By OCSP standards Fr Bergman is a fairly solid pastor; however his money management could benefit from the closer scrutiny which I'm sure would be available to him were he a priest of the Diocese of Scranton. The latest scheme is to buy a house which adjoins the St Thomas More property, to use as a facility for the home school support "academy" which the parish has run for the last two years. It is listed at about $70,000, and the parish will need to raise $20,000 as a down payment by the middle of this month. STM ended 2018 $20,000 short of its operating budget, plus $4,000 short of its Bishop's Appeal target. The church, rectory, school, and convent which the parish purchased from the local diocese in 2012 are in various states of disrepair and will be a continual drain on the community.My memory is that on a visit to Scranton, Fr Phillips provided advice to Fr Bergman in effect on how to spoof the building inspector. If Fr Bergman continued as a diocesan priest, he'd be subject to the diocese's building and property department, which could well have different views on what is needed to maintain the facilities. Except that in leaving the diocese, he took the decrepit properties off the diocese's hands.
But here's another question: how comfortable would I feel as a parent about letting my kids go to a home school support "academy" where the building is in dubious condition? The nagging feeling I have, and it won't go away, is that the parents who club together on these home school co-ops are cheap, and they're cutting corners in hard-to-perceive but dangerous ways.
The organ was recently destroyed by lightning, although after protracted negotiations this wIll be covered by insurance.Wait a second. Let's say the rest room floor in the "school" is rotten, and it collapses under someones child. What kind of protracted negotiations will be needed to get the parish's insurance to pay off then? How many corners are being cut here?
As we have discussed, Fr Bergman has acquired a transitional deacon who is employed locally as a prison chaplain and is available to assist him when not required at his paying job. Fr Bergman continues to celebrate mass biweekly for the mission he set up in Bath, PA as an ordination opportunity for now-Fr Riojas, who subsequently left to become a diocesan priest. Interesting to compare STM, Scranton and OLW, Houston---two former PP parishes with very different histories.At least in our archdiocese, staff comes into each parish every three years for a pretty complete review. At our former parish, this review resulted in layoffs at the school and reduction of mass times. I have a feeling that an equivalent look at St Thomas More's budgetary and bishop's appeal shortfalls would result in similar adjustments, including raising the question of whether the parish should be closed.
It doesn't look like Houston exercises anything like normal diocesan supervision, and this concerns me. One reason parishioners may not be as concerned as they should be is that many come from "continuing" backgrounds where dioceses are also short of staff and short of money, so they see nothing unusual. And they're still in a ghetto in any case, where they don't get a good comparison with Catholic diocesan parish life.
If my Catholic experience is an indication, pastors have serious expectations for their money management. Good pastors who build their parishes and outperform on the bishop's appeal seem to get preferences, including extra staff, quick replacement of associates who move on, and so forth. Pastors who perform less well get visits from diocesan consultants. I don't see how Fr Bergman can be "fairly solid" but come so short on financial aspects of his job.
But St Thomas More is certainly one of those OCSP parishes I'd stay away from, if for no other reason than my physical safety.
