Now, I’ve been told by a member of the Pastoral
Council that some want to blame Holy Spirit Catholic
Church Community for Christ the King’s financial woes!
The argument is that most of Holy Spirit’s parishioners are
ex-Christ the King parishioners and that all the wealthy
members of Christ the King switched to Holy Spirit! I have
to disagree! Of the 1,100 registered families at Holy Spirit,
only about 250 have transferred from CTK to Holy Spirit —
most of them because they live in the boundaries of Holy
Spirit and have a shorter distance to drive to attend Church.
(In the same time period since Holy Spirit started, CTK has
registered more than 600 new families — including many
new Hispanic families now attending the Sunday 7:00 p.m.
Spanish Mass.) As to all the wealthy families moving to Holy
Spirit, I don’t think so! I don’t check on anyone’s donations
and so I really don't know who gives a lot and who doesn’t.
Purposely, I do NOT count the collection on Mondays — so
that I’m not even tempted to judge people on how much they
give to the collection. Of course, if a very large donation
comes in, I am made aware of it and I thank the generous
donor; of those such persons, I can only think of one such
parishioner who lives in the boundaries of Holy Spirit and
worships there and at Christ the King, but still makes MAJOR
donations to Christ the King! I would think that our
financial problems cannot be blamed on Holy Spirit; every
time a new parish starts, it’s always a concern to the parish
from which it separated if the income will decrease. We were
worried about that when St. Joseph, Husband of Mary,
started and it really didn’t make a big dent in our finances. I
think the real reason that we are suffering financial problems
happens to be the same reason that almost everyone, every
business and every church is suffering financial problems —
WE ARE IN A RECESSION! When people are out of work,
filing for bankruptcy, facing foreclosure on their homes, it’s
quite understandable that their disposable income is less;
and, unfortunately their charitable patterns suffer — and
that decreases the income to us. In last week’s collection,
there were a couple of persons who significantly increased
their usual donation. Thank you and may others follow the
pattern