The latest Christ the King/St. Thomas the Apostle/St. Salome bulletin makes mention of the money left to St. Thomas by a recently deceased former parishioner (see above). The amount was speculated to be between $100,000-$200,000. It is now revealed that the amount is a sizable $180,000. This donation certainly should be used toward St. Thomas the Apostle Church to keep her open for as long as reasonably possible. It would be a grave insult to J. Arthur Jennings (the donor) and to the people of St. Thomas were this money not spent on their own parish. Any other use of this money would make it difficult to label the Diocese of Rochester anything other than the Diocese of greed and corruption.
Please pray that this money will be used to keep St. Thomas open. Please pray that our leaders will do what is right and just. It’s not every day that a sum of money this large falls from the sky. The Lord has spoken, and He seems to be saying “use this money to keep this church open!”
In other IPPG news, Christ the King will once again have significantly more Masses for Easter than the other cluster parishes. CTK will have 4 Easter Masses, St. Thomas will have 2, and St. Salome will have 1. What is wrong with just using the normal Sunday schedule with a couple of time changes?
Tags: Bishop Clark, Church Closings, IPPG, News and Media
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"What is wrong with just using the normal Sunday schedule with a couple of time changes?"
I would agree with you except for my experience attending 2 of the larger parishes around town (St. John of Rochester and St. Pius X). Both of these churches (as many I'm sure do) fill up like crazy for Christmas and Easter.
The Lord Will Provide! STA parish receives a gift of this magnitude and a few lines buried on page 3 of the bulletin is how it is announced to the parish? Come on, any other parish pastor would joyously announce a gift like this to all his parishioners. My guess is that this money will go towards paving the CTK parking lot. God Bless Mr. Jennings, his wife and children. May they rest in the peace of Christ!
One could argue that wasting a gift like this to keep open a building that is slated to close is irresponsible. Perhaps putting the money into savings, into improvements in the new parish, ect. may be better. Please note, I am not a fan of closing STA, but I think your assumption that this is God's way of saying keep this building open is a bit illogical.
I would rather see the money go to some good long-term use, than to keep STA open another 6 months. Actually, I am not certain there is necessarily a need to spend the money immediately. Maybe having some savings is a good thing.
I think the people of St. Thomas would disagree with you.
180K sounds like a lot of money to an individual, but for a whole parish community, it's not a lot. Gas and electric bills for a facility the size of STA with at least three if not four buildings probably runs close to 30 or 40K per year. The insurance bill on the place is probably double that. Snow plowing would probably run close to 5K per year. That money would be eaten up in less than 12 months. I sat on a parish finance committee for three years. Institutional spending is far more than individual spending. One singe health insurance policy premium for a local HMO was 6,000 dollars. That's for one person. If you only had three four people on a parish staff with individual policies, that would be 24K. And that was about five years ago!
And I can assure you that none of the parish staff people, lay or ordained or religious are getting paid all that much. Our pastor was ordained more than 25 years and only making a salary of about 26,000 per year. The custodian made more. And when I learned that the priest's car, and clothing was not included in his benefits I was shocked. Did you know they pay income taxes? And he told me he was required to add onto his taxable income about 12,000 for his room and board? I never knew that.
My point is, 180K sounds like a lot but in today's world and reality for a parish, it isn't.
anon,
that's true, but I don't anyone was suggesting that the 180k would be the sole source of income. If STA is running a deficit (I thought I read that they weren't?) then maybe this would be enough to cover the difference for an extended period of time. It's not like they're running a 100% deficit.
Exactly Ben. No longer can supposed debt be used as a factor to close the parish.
Ben is right. This money would be in addition to the money they are already bringing in, both from collections/personal wills and the lease of the school building. They would not be operating solely from this $180K.
~Dr. K
"but I think your assumption that this is God's way of saying keep this building open is a bit illogical"
The money was left to STA, not CTK/SMM/SC, and it appeared at a very interesting time (right after the IPPG submitted the recommendation to close but before a decision has been officially made).
~Dr. K