Sacred Heart

The Annual Appeal

Every year the Bishop asks for our donation. This year I asked the diocesan office for more information, and they sent it to me and I've spent the afternoon with my calculator, trying to make sense out of the numbers.
The information came in two forms: (1) a booklet listing the ministries and departments receiving money, and (2) a breakdown of actual figures for the year July 2005-June 2006. I thank the diocese for their transparency. The percentages are all my calculations, and I tended to round, so the numbers don't quite add up. Think of them as approximate.

The total budget is 26 million and the Annual Appeal contributes almost 15 million to that budget.
Almost everything gets part of its budget from the Annual Appeal. BIG exception: Insurance, which costs 5 million and gets 0 from the Appeal. I'm left wondering: where does that money come from?
There are 6 categories, simplified, and these are: 

• Central Services (80% of the Annual Appeal)
• Regional Services (2.7%)
• Archdiocesan Programs (4.3%)
• State, National and International (2.8%)
• Retirement (5.6%)
• Priest Support (2.5%)

Retirement covers priests and nuns, but there was no breakdown of how many got how much. It only says that annual contribution is made to the National Nuns' Retirement fund.

That's the big picture, but the financial information is broken down.
Catholic Community Services: 4.5%  
Administration and Finance: 23%
The Bishop himself: 3.9%
The Bishop's contingency fund: .5%
Fund-raising for the Annual Appeal: 4.4%
Office of Faith Formation: 4%

There's more. Questions, anyone?

The Annual Appeal

I’ve heard a couple of great sermons these past few weeks for the Annual Appeal. One of them was at St. Mary’s in Seattle, which started out with – “Here are 4 good reasons NOT to give to the Annual Appeal” (and I was ready to give by the end) – and one by Fr. Frank Schuster last night at Assumption. I missed this year’s appeal at Sacred Heart but last year’s pitch by Richard Wilson had me doubling our contribution. The theme this year seemed to stress the cost of education for seminarians. It is ironic that Kathy Ernst, who has served Assumption as the pastoral associate for many years received no financial  support from the diocese to get either her Masters in Divinity nor her PhD.

It is interesting to me that the homilies for the Annual Appeal are so, well,  appealing; I’m wondering why this is. Perhaps it’s because they’re about something concrete: we can visualize seminaries, we have come into contact with the good work of Catholic Charities, we understand the responsibility to support those retired from church service.  We respond to direct connections with results we can see. I'm wondering how this affects our spiritual life and how we listen to homilies the rest of the year.