Saturday, March 19, 2011

Archbishop's plea for cash in collection plate

The Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn is poor but not insolvent, Archbishop Mark Coleridge says.

Appealing for financial support in his Lenten letter, he said normally the Catholic Church in Australia was asset rich and cash poor. 

But Canberra and Goulburn tended to be asset poor and cash poor.

It had no investment portfolio and depended entirely on the Catholic Development Fund for its financial survival. With the annual return from the well-performing fund, ''we are breaking even and no more''.

''I might add that there is no well concealed bottomless pit of Church funds from which we can draw if necessary. We survive almost totally on what people give.''

The Canberra Times reported in December the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn was in difficult financial straits and parish priests were being asked how they intended to rectify the position.

Mass attendance has almost halved over the past 15 years. 

Archbishop Coleridge said this had obviously affected the Church's income.

''Many of those who are still coming are on fixed incomes or receiving a pension, and this too has its effect on giving. In general, people are giving now what they gave 10 or 20 years ago, even though costs have risen considerably in that time.''

In December, faced with an increasing shortage of priests and money he said, ''We have too many masses at the moment, and this may not be realistic in such a mobile society.'' 

But the diocese had to plan for growth, not diminishment.

In his letter, Archbishop Coleridge said one of the paradoxes of the archdiocese is that, on average, the rural parishes gave more per capita than the parishes of Canberra.

''This has remained true even through the last decade of drought that has been so devastating to farming.''

The impression at times in the ACT was that Catholics gave with great generosity through the 1960s and 1970s to build churches and schools as Canberra grew.

''But once the churches and schools were built, there was perhaps a sense that the job was done and that the need to give had dwindled. Now we need a new giving in order to meet the challenge of building the future ... Securing our finances for the future is a task that belongs to us all.''