The Catholic Church in Ireland is to hold a further national collection to help defray remaining costs from the World Meeting of Families (WMoF2018) and the visit to Ireland of Pope Francis last August.
It will take place at all Catholic Churches on the weekend of Saturday, November 10th and Sunday, November 11th.
Spokesman for the Catholic bishops Martin Long said “the World Meeting of Families deficit is in the region of €4 million. To date €15.4 million has been raised by previous national collections and other donations.”
The overall cost to the Church of the WMoF2018 and the visit to Pope Francis was €19.4 million, he said.
It will be the fifth such national collection by the church to help fund these events and the third this year, following one in February and another in July. The previous two national collections in connection with them took place in May 2016 and April 2017 and brought in €5 million.
In a message to all Priests and Deacons in the Diocese of Elphin, Bishop Kevin Doran said “the recent World Meeting of Families came in significantly under budget, thanks to good financial management.”
He added however that “unfortunately, in spite of a very successful effort, there was also a shortfall in fundraising income, due in no small measure to the consistent negative coverage in the media in the final weeks of preparation.
The cost to Catholics in countries which host visits of the Holy Father are astronomical.
Perhaps, in this highly advanced age of social communication, such huge costs could be eliminated by way of digital interaction between the Holy Father and the particular audience he wishes to address.
The Church of the 21st Century will be a much poorer Church than a century ago.
It’s high time the Holy See and the Bishops take cognizance of these facts.
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