The Money

My wife was doing business at the Citibank branch that's located on the corner of Finley and Hillhurst -- this is the rental property owned by the St Mary of the Angels parish. We have a couple of accounts there, and a teller told my wife that the branch would be moving farther down Hillhurst later this year. I don't remember when the lease was up -- the bank would be obligated to pay rent thourgh the end of the lease, but it the lease is up this year, that means no rent from the bank after that time.

Monthly rental income to the parish from the bank was a little less than $21,000. Monthly income from all other sources, including plate and pledge, was about $7500. This alone would cover only utilities, insurance, and various miscellaneous expenses -- it would not cover any payroll costs, including clergy, organist, choir, or housekeeping. In other words, the parish will need to line up another tenant in a hurry. It doesn't help that the question of who the landlord would be is tied up in the courts.

Unfortunately, throughout its modern history, the parish has in effect been living off the "trust fund" that Fr Dodd set up for it. At one time, I'm told, it was the wealthiest Episcopal parish in the diocese. Three separate cycles of lawsuits have depleted that. My impression is that the group of long-term parishioners who were the core troublemakers never wanted to wake up to the fact that the money was gone, and there would need to be serious fundraising if the parish was to survive -- didn't matter to them, they were in their 70s and 80s anyhow. In fact, most of them didn't even pledge, ignoring the fact that you had to pledge to qualify for the vestry.

During my brief time as treasurer, I got on Fr Kelley's case about this. Apparently the core group had laid down the law to him when he started -- there was to be no silliness over pledging, it disturbed the serenity of the high-church atmosphere, or something like that. When I met with the parish's new accountant, he told me what I already knew: relying on the rental income was utterly imprudent. Banks merge all the time, they move and close branches every day. You can't count on that money.

Sources close to the elected vestry tell me that the loss of the tenant could be an inducement for the dissidents to let go of the place more willingly. I certainly don't have the impression that a bunch of inward-looking snobs has any real interest in the real-world problems of running a parish.

My wife, though, has always been of the view that the ultimate fate of St Mary's will be to become a secular Museum of Culture, perhaps with Mmes Bush and Brandt as docents.