The Archdiocese of Boston, continuing its long, slow effort to rebuild an annual fund drive decimated by the sex abuse crisis, yesterday announced that it raised $15.1 million in its 2008 Annual Catholic Appeal, up from $14.6 million the previous year.Archdiocesan officials said they are particularly pleased by the campaign, which slightly exceeded the $15 million goal set by the archdiocese, because it took place during a recession, although the bulk of the fund-raising was last spring, before the stock market dove and job losses skyrocketed.
"Considering the economic circumstances that have come upon us in the last few months, it's pretty impressive, and we certainly feel very blessed by the generosity of our parishioners and the support the appeal received from our pastors," Patrick Gipson, the manager of the Annual Catholic Appeal, said in an interview.
Gipson said that about 48,000 people gave to the campaign, about the same number as had given in 2007. The archdiocese claims that about 2 million Catholics live in the 144 cities and towns included within its boundaries, but its weekly Mass attendance, which represents those most connected to the institutional church and therefore most likely to give, averages 294,000.
The Annual Catholic Appeal is the most important regular fund drive for the archdiocese, and makes up about 40 percent of the operating budget for the central offices, now located in Braintree, which provide services to Catholic schools and parishes. The balance of the operating budget comes from fees charged to parishes and other Catholic institutions, bequests, and endowment income.
Formerly called the Cardinal's Appeal, the campaign had peaked at $17.2 million in 2000, but plunged to $8.8 million in 2002, at the height of the abuse crisis. The campaign was renamed by Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley to dissociate it from people's opinions about any individual archbishop, and O'Malley has increased the target fund-raising goal by $1 million each year since he arrived in 2003.
But it seems likely that this year O'Malley will pull back somewhat; the archdiocese doesn't plan to announce its 2009 campaign goal until next month, but the recession, and the concurrent job losses, are clearly having an impact on archdiocesan planning; archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C. Donilon yesterday would say only that this year's goal will be no lower than $15 million.
The Catholic Appeal is conducted largely via direct mail. The archdiocese sends letters to Catholics during Lent, and then pastors are asked to reinforce the appeal with remarks from the pulpit.
Prior to 2008, the campaign launched each year in May, but last year, saying it was acting at the request of pastors, the archdiocese started the campaign in March, because there are more people in the pews during spring than summer.
The archdiocese said collections in parishes are also doing well, despite the recession. Its investments have lost money in the market, but not as much as many because of a relatively high amount held in cash, rather than securities, officials said.
The archdiocese's financial condition has been of considerable public interest after deteriorating so badly that church officials publicly considered filing for bankruptcy.
O'Malley has taken a number of controversial steps to restore the archdiocese's financial health, closing and selling scores of parishes and schools, selling the archdiocesan headquarters campus in Brighton, laying off employees, and publicly disclosing an unprecedented amount of information in annual filings by the archdiocese and all of its affiliates.
But serious challenges remain. Primary among them is a huge unfunded liability in the funds that the archdiocese sets aside to provide benefits to disabled and retired priests.
Archdiocesan financial officials are now working on ways to address that issue.
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(Source: MFNB)