The Diocese of Rochester Catholic Ministries Appeal has brought in $5,158,244 as of May 19th. The campaign goal has been set at $5,490,000. Thus, the diocese is short $331,756 with a little more than a week to go. The CMA campaign will run through the end of the month of May.
If the promotional slogan behind this campaign is “Keeping the Spirit Alive” (with a capital ‘S’), will a failure to reach our goal endanger the health and livelihood of the Spirit?
Tags: Keeping the Spirit Alive
|
A better question is will reaching the goal endanger the Spirit. The Diocese takes so much of parishes money for their little projects. They don't leave parishes much for themselves with their high goals! Think of what could be done at parishes with that extra money the Diocese takes for CMA.
Perhaps a read of what is bugeted for the year would be in order. It seems that any RC diocese pulls all stops out to make their goals; however, what gets me is when we parishioners say we won't give, we deny the likes of Catholic Family Service and other diocese funded agencies (battered women, the general poor, you name it). Don't forget priest pensions for till death service, some assistance to religious orders who care for priests in their infirmaries. What about the legal expenses incurred by the many dioceses (all perhaps) who had sexual criminals to contend with. It is hard to give, but it is beyond reality now. Give or don't give, your choice; however, when you don't give, think of the priest with dimentia whow serve till his death. Make any sense? Tough isn't it?
Here is an extreme example, but I think it makes my point: what if CMA dollars somehow made their way to funding abortions? Ok, a bit outlandish, but the idea is the same. There are items where the CMA dollars are going that I would never in a million years support. Namely, the St. Bernard school of heretics. I am not going to give my money to support heresy, even if ends up being a few bucks in the final distribution. Sorry.
I emailed the financial office about where the money goes because the CMA mentions a few specifics, but mostly just vague ideas about what types of organizations get the money. We went back and forth a few times via email and the end result was (paraphrasing):
"there's no way we can make a list of all the organizations we give money to. That would be impossible."
I find that almost impossible to believe. Someone please correct me, but if they're giving money to an organization how can they not record it? I find this extremely shady and am skeptical about where the money trail goes from the diocese.