The landmark Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit has cash reserves for only six to eight weeks of operation and needs a cash infusion of some $200,000 in order to balance the 2009 budget, according to the Very Rev. Scott Hunter, dean of St. Paul’s, who met with diocesan council on May 9.
“I pulled no punches with them,” Dean Hunter told The Living Church. “The cathedral belongs to the entire diocese and we are facing either a hard landing zone or a high mountain, take your pick.”
Dean Hunter said that the cathedral began trying to bring expenses more in line with income about two years ago and that “painful sacrifices” by the entire congregation helped reduce its annual operating budget by $225,000. But the state’s rapidly declining economic situation and the sharp downturn in the financial markets brought the cathedral’s situation to a crisis stage within a relatively short time beginning last fall. The sudden nature of the downturn was the chief reason the cathedral leadership was not able to give diocesan council more advance notice of its plight.
If TEC would stop the litigations for a month, it could give that money to the cathedral.
If they instantly laid off a bunch of people without compensation that would help. Otherwise, everyone without exception will be laid off without compensation. Also, the Dean could take a big pay hit, which is part of leadership. For some reason it sounds to me that they don’t want to face the financial facts and instead are hoping for a bailout from someone. If they don’t do what is extremely painful the cathedral will inevitably close, since even bailouts come to an end.
#1 – so perhaps the leaving parishes could stay in TEC instead.
#2 How is taking a big pay hit a part of leadership? If anything, he is doing the right thing by spelling out the problem. It’s not a bailout – its holding people accountable.
No, perhaps they could negotiate instead.
Actually JW sums up the TEC mindset quite well. People should stay in TEC because it can use the money.
Plate and pledge income about 250K, ASA 250 – a one priest, part-time secretary, part-time organist, part-time janitor with maybe some volunteer retired clergy help with visits and weekday services, depending on the maintenance costs. Anything more that that is, as the dean suggests, an unfunded diocesn mandate.
The web site has this (but no staff list) “What we do At the Cathedral Church of St. Paul we take seriously Jesus’ call to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself”. Our worship ranges from majestic to simple with strong preaching and glorious music of many styles. Our outreach into the community has built tow major housing projects: Williams Pavilion for low income seniors and the Cathedral Tower, originally senior and now mixed housing. Our rehabilitation of the Garfield Building, apartment living and retail, helped launch the turn-around of Detroit’s Midtown. We offer breakfast on Sunday mornings to anyone who wants to join us. We have a wide range of classes and a bookshop onsite. We work with the community by hosting City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr.’s Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway, and the ACTS After-school program. We are active in the University Cultural Center Association, the Festival of the Arts, and Noel Night. We offer a music concert series, as we are also the home of The Cathedral Choir School of Metropolitan Detroit. In other words, we worship, learn, work and have fun for the Lord. We invite you to come and join us.”
Thanks, Tom (#6-7),
I don’t know anything about the Detroit cathedral, but my guess is that they face large maintenance costs for the upkeep of the facilities, as well as those “unfunded diocesan mandates.”
David Handy+
#3
I believe that Senior Priest’s point is that leadership begins with example. It’s a good principle, and quite biblical.
It is hard to believe that the Cathedral didn’t see this coming. From 2002 though 2007 Plate & Pledge was flat which means about a 16 percent loss in real dollars. These were the good times before the 2008 debacle. If they could not even keep up with inflation when the wood was green, should there be any surprise about finances now? Statmann