June 6th 2023
Dear Diary,
Another FCMFH about our underfunded pension obligations. They keep telling me we’re doing all right financially because I keep people happy and coming to church! I’m not convinced that I’m the reason. Maybe I am, I don’t know. There’s all this other scary stuff. Our retired lay staff and their pensions from under the old system. Thank the Lord we got rid of that! Little old ladies. Vice calls them LOLs. As he said, “Church LOLs live longer than just about any other life form on the planet.” It’s stretching a lot longer than the actuwary people said it would. Trouble.
How did we get all this lay staff? When did that happen? I remember as a kid coming down here to the chancery in the late 60s with Fr later Msgr Hinckley with the other altar boys to see the diocesan archives and all the old photo albums of the construction of the cathedral and the groundbreaking for the high school and stuff like that plus a glass case with the first bishop’s cape and gloves and staff. Fancy. Fr Tommy style. I don’t remember any lay people in the chancery except for the janitor and one old gal who was someone’s secretary. There were just a few priests in the offices in sharp clerical suits. Where did all the lay people come from and why do we have to pay them so much? I guess their jobs are important.
This is making me nervous. I hate even thinking like this but how long are those folks going to live? VG said that we will have to get all the LOLs of the diocese to chip in extra for the other LOLs, our retired diocesan staff. Kinda circular. Five of them died in the pandemic, but that’s just a dent. It’s in the parishes, too. Huge staffs of lay people and enormous budgets. It’s a scary amount of dough. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of other things that go undone. Things I always wanted to do for the poor and sprucing the cathedral. I don’t have forever. What am I supposed to do? Fire people? Reduce staff? Then I’m the bad guy. I don’t want to hurt people. Other bishops have this too.
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I enjoy how Fatty speaks of real things but gives us a chuckle. I have seen Churches in my city closed down. We have one Priest, (NO). We have 3 fully functional Rectories, and yet he won’t allow retired Priests to live there. The Archdiocese has a “premium” retirement home for Priest…as long as you are mobile. Once you can’t walk without assistance, you are shipped over to a run down senior home, not just for Priest. Thankfully we have good Catholic lay people who have apartments and let these Priest live in comfort.
+Atticus can learn from dioceses which are booming in vocations and donations.
Wherein Hilltop Rants:
Atticus has stumbled onto something – the Catholic jobs programs that parishes “sort of become” (no one really knows how) because no one has the temerity to say no to the church ladies and to the lay-idea-committees. “If we only had a DRE; if we only had a coms person; if we only had a director of development; if we only had a parish activities coordinator; yadayadayada.
The salaries chew 110% of the parish income and the church building goes to waste.
And, having consumed all the parish income, these really nice people that no one can fire come up with great ideas: “if we only had a nicer parish hall: if we got all new appliances; if we build more meeting rooms so our Protestant brothers and sisters could use them when we are not; if we could build a dedicated choir practice room with a new grand piano.”
In posts from years gone by about Libville vs. Black Duck, I always assumed +Fatty was the villain. Now I rather like him. No doubt, when the call from the Nuncio came, Fatty should have said “Sorry, wrong number.” But not surprisingly he didn’t have that much good sense, so here he is, in about 10 feet deep over his head (as he himself realizes at times), but still not a classic “bad guy” persona. Live and let live. Just weak, and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
But if that’s true, at some point will we meet an actual villain in the piece? I would guess that if someone held +Fatty’s feet to the fire, he’d find the sizzling sounds they’d make to be MOST unpleasant. And then he might act contrary to his own good (ok, at least not entirely BAD) nature.
I attend a Polish Mission Church with 2 priests, 3 Masses every weekday including Saturday, 5 on Sunday, up to 20 altar boys (the oldest altar server is in charge of the rest), confessions before Mass and the only employees are the excellent organist and a part time secretary in the office (that is open 3 half days a week). They get people to volunteer for other jobs and have one of the most vibrant parishes in Chicagoland. The parish income is half of that of most American parishes and yet money is alway founnd for some new project, like a beautiful outdoor Stations of the Cross. Meanwhile, bland parishes around the country spend tons of money on useless staff who manipulate the pastors who let them rule their parishes.