I was looking at an Our Lady of the Atonement church bulletin (March 29) the other day and noticed on page 2 an oddly worded appeal for financial support. The odd words to me are, “we have no endowment to rely upon.” That reminded me of the ol’ Our Lady’s Dowry slush fund that Fr. Phillips and Deacon Orr set up to pay Dn. Orr a salary against diocesan policy and to avoid reporting income to the Archdiocese of San Antonio (and apparently the Ordinariate, too). I figured after Dn. Orr’s passing and the entry into the Ordinariate, the Dowry fund would have been dissolved.An oddly pastoral letter from J Henry, the bishop's secretary, has indirectly reached me on the subject of tithes.Since Fr. Lewis mentions specifically an endowment, I wondered if the dowry was still going on. What a surprise, it is! Some folks funneled over ¾ of a million dollars ($874,078 to be exact) through that fund since 2014. I know some of that money was supposed to be earmarked for classrooms for the new school building because I know someone who contributed specifically for that purpose and was told to make the check out to Our Lady’s Dowry.
I wonder where that money actually went. Here is some publicly available info regarding the charitable Our Lady''s Dowry organization. Check out the financials and the Form 990s. They clearly show Dn. Orr was paid a salary for 40 hrs/wk (ranging from around $64K to $65K per yr) as Treasurer until the year of his death when he was replaced (presumably after he passed) as Treasurer by a guy who made $0 in compensation.
Some of the money went to SAWS (San Antonio Water Service to the tune of $150,074 in 2016), presumably to bring water/sewer to the new school building. Some of the money went for organ repair ($22,486 in 2015 and $124,788 in 2016). Some of the money went to produce videos for the priest ($11,500 in 2015) and advertising ($20,000 in 2016).
The information from 2017 is not available so it is difficult to say where that money went.
It is interesting to note that income from Hall Rental, which had been increasing year over year dropped to $0 in 2018. I suppose because Hall Rental was no longer controlled by an Our Ladys Dowry tool in the office and Fr. Lewis began directing money from the rental of the parish hall back to the parish and not the slush fund he was not a party to.
Was the money used for nefarious purposes? Mostly, no. Was it used to circumvent reporting to the Diocese/Ordinariate and thereby circumventing the cathedraticum tax, yes. Is that moral, no. Was it used to provide a salary for a Deacon who was assigned to a parish, yes. Was that legal? I don’t know but it doesn’t pass the smell (and morality) test. [If it was used to pay Orr a salary over and above what was paid by the parish, it was a violation of archdiocesen policy. -- jb]
What a mess, and what a con! I tip my hat to the creative shell game masterminded at Our Lady of the Atonement. I just wish they worked as hard at being authentically Catholic as they did at gaming the system.
At this point I would have thought that spiritual and personal support from the bishop and the V-G would have been more urgent, but I think that the what we have is evidence that financial survival is uppermost on the mind of the Chancery.Well, the tone here is pretty murky. As of this coming Sunday, ordinariate communities will have gone five weeks without the weekly offertory, and we may assume only some of the members are sending their checks by mail or making direct deposits. Add to that the lack of Easter donations. This is 10% and more of annual income for both the communities and the chancery. The financial situation must be dire, yet it's being expressed in terms of catechesis, and those who resist are characterized as gnostics.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
