Rockville Centre's money woes point to church-wide problem

Well let's see--the VOTF people have been publicly saying to stop donation to the Catholic Ministries Appeal for years. They have been advocating not donating to parishes, but giving their donation to VOTF instead. I am not saying anyone listens to VOTF, but this is really what they wanted in the first place, no? No donations = no money = no jobs for laypeople. I love liberal logic!!

No discussion of the Rockville Centre financials is complete without recalling the "Mansion Murphy" controversy in which the bishop was taken to task by none other than Jimmy Breslin for evicting an order of nuns from a convent and then spending the better part of a million bucks turning it into a 5000-square-foot bishop's residence.

Similar monuments to bishops' egos and ambitions exist from coast to coast. Out West, we have the Diocese of Oakland's "Cathedral of Christ the Light" in the midst of an impoverished inner city, the completion of which was the stepping-stone of Oakland's bishop to Metropolitan of Detroit (his home town) and the crimson.

Nobody mentions the parish and social services that were swept away under its foundations...

It will only get worse. This is what happens when fundamentalist Catholic theology is allowed to take precedence over modern theological thinking that came out of the Second Vatican Council. The far right voices in the Church never allowed the spirit and teachings of the Council Fathers to really take root. They fought behind the scenes to destroy each step of new developments and thinking of the gospel's message for modern society. This is the result: empty parishes and empty theology that seeks to return the Church to imperial triumphalism that has nothing to do with the Church Christ envisioned. We have a dysfunctional and dishonest hierarchy who answers to no one, especially The People of God. The cracks in the foundations of the Church are showing and the decaying process will continue at a rapid pace as long as the current crop of right wing elements are in control. The good news in all of this is that a new Church will emerge and it will look more like the primitive Church where each person is truly a disciple of Christ and not of men pretending to represent Him.

Add to that not enough priests, those left are stretched thin, merging churches w/ subsequent loss of community and more of a corporate "feel", pray, pay and increase the sacramental index so our church won't close. This causes laity to feel on the outside and just numbers. Look at the diaconate, nonstop growth because it is the only order open to married men. Want more priests? Make celibacy OPTIONAL, not mandatory. We'll eventually have too many. Can't argue w/ the numbers.

While JPII bishops and presbyters are moving in one direction, the laity by and large are moving in a different one. At some point down the road, we will witness the "widest expectation gap" between laity and ordained according to studies done by the late sociologist of religion Dean Hoge and others.

I think we have JPII to blame for this mess in light of his sorry episcopal appointments over more than two decades. His legacy is now catching up with the institutional church.

Out of death comes new life. Is the Tridentine model of church undergoing a slow but (hopefully) certain death?

Let's hope so.

Hasten the dying process. Withhold your financial support of parish and (arch)diocese.

TITHING = ENABLING.

Stop enabling.

One wonders if the deficits would be so great if RC had the leadership of a different bishop. Murphy's partners (Law and Egan) may have had an impact.

Well put. It's a problem the diocese has brought on itself and does not have a clue on how to fix it. Bishop Murphy does not exactly come across as a 'shepherd' but an old fashioned prelate with a sense of entitlement. Did they ever stock that wine cellar fully?

People hate to admit it, but as you put, the catholic schools are going the "way of the typewriter" however, you left out that Catholic education is also becoming a privilege for the wealthy. Look at New york City, how many Catholic secondary schoools are considered excellent? Five? Seven maybe? Fordham Prep, Xavier, Loyola, Marymount, and CSH are all very expensive. Also, given the fact there are no more vocations (and the few that there are tend to be quite flaky people), and there will not be any time soon, the schools have become too expensive. To large degree, Catholic schools outlived their mission. Catholics can attend public schools, and with the new models of the smaller & speialized schools in the public system, people are getting much more 'value' outside the catholic system. Start closing them up now. This clustering business is just a way of prolonging their deaths like when religious provinces merge.

The whole pension sytem is like a stone that will further help sink the system. Look at GM: they had what, 750,000 retirees collecting pensions while on 150,000 people were actually working for them? It doesn't take a a rocket science to figure the math out.

Why wouldn't mass attendece be down? 25 minute sermons where the priest talks about a movie he watched or a visit to his mother? Poor music? Dead time and other aspects of poor staging? Do those fill the house? Let us not forget the sex scandal. The full damage of that remains to be seen.

Finally, management is a disaster in schools, parishes, and US church hierarchy. Much of the management is based on the production form: we do this and people will buy it (like the furniture inudstry does). When there's a drop in enrollment, do they blame themselves? Of course not. Something is wrong with the people, the economy, etc. Never with the school or parish (another paralell with GM). Look how the sex scandal was managed? Running the Church like Toyota with its accelarator and braking problems was outright idiotic. Is there going to be any change? I highly doubt it. Maybe its time, people start to get away for those bogus "Doctor of Minsitry" and adminsitration 'degrees' and start pursuing MBAs. Otherwise, you might just see the 'remnant Church' people are afraid of.

Diocesan officials stated that buyout packages are being offered in a very compassionate manner. I wonder if the employees being removed from their jobs see it that way. A friend of mine, a director of religious education, aged 62,single and lifetime employee of the church, needs to work for a few more years before she can retire. She is beside herself because she has no idea how she will survive once the six month package expires. She has been told that if she takes the package then she is no longer eligible to apply for any position in the diocese. She is not feeling the compassion.
Furthermore, diocesan officials have not included an important piece in their explanation of the financial woes of the Rockville Centre diocese. Mass attendance and financial donations are down. People are still unhappy with the way the sex abuse scandal was handled;they are angry over the payouts resulting from the crisis;they still remember the $1,000,000 overall of St. Agnes Convent (as well as the removal of six elderly sisters)
to provide a residence for the bishop. The faithful of Long Island do not feel compelled to give sacrificially and why should they?

Part of the problem is the structure in a diocese. Lay finance boards and/or parish councils are ADVISORY only....if the pastor wants to squander money on items the boards may decide are not necessary or too expensive...tough! The pastor has the final say so. In my archdiocese, a pastor was left in a parish despite the fact that he went through $1 million in savings (in less than 3 years) and then needed to borrow thousands just to keep the parish afloat. By the time he left, the parish in total disarray, 1/3 of the parishioners left because of the mismanagement and the prospects of rebuilding was daunting, to say the least. And it was not that the archdiocese was unaware. When parishioners or staff complained, they were labeled as troublemakers or unhappy ex-parishioners. The M.O. in any diocese is still to protect the 'ordained' NO MATTER WHAT. Parishioners are disgusted with the way the church is run, they are often more educated than the church's precious 'ordained,' nothing is hidden anymore, the internet allows information to be obtained quickly and efficiently. The days of what happens in Rome taking years to filter out to the parishes (if at all) are LONG gone. Too bad the Vatican doesn't know that or want to know that.

(Second version with corrected word "Pence")

Rockville Centre is not just the story of one large diocese where Catholics in mass have become disillusioned. I’m in one of the top ten big cities away from the Catholic East. It is happening everywhere: fewer Catholics attending church, consolidation of parishes, priest shortages, loss of Catholic zeal and poor, poor leadership by bishops and priests. Deacons are a bright spot, but they are the new nuns --- mostly not doing what they are capable of doing but serving priests as cheap laborers. You note, of course, that Pope Benedict in a further wave of clericalism recently changed Canon Law to clearly put deacons out of the hierarchal governance. Deacons weren’t desirous. The pope did that so that no deacon-friendly bishop or priest could legally let deacons make any decisions or stay in charge of a priestless parish very long. The pope’s plan is where they are no priests or people or money, the Catholic Church will just shut down. I don’t know how long that can go on, but it certainly can run through several like-minded papacies because it will take a while for the church to disappear as it has in the Middle East. Maybe no longer giving to Peter’s Pence will send a message (Oh, that won’t work because the Vatican taxes all parishes anyway and bishops send tons of money to garner favor.) We the faithful can only pray to the Lord --- for deliverance.

"Out of death comes new life. Is the Tridentine model of church undergoing a slow but (hopefully) certain death?

Hasten the dying process. Withhold your financial support of parish and (arch)diocese.

TITHING = ENABLING.

Stop enabling."

I agree. Catholics, not the hierarchy will decide the future church.

I quit supporting many LCWR type congregations after I came to a conclusion that they had no long term interest in the viability of the Church. Likewise, I tithed to and attended an Eastern Rite Church after coming to the conclusion that Bishop Brown in Orange County was slowly wrecking the diocese.

Supporting Cardinal Mahoney's sex scandal pay out coupled with his New Age Cathederal to himself? Forget it!

People who are acquainted with ecclesiology might be interested in Bishop William F. Murphy's column at this link:
http://www.licatholic.org/2010/02/020310/columns/faith_and_new_works.html
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There seems to be different forces at work. Parishioners see the parish as their local church. Bishop Murphy uses theology to claim that the diocese is the local church. Just as some Americans dislike "big government" in Washington or a state capital, maybe some American Catholics see the bishop as one who takes an unfair share of the parish income.
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From my viewpoint in this diocese, the ordinary parishioner receives almost zero information about how the bishop skims the revenue. Also, we don't know how much the bishop then forwards to Rome, either as a required tax or as money to impress curial officials. We just don't know the figures.

Good grief, There has been gross financial mismangement going on the church for over fifty years. Laymen and church officials have been doing it for years and have been let off until recently. Criminal theft charges have not even been filed against indivduals in some dioceses because they "promised to pay it back," or they "have families," so on and so forth. There are even some archdioceses that don't even bother to file for health care reimbursements from the likes of Medicare. Support Catholic Charities in your diocese or whatever charities you wish but only by check and only if they have their own incorporated accounts completely independent of the diocese. Maybe Mansion Murphy will set a good example and move elsewhere.

I for one do not agree with the comments about VOTF. To my knowledge not once have they suggested not supporting programs instead they ask that you ear-mark your donation so that it cannot be used for 'buying the diocese' out of trouble. I do know that pointing fingers at liberals, conservatives or your Aunt Mamie gets us nowhere. We all have a hand in the current situation. By either not asking enough questions or not listening to the answers in the first place we all have those three fingers pointing back at us. Because of the economy we need to get used to making do with less in our church life just as we do in our secular life. So let's start thinking outside the box and putting lessons learned by our parents and grandparents during the Great Depression to use. If you don't know what was learned just ask.

The situation in Rockville Center, which was created as a diocese shortly after I grew up and left Long Island, is emblematic of the church as a whole.
People are voting with their feet and their pocketbooks because they are no longer willing to pay, pray and obey. We are shocked at the unrestrained sexual predatory behavior of the clergy, which was enabled by a hierarchy that was willing to look the other way (if not join in the exploitation of God's little ones). We are better educated and more mature than most of the hierarchy and clergy, and we see no reason why we should not have a voice and some level of control over the money we put into the church's coffures in order to keep bishops and pastors from building monuments to their egos rather than meeting the real needs of the people of God.
There is no accountability at all on the part of those who administer church funds to the people of give them. Bishops and priests act as if ordination makes them as infallible in every area of life, just as PB16 seems to think he is.
I tithe from my personal income each month into the poor box in my church in the hope that it is a dedicated contribution that cannot be used for any other purpose. I refuse put any money into the collection basket and certainly not into the Bishop's Fund or Peter's Pence.
As for the decline in parishes and schools, note how it is the poor parishes and schools in troubled neighborhoods are the first to be closed. This is not the intent when our immigrant parents and grandparents built these parishes and schools. They were put where those who needed them most could have access--for the most part, free access. They were built to lift of the struggling, not coddle the elite.
It looks to me as if a many of the laity are waging a silent war of attrition on the institutional bureaucracy that considers itself the possessor of the true church. Let's hope it is a war that can be won.

How many of these employees and "leaders" who cry about their jobs and money now were the very ones who, on their own, decided to destroy the churches that were built up by the donations of those who went before them. They showed no concern for money in the church when they threw out millions of dollars of parish patrimony and then spent millions more on their new age programs and infinite banners and scented candles.