For the last two years we believed that financial relief was going to come through the proceeds we would receive from our project downtown, namely the opening of a gift store and coffee shop in the old Guild Building. . . . The project is suspended indefinitely while legal matters wait to be sorted out, so we will not be able to count on the steady stream of income we were anticipating, a reality that asserted itself gradually over the past four months. Our delay in informing you is due only to our sincere belief that the project would at last come through. Now that we know it won’t, we must formulate another plan for financial solvency and growth. The upshot is that all our projects, including our Parish School and Memorial Park, are on hold until we resolve our monthly operating income shortfall.However, last September, the Ordinariate News site passed along an earlier Bergman newsletter in which he noted the completion of a handicapped access ramp:
Our carpenters, who also helped refurbish the Convent Chapel, outdid themselves in making it fit in with the décor of the church, but they experienced cost overruns in making it totally compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was my decision to delay its construction no longer, despite the fact we don’t have the money on hand to pay for it, because I thought it too important to put off. This decision has been vindicated at least in part by the number of people who have come to Mass since its construction who could not have worshiped with us otherwise. I’m truly amazed by how many. My hope, of course, is that the other part of my decision will be vindicated by contributions to make up for the $2,000 we still owe our kind carpenters, who have made our church so much more accessible.This, however, now appears to be only one of a large number of unpaid bills, if the information in my last post is an indication.
I had been skeptical of the idea that a bookstore and coffee shop would generate large enough surplus income to sustain the parish, which we now know had been spending well beyond its means for several years. A 2014 parish newsletter, also passed along by Ordinariate News, says,
Many of you have heard that the Diocese of Scranton recently sold the Guild Building on Wyoming Avenue in downtown Scranton, which for decades housed the Guild Studios, the area’s only Catholic goods and book store.However, my visitor points out that "The bookshop closed by the Diocese of Scranton which the parish planned to reopen had lost money for the previous five years, by the way. This was a major factor in the decision to sell the building." A news story notes this here. The newsletter announcing the sale of the building continues,
Therefore, over the course of many months we put together a plan to open a store and coffee shop in the first floor of the Guild Building that would offer many of the same products sold there before the Guild Studios closed in August of last year.But if the same business using the same non-profit business model selling the same products had lost money for the past five years, how did Fr Bergman expect to make any money at all reopening the store? Much less
. . . restore our school building, pay teacher salaries, offer tuition assistance, and cover whatever other costs our parish may incur in running a Catholic school.Beyond that, the circumstances we saw in my last post paint a picture that, notwithstanding uncertainties and delays, the parish had been spending wildly, incurring debt, and then stiffing both creditors and employees based on unrealistic projections of income that never appeared.
As far as I can see, the parish is in a considerable financial hole. Without a detailed accounting, it appears to owe creditors, contractors, and employees amounts that total well into six figures. It appears that the donors who expected to reopen the Guild Building have suffered additional losses that are at least equivalent. (A news story notes that the Evanishes had purchased the building for $1.3 million; Fr Bergman's statements imply they have lost this money.)
Given these uncertainties, I would be very uneasy to donate money to bail the parish out of this situation without very definite assurances that a sound financial plan was in place. Fr Bergman minimizes the problem, as far as I can see, if he doesn't misrepresent it outright, by referring only to a "monthly operating income shortfall". What about the six-figure hole they're already in? Frankly, I'd want to know why Fr Bergman would continue in his position -- I think it's past time for Houston to make a definite move if it wants the parish to continue in any form. Beyond that, this is likely to be a significant hit to the OCSP's reputation.
