How can catholic churches in the US have debts over 1 million?

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therese14

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I do not live in the US, but I have never heard that a catholic church/parish have debt of 1 million. is this a kind of scam to collect money? or a real debt? I have come accross several parishes websites that says about the church debt over 1 million. (around 3 so far)

This has never happened in here, catholic parishes here are mostly well off and out of debt.

Correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t this kind of a bad example… Having debts? Especially being catholic.

ctkcathedral.org/pray-it-offv
 
I don’t know if this is true for all areas but in the Washington DC area, fledgling parishes start out in high school auditoriums, halls and theaters. They either out grow or they are being forced out of these venues by activist atheist groups and sometimes by the venues’ security concerns. So instead of spending several years in a low rent situation while collections are accumulated for building a Church, fledgling Churches have to start off right away with purchasing a low budget prefab structure. These are only good for a decade or so. Now the building of the permanent church has to start and instead of nice big down payment, you have the temporary structure paid for or still in debt.

The price of a large structure is another issue. In 1943 my grandparents neighborhood tithed to build St. Michael the Archangel @ $104,000. Today, a good sized house can cost $500,000. Mansions in this area go for 5-7 million. So with a stripped down bare bones church serving 3000 families, you’re looking at several million dollars.

My childhood parish is a million in debt. This was a poor parish that in 1960’s built a multipurpose building to serve as school during the week and church on the weekend. By 1985 the school needs and local population exceeded the capacity of the Church and someone had the bright idea (that I still can’t understand) to build a $4,000,000 church in front of the old building to be used for school activity only. The powers that be did not consider the aging of the neighborhood, and of course did not foresee the collapse of the real estate market. The church note goes from 700,000 to 1,200,000 in one year during a time most weekends do not collect enough to pay the priest’s salary.
 
therese14 said:
I do not live in the US, but I have never heard that a catholic church/parish have debt of 1 million. is this a kind of scam to collect money? or a real debt? I have come accross several parishes websites that says about the church debt over 1 million. (around 3 so far)

This has never happened in here, catholic parishes here are mostly well off and out of debt.

Correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t this kind of a bad example… Having debts? Especially being catholic.

ctkcathedral.org/pray-it-offv
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Our parish owes the Archdiocese over 2.4 million. They built the church for 4 million 15 years ago. It holds 750 people and has a leaky roof. These things cost a fortune for many reasons:
  1. We had to use the contractor that the Archdiocese wanted. They don’t necessarily shop for the best deal.
  2. We had to borrow money from them, and if you are the least bit late, they start taxing you, and the penalties build up. Think: credit card interest.
  3. The furnishings for a church are astronomical. They KNOW you won’t buy more than one Tabernacle so the people who make these lovely things will tack a huge price tag on them.
  4. It takes years and years for a parish to repay the cost of building a Sanctuary. Often, major repairs are needed well before it’s ever paid off. So it’s hard for a parish that’s growing to get caught up. And the late fees are brutal.
    Churches are not permitted to borrow money from banks. They borrow from the Diocese.
    We need to build a parish hall and classrooms but they won’t allow us to until we get the debt paid off. Which, at this rate, will never happen.
    It’s awful.
And there are churches in the area that cost 10 times what ours did.

Your parishes: How old are they? Who built them in the first place?
Well off? How many employees do they have? Our parish has about 8 employees. I’m the only full time one. They would LOVE to make the others full time, but can’t afford it.
The Youth & children’s programs alone cost a huge amount of money. We don’t pay people to mow the lawn, we don’t pay for receptions. We don’t pay for Father’s car or insurance. He has to pay that himself. Many of the people who enroll their kids in faith formation don’t pay the tuition. Because like many people. they believe that the “church” is wealthy.
😦
 
pianistclare said:
Your parishes: How old are they? Who built them in the first place? Well off? How many employees do they have? Our parish has about 8 employees. I’m the only full time one. They would LOVE to make the others full time, but can’t afford it.
The Youth & children’s programs alone cost a huge amount of money. We don’t pay people to mow the lawn, we don’t pay for receptions. We don’t pay for Father’s car or insurance. He has to pay that himself. Many of the people who enroll their kids in faith formation don’t pay the tuition. Because like many people. they believe that the “church” is wealthy.
😦
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Not only that. Many think the churches should be taxed just like everyone else.
 
And the Vatican City State itself usually only breaks even. $25 million, either way, but that’s not even a drop in the bucket on the grand scale of things, now is it? Even with its $33 million surplus this year.
 
It does take a lot of money to build a church in the US. In addition to the reasons already given, there are a certain amount of people that give pledges toward building a new church and then for whatever reason, don’t pay what they promised. So that delays being able to pay off the cost of construction. It would be nice if the funds were all raised ahead of time before building, but it just doesn’t work that way here.
 
It takes a lot of money to buy land for both a church and school and then to construct both so yes it is common to have debts that high. Most parishes have building funds and then they have to wait for an existing church to sell sometimes.
 
7_Sorrows said:
It takes a lot of money to buy land for both a church and school and then to construct both so yes it is common to have debts that high. Most parishes have building funds and then they have to wait for an existing church to sell sometimes.
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The church does not “sell” churches. They’re consecrated. :rolleyes:
 
pianistclare said:
The church does not “sell” churches. They’re consecrated. :rolleyes:
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you are right - Churches are consecrated and not sold…but the buildings can be de-consecrated (right word?) and then the building (which is no longer a “church” can be sold. Happens all the time.

Peace
James
 
therese14 said:
I do not live in the US, but I have never heard that a catholic church/parish have debt of 1 million. is this a kind of scam to collect money? or a real debt? I have come accross several parishes websites that says about the church debt over 1 million. (around 3 so far)
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Well - there are two ways things can be financed. One is to try to raise the money up front and thus avoid debt. The other is to take out a loan and then pay the loan back. There are advantages to both.
The main advantage to taking out a loan is to get started with the (whatever) project sooner which has many pastoral advantages. So this is very often the direction that is chosen.
This has never happened in here, catholic parishes here are mostly well off and out of debt.
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PET PEEVE ALERT-----
The statement above is contradictory on the face of it. If, as you say, “It has never happened here”, how can catholic parishes be mostly well off and out of debt…😃
Correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t this kind of a bad example… Having debts? Especially being catholic.
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I don’t think so…Why would it be a bad example?

Peace
James
 
JRKH said:
you are right - Churches are consecrated and not sold…but the buildings can be de-consecrated (right word?) and then the building (which is no longer a “church” can be sold. Happens all the time.

Peace
James
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Correct. I wasn’t sure if deconsecrated was the right word either. But I knew that had to be done before it could be sold.
 
It happens all the time (Churches with high debt). It will actually become more frequent as the number of Priests decline as you need larger buildings to accommodate the families. It makes more sense to owe money to the Diocese rather than a private company. Not only does the borrower become slave to the lender as scripture tells us, but the interest can then be used for diocesan work and future funding projects rather than into private corporations. I know the Episcopal Church had a building fund into which the payments and interest went.

Protestants have corporations which work the same way in as much as their only business is funding projects, the proceeds of which help fund future projects. One benefit of this, and the Diocesan system, is that when there is a downturn in the economy as happen in the last 8 years, they will increase fees, but not forclose and take the building. This saved several churches during the recent downturns.
 
Any church building, parish hall, etc., of any size is going to cost some millions of dollars US. The only way to finance something like that is with a mortgage.
 
JRKH said:
Well - there are two ways things can be financed. One is to try to raise the money up front and thus avoid debt. The other is to take out a loan and then pay the loan back.
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The Pope recently asked that religious communities start taking finance courses. I personally hold a bond (actually it’s held by the state of Louisiana) issued by a hospital there and run by the Franciscans. (Yes, I’m watching that state of affairs as well.)

Look for more such ways of raising money in the future, including annuities. It’s riskier than Treasuries but what the heck, it’s for a good cause. 🙂
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Any church building, parish hall, etc., of any size is going to cost some millions of dollars US. The only way to finance something like that is with a mortgage.
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These however can be harder and harder to get. Sometimes this money is bequeathed, but a parish can’t always count on that these days either. Many people have lost parishes they had worked so hard in supporting and just don’t perhaps see the point of supporting another parish which may reach the same fate.
 
ProVobis said:
These however can be harder and harder to get. Sometimes this money is bequeathed, but a parish can’t always count on that these days either. Many people have lost parishes they had worked so hard in supporting and just don’t perhaps see the point of supporting another parish which may reach the same fate.
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I sympathize with those who have lost parishes. I occasionally see signs saying “save our parish”. The first thought that enters my mind, and I don’t mean this irreverently, is “why didn’t you tell people about Jesus and maybe your parish wouldn’t have gotten to this point?”. I know it is not as simple as that, but many times people are so vocal about the parish following the decision to close it, but not vocal about the faith which would have helped prevent the decline which caused the closing.

This is not just in Catholic parishes, but they tend to be the ones for which I see the signs. Maybe it is because they tend to have schools associated with them and the children will lose the school as well as the parents losing the parish.
 
Sometime they also build churches in up-and-coming neighborhoods that are wealthy.
Trouble is, many of those are not populated by Catholics. So we end up with a massive fancy church, and a very small membership with huge debt. The Church in the US must have the worst financial advisors and real estate advisors.

There’s a priest here that wants to rescue one of those old churches that they want to sell up north. He’s trying to raise the funds necessary to bring it down here. The priests are all laughing at him but I kind of think it’s neat that he’s trying to save a beautiful building rather than create a new problem.
I hope it works put for his and his congregation.
 
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