Money makes Church go round?

Last Monday Mgr Charles Cordina and Mgr Anton Portelli addressed a press conference to announce the Archdiocese’s financial and pastoral report for 2010.

The report does a big injustice to the valuable and extensive work being done- Fr Joe Borg

The backdrop poster at the event showed several smiling people. I don’t know what they were smiling about because the reverend monsignors reported that last year the Archdiocese (not the Church) of Malta had lost a record €1.7 million.

It is not a sum one can laugh about especially when one notes that the loss during 2009 was almost €870,000 and that for 2008 was €1m – a cumulative loss of €3.57 million. One immediately understands why the faces of the two monsignors and the lay financial controller were quite glum and, as is to be expected, in sharp contrast to those faces strangely beaming smiles behind them.

Media coverage of the event gave the impression that the Pope’s visit was the cause of the Archdiocese’s financial problems. It is not. Had the Pope not come to Malta, the Curia’s deficit would have been lower; but should we gauge everything from the money perspective?

This was a one-time expense costing €1m. Are there not 200,000 Catholics in Malta ready to pay €5 each to finance a papal visit? It was unfortunate, however, that people’s expectations were misled as the sum quoted before the visit was less than half the sum actually spent.

Media coverage also gave the impression that the Archdiocese is facing a crisis because of losses that are being borne due to its social and charitable work, mainly children’s homes and old people homes. But is this correct?

During 2009 and 2010 these initiatives made a negligible loss of €19,000. If one were to add also the loss made by Id-Dar tal-Providenza, then, one would register a loss of €165,000.

It is true that there was a considerable reduction in donations and collections. This is unfortunate. One should ask whether this was because people were giving less charity or because people were giving less charity in general or less to Church institutions.

Is it mainly a question of marketing or lack of trust in the Church? Perhaps it is a bit of both; however, parishes managed to increase their income in spite of diminishing Church attendance; and that’s a plus for our parish priests.

In 2009 and 2010, by far bigger loss makers were the Ecclesiastical (also known as ‘Marriage’) Tribunals (almost €1 million) and the media activities (a loss of €1.5 million). In both cases the loss is quite alarming.

On the other hand, the value of these sectors has to be gauged in terms of the people serviced, and (in the case of the Church media) the funds raising activities they do.

However, while I believe people can be persuaded to donate more to charitable activities, they will not donate for the tribunals (whose perception is generally bad) and the media activities.

Although the subject of the press conference was the financial/pastoral report, media coverage concentrated on the financial aspects. This is to be expected; more so because the so-called ‘pastoral report’ takes less than three A4 pages.

The way these reports are published does a big injustice to the valuable and extensive work being done by the various entities making up the Archdiocese. Instead of a flimsy leaflet, there should be a professionally-produced booklet celebrating intelligently and creatively the service so generously given by so many members of the Church.

This generosity, more than the monetary dimension, makes the Church go forward.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt