spending and investments, just as you as parishioners do in your individual household budget. We always speak of the parish as being a family and so in a sense we collectively are one household – it’s just a really big house! I ask every household to review your own tithe to the parish, and if possible, make adjustments to your tithe to the parish. I have done so myself by logging into my Faith Direct account and bumping up my online giving over last year, and I invite you to do the same on a level that works in your own household budget.
Two areas of our overall budget that have increased is our property insurance and our health care insurance for our employees. Both of those are set by the Archdiocese, and are beyond our control, but the property insurance really stung this year as it went up a whopping 48 percent to $231,700, and that’s after we disputed the charge and asked for a revaluation. We managed to get it down a little bit, but it’s a huge jump that impacts us significantly. Likewise, our group health insurance rates from the Archdiocese increased for the eighth straight year, and amounts to $461,016 of our total budget. Property insurance and health insurance are important, of course, and we must cover our facilities and employees, but just as you see costs increase in your personal budgets at home, so, too, do we see it in our parish home. We can’t escape those expenses; they are happening to every parish in the Archdiocese.
On a more joyous note, I’m happy to report that our CtR Catholic School was once again 100 percent self-funded this past year. I know of some parishes that subsidize their school hundreds of thousands of dollars. We do not. As our school enters its second decade, it has always pulled its own weight from the first day we opened the doors. What a blessing! It also contributes more than $150,000 per year to help out on our overall debt retirement for the entire CtR campus. My thanks to our school administration, parents, and school benefactors for working hard to make CtR Catholic School a success both in the classroom and on the bottom line.
In the coming weeks I’ll share with you some additional information – and very good news! – on our debt service as we look to the future. Finally, my thanks to Nora Pena, Parish Business Manager, Carolyn Thornton, Bookkeeper, Deacon Kerry Bourque, Parish Administrator, and our hard-working Finance Council and parish staff, all of whom have done great work in helping us be good stewards of all our resources. They are parishioners like you, and work tirelessly to see that we can meet our needs now and plan effectively for the future. I promise to always be as transparent as I possibly can be about our financial picture. You have a right to know that your gifts are being used wisely and fairly to build up the Kingdom of God here on earth. If you have any questions, I’m happy to speak with you about it.
The reason CtR exists is to help people encounter Christ. The Church relies on your generosity to help make that possible – from paying the electric bill, to providing healthcare for employees, to stocking bathrooms with toilet paper, to buying books and rosaries for Religious Education and everything in between. As your pastor, I’m humbled by your support week in and week out, and ask that you continue to offer it in the future so that we might all serve the Lord with gladness. May God bless you for your support of CtR.