Another letter was put in the bulletin by Fr. Lewis. "We need to increase our weekly giving by $9,000 per week to meet our expenses".This sent me to the parish annual report linked here back in September, which says the 2018-19 annual income from offertory and pledge was $855,733. If the pledge income needs to increase by $9,000 per week, that comes to $468,000 per year, which is about 55% of the 2018-19 pledge income.
I simply don't know how this compares to last year's overall totals in the annual report, or whether the shortfall extends to the school. As of the 2018-19 annual report, the parish and school together were spending over $5 million, with income about $4 million. How a shortfall of close to half a million in pledge relates to last year's totals is not clear, and it's not clear where the school stands in relation to 2018-19, although the annual report noted that not enough students were paying full tuition, and it's generally understood that enrollment has been declining for some years.
What raises questions in my mind is the apparent lack of urgency in Fr Lewis's communications. He represents the shortfall as $9,000 per week, which makes it seem manageably small, when simple arithmetic makes it nearly half a million as an annual figure. To put this in context, if there are 300 pledging entities at OLA, each family or individual would need to increase its annual pledge by over $1500 or $30 per week. As a former parish treasurer and counter of weekly offerings at two parishes, I can say that a pledge of $30 per week itself is at the high end, and adding another $30 on top of that would require real planning by most families.
Yet the 2018-19 annual report urges families to "boost your annual contribution to the parish or school by 15-20%". To make an increase of $30 per week a 20% increase would mean the base weekly pledge would be $150, now raised to $180. Let's say $180 would now become a true tithe of 10%. This would come to $9360 per year, or 10% of a total family income of $93,600. I can't imagine that this is the mean family income in the parish, and tithing requires serious planning and discipline, which not everyone is going to do.
And Commitment Sunday was some weeks ago. The serious homilies about pledging have already been given, the pledge cards sent out and returned, and the families have already adjusted their budgets. It sounds to me as though this level of pledge shorttfall has come as a surprise in the weeks after Commitment Sunday, and Fr Lewis is suddenly having to recalibrate. A shortfall of close to $500,000 measured against previous year's income of $800,000 or so is a serious matter indeed. It presumably means layoffs and likely cuts in the music program.
Yet Fr Lewis appears to be minimizing the problem by characterizing it as just $9000 per week, when it's something more like half a million a year and 55%. I know that an equivalent problem in our archdiocese would probably involve bringing in new personnel with specific leadership and fundraising skills. As far as I can see, Fr Lewis never demonstrated them at St Luke's, and he doesn't seem to be equal to that task now. But beyond that, the ordinariate has never attracted men of that caliber and likely has nobody to turn to to correct the situation now, especially since the official line is clearly to keep Fr Phillips out of the picture.
Though even Fr Phillips seems to have poisoned the fundraising well himself.
