Catholic Community Foundation meeting highlights improving finances

By Brandon A. Evans

For the first time since at least the 1996-97 fiscal year, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ended a fiscal year with a budget surplus.

Jeffrey Stumpf, chief financial officer for the archdiocese, announced a budget surplus of $213,000 for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which ended June 30, during the annual meeting of the Catholic Community Foundation (CCF) on Nov. 2 in Indianapolis.

The total budget for the archdiocese is about $39 million.

Stumpf said he is expecting a similar surplus for this fiscal year, but noted that the surplus is still small—only half of 1 percent of the total budget.

Stumpf also announced that the number of CCF endowments has increased from 284 to 305. The value of those endowments increased from $105.8 million to $129.3 million last year.

The annual return on the CCF’s investments, he said, was 8.9 percent for last year.

Each year, the CCF distributes funds to all sorts of archdiocesan ministries from its various endowments. In 2003-04, $3.9 million was distributed. This past fiscal year, $4.7 million was given to help support parish, school and agency ministries.

Among the challenges for this year’s archdiocesan budget were healthcare costs, higher construction and property insurance costs, school operating costs, parish deficits and an accrued amount of archdiocesan deficits from the mid-1990s of nearly $10 million, Stumpf said.

Those challenges, though, were balanced out by several strengths, he said. Among them, strong parish giving, support for the United Catholic Appeal, deficit help from a new center-city school consortium, the refinancing of a 1996 municipal bond issue at lower interest rates and the introduction of a new archdiocesan capital campaign.

That campaign, titled Legacy for Our Mission: For Our Children and the Future, was the focus of Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein’s address.

The new campaign was first announced publicly at the CCF annual meeting last November, and is currently in its initial phases in 10 pilot parishes. (Log on to www.archindy.org/osd for more information.)

The archbishop reiterated that the campaign, which seeks to raise at least $100 million in gifts and pledges over the next two years, is set up so that 100 percent of the money will be used to support parishes, schools, ministry agencies and retired priests.

The ministry goals of the campaign, he said, are directed to a better living of the Gospel by teaching the faith, serving the poor, caring for future ministries, thanking retired priests, growing in spiritual renewal, growing as Christian stewards, and nurturing prayer and worship.

Joseph Therber, executive director of stewardship and development for the archdiocese, joined the archbishop in presenting some of the details of the campaign.

The early successes of the campaign include the first pre-pilot parish raising 2.3 times its Sunday and holy day collections for the year, and one of the 10 pilot parishes has already raised 1.7 times its annual giving.

Therber said that the archdiocesan funds will be allocated to the ministry of Catholic education, the home mission grant fund, Catholic Charities, the training of priests and deacons, the recruitment of seminarians, and to a “ministry of care,” which includes caring for retired priests and improvements to the cathedral, Catholic cemeteries and Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House.

At a Mass before the annual meeting, Archbishop Buechlein reminded those gathered that despite all the other business of the day, the Mass would be “the most important thing we will do today.” †