Fundraising Issues -- II

Regarding the funds needed for the St John's Calgary plant, a visitor clarifies the assumptions I made in yesterday's post. The Anglican Diocese of Calgary allowed the new Ordinariate parish to rent the St John's property for five years at a below-market rate. However, the expectation was that the Ordinariate parish would purchase the property at market price from the Anglican diocese after five years. As a result, in order to purchase the property, the Ordinariate parish will need to come up with a down payment in 2017 of 10% of the market value at the time, which is the minimum allowed for a down payment under Canadian law.

My visitor says that the agreement reached with the Anglican diocese was that the property was worth $1.65 million. Due to the economic constriction in Calgary, the property could be worth less, although this would need to be renegotiated. However, the mortgage payments that would then be due should a mortgage be obtained could well be considerably more than the current rent payments.

It seems to me that this is just one indication of the serious budgetary problems that face even the largest and most successful Ordinariate parishes.

In what may be a positive development that I anticipated yesterday, I'm told that Msgr Laurence Gipson, the OCSP's former Vicar of Finance and head of "Mission Advancement", has just retired. Bp-Elect Lopes is going to need a serious adult, not a part-timer, to handle these problems.