Is it a church or a country club with a cross on top?

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Yes, those who make the sacrifice to work for a Catholic school or parish do it because they love the parish/school and consider it a ministry.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Very little.

Church employees work for low wages, they do it out of love.

You will still have kids who need a parish Faith Formation/R E program. Do you think that people will do that monumental task for free?
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I think you missed my point. The article said that many (not all) DRE’s are paid a salary similar to a Catholic School Principal. If that is true, what if all those salaries went into Catholic Schools across the diocese to make Catholic School Free.

If everyone went to Catholic School, then you wouldn’t need a DRE.

That was my question/point.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
Witchita is well known in the “parish office/school business” world.

Here is the website to explain Stewardship a Disciples Response - Catholic Diocese of Wichita

They are a stewardship Diocese. You can attend a conference they offer every year Msgr. McGread Stewardship Conference Archives - Catholic Stewardship Consultants, Inc.

Edit to add: How would this go over in most parishes?

https://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/stewardship-resources/tithing-resources
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So are you saying that no other diocese can attempt to do what Wichita is doing? To me, it sounds like something that should be tried elsewhere.

 
I cannot imagine every city, town, with the ability to have a k-12 grade school that was affordable for every person.

Right now, most Catholic schools cannot accept any special needs kids.

In a perfect world, yes. In my state, there are 3 Catholic high schools. Where will everyone else go?

Perhaps in some places DREs are paid like a principal, in my experience it is more along the lines of a person who has worked at WalMart for 5 years.
 
I am saying that every Diocese is invited to Wichita to learn from them. The Diocese of Wichita is generous with sharing their processes.

I simply have not seen any other Diocese put it in practice.
 
TheLittleLady said:
You will still have kids who need a parish Faith Formation/R E program. Do you think that people will do that monumental task for free?
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They do at our church. And that’s how it was when I was a kid: volunteers.
 
Two priest and 15 or so people from our Diocese attended a conference there with the intention of implementing a similar process in our area. After all the time it has been in place, it is still a word in progress, not implemented in every single parish.

It is a long term solution, not a quick fix.
The idea of many that stewardship equals money must be overcome.
The discipleship leads to stewardship and should be emphasized.
 
Even if most parents send their children to Catholic schols, there will still be a number, and probably a large number of Catholic children who are going to public schools. And even in a stewardship diocese, there are many parents who are resistant to the idea of tithing 5% or 8% of gross income to their parish. So PSR and CCD teachers will be needed and most are volunteers.

The discouraging thing to many PSR teachers is that parents are willing to bring their children for religion class one hour per week, but are not willing to take them to Mass on Sundays. How can a teacher teach that missing Mass is a grave sin when the children don’t go to Mass because their parent won’t take them?
 
on_the_hill said:
A complaint about how female altar servers are leading to the downfall of American Catholicism is worthy of being dismissed out of hand because it’s absurd.
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But that’s not what the essay posits. If you’re not going to read the source document, then you’d be better off not commenting on it, rather than ranting about it based on one CAF poster’s inaccurate assessment of the article.
 
Mtatum1958 said:
The idea of many that stewardship equals money must be overcome.
The discipleship leads to stewardship and should be emphasized.
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I’ve been to parishes that advertise themselves as “stewardship parishes” and I honestly have no idea what they mean by that. They look no different to me than other parishes that do not advertise themselves as “stewardship parishes” in terms of the ministries, activities, involvement of parishioners, etc. I thought it was just some buzzword.

The main one I’m thinking of does have a parish school, so maybe “stewardship” for them revolves around expecting everybody to pay X percent towards the school, or to volunteer there in some way if they can’t pay.

I looked at the Diocese of Wichita website and it seemed like it was taking a lot of words just to say they wanted everybody to tithe. I know you said above that stewardship wasn’t just about paying money, but the money angle certainly seems like a big part of the picture.
 
This is a really great article - thank you for posting. I was going to do that but I got distracted on a thread. I would recommend reading it a few times, let it soak in.
 
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In Witchita, tithing is made to be important for every person. Because of this, every Catholic school student attends Catholic school free of charge. The schools are fully funded by donations. No one can say “I can’t afford tuition at St Blah Blah’s”
 
I understand. However, if that’s the main focus of their “stewardship” program, I would prefer it be expressed in exactly the one paragraph you just wrote. Short, to the point, lets people know where the money is going. I don’t find long pages or presentations to be helpful when it’s a case of “we need money for X”.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’ve been to parishes that advertise themselves as “stewardship parishes” and I honestly have no idea what they mean by that. They look no different to me than other parishes that do not advertise themselves as “stewardship parishes” in terms of the ministries, activities, involvement of parishioners, etc. I thought it was just some buzzword.
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My parish focuses on “stewardship” though, we are no where close to being finished with it.

we have an annual jubilee fund that focuses on big ticket items. Each year, we detail exactly what the money will be used for and people donate.

This year, we have to use it to do work on our cemetery, and next year we hope to start replacing kneelers, and refurbishing some pews, etc.

It works because we put things in there that people can understand are not part of the day-to-day budget.
 
It’s close but it’s not time yet for harvest wheat I still have the boat in the water.
 
Yes, but I know churches that are running capital campaigns for things like replacing the steeple, putting in new windows, or just increaing the cash flow to meet general church expenses. They don’t use the word “stewardship” except in passing.

When a parish has in big letters on its website, “A Stewardship Parish”, it just makes me wonder, “how are you different from the parish up the street that doesn’t have that on its website?”
Usually there isn’t a difference.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
When a parish has in big letters on its website, “A Stewardship Parish”, it just makes me wonder, “how are you different from the parish up the street that doesn’t have that on its website?”
Usually there isn’t a difference.
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ahhh… I see what you mean.

Yes, my parish has “a Tithing Parish” on our current website. This scared me before I started attending the parish. But it turns out, I think, it be a disclosure that Pastor will sometimes ask the parish to consider increasing their donations. But we do NOT ask for pledges. Father also says he pays no attention to who gives what (except for the people who give huge one time donations)

For many, I think it’s just a simple disclosure. Most are NOT doing anything special to raise funds.
 
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I guess putting “A Tithing Parish” on the website might serve to warn people who otherwise say, “I joined and the first thing they did was ask me for money!”
(Well duh…most if not all churches in USA need donations)
 
JimG, thanks for posting. I enjoyed the article.

I think Father is off-base in attributing all of the exodus to liturgical abuse/bad theology/eviscerated Catholic school system and none to the abuse crisis. Certainly both have an effect to some degree and I think each affects different kinds of parishioners towards leaving.

But setting aside the abuse crisis, I think he makes a pretty compelling argument on the other reasons.
 
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