according to the Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 6), there can be no mean and extremes in things which are essentially good. Now intellective knowledge is essentially good: because man's perfection would seem to consist in his intellect being reduced from potentiality to act, and this is done by the knowledge of truth. For Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "the good of the human soul is to be in accordance with reason," whose perfection consists in knowing the truth. Therefore the vice of curiosity cannot be about intellective knowledge.So let's try an experiment. After yesterday's post, a visitor sent me this e-mail:
Mr Bruce, as usual, you're reading far too much into things. The donor of the million-dollar gift is general knowledge, and if you'd simply used Google, you'd have found it. It's obviously the Athanasius F X Schmidlap Foundation, whose website expressly says its charitable mission is to make random anonymous million-dollar grants, after only perfunctory review, to small Catholic parishes intending to build churches on vacant lots. This is typical of your angry blindness to the ordinariate's holy intentions.Well, OK, I stand corrected. So, did this answer everyone's questions?
Er, why not?
I think this is because there are real intellectual questions here that go beyond idle curiosity, even though Dcn Wooten wants to impute this to anyone who might continue to ask serious questoins.
So let's go into the questions. My regular correspondent, who follows things like the apparent size of ordinariate congregations based on evidence like photos on the web of their masses, estimates typical Sunday attendance at St John Vianney Cleburne at about 50. And that would be bodies, not pledging entities. This seems reasonable, since the group meets in a host parish cafetorium.
Here's a real question to pose to Dcn Wooten: Let's assume that he's able to build a complete church structure, plus parking lot, landscaping, and whatever else, for the 1.3 million or so he says is now in the bank, free and clear of any debt. Great!
How much will it cost per month to hold masses there? Well, I served briefly as treasurer of a small Anglican parish and had to develop a budget for the next year. Here are some very reasonable estimates for monthly expenses:
Utilities $1620
Cleaning and gardening $1500
Insurance (casualty only) $850
Total $3970
I'm leaving out salaries for the priest and an organist, as well as things like the diocesan tithe, which will take something like 12% out of all receipts. I'll overlook candles, wine, hosts, and flowers. I'll assume you already have vestments, vessels, linens, and pew missals. But if the building is brand new, maybe you can get away with not budgeting for plumbing and roof repairs, but then again, maybe not. In any case, after a couple of years, you'll have to think about those.
Bottled water? Copy machine? Office equipment?
But let's be really generous and assume you and the organist will work for free and just figure $4000 a month to keep the doors open until all of Cleburne sees the beauty of holiness at St John Vianney and flocks to your door. You'll be starting with maybe 50 bodies, but those aren't pledging entities, since many will be couples or families with children. So just for fun, let's estimate 20 pledging entities. This would require pledges averaging $200 per month, nearly $50 per week, from each entity.
Someone might disagree and say 20 families in a group of 50 bodies is too small, it should be 30. That's still $133 per month per family, or more than $25 per week per family. Er, how are pledges now at St John Vianney? Given my experience as a parish treasurer, as well as a counter of Sunday offerings at another parish, I'd say that $25-50 per week is in the upper range of pledges, not an average. Your results may vary. But again, those numbers are before anyone on staff is paid anything, and before anything is sent to Houston.
And before a rainstorm makes leaks in the roof, and before the kids clog up the toilets.
Now, if I were the Athanasius F X Schmidlap Foundation, I would have been asking how a group of 50, even if it could put up the simplest prefab on its lot, could hope to maintain it once it was erected, much less a more ambitious building. But then, I'm the Grinch. Even so, it isn't the vice of curiosity to wonder whether, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
That's how prudent people avoid con artists. Houston so far has had a very bad record with con artists.
