Parish Administrator Notes

Another Column on Vatican II I recently witnessed (online) a celebration of life for one of my hometown priests, Fr. Jerry Holtzman. As a boy in Mitchell, S.D., during the 1960s, I took brilliant, high-quality priest/pastors for granted. Fr. Jerry was one such. He had multiple master’s degrees and was fluent in French, German and Thai. His obituary characterized him as “a fervent believer in the reforms of Vatican II.” That’s the short name for the Second Vatican Council, which had multiple sessions from 1962-1965. (They were held at the Vatican in Rome. Councils are named after their … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – March 2, 2025

APP Report We recently had a visit from the Archdiocesan Parish Planning (APP) group. Team members Steve Karel and Phil Paquette have checked in with me regularly since I began here in 2021. Both have a strong background in parish planning and finance. The primary purpose of their visit was to see how we’re responding to our long-time pastor Fr. Steve Adrian’s death December 1. That gave Karen Thompson (trustee) and me a chance to tell our December story. Recall that in the space of three weeks, this community and its friends organized a beautiful celebration of Fr. Steve’s life. We also … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – February 23, 2025

Connections, Joy, Laughter On a recent day off from work, I was online “having coffee” with friends from around the country. In the midst of talking about what’s going on nationally, my friend Betsy from Wisconsin mentioned the importance of (social) connections. Her comment came as we shared concerns about the current anti-immigrant language and actions coming out of Washington, D.C. None of us like what we’re witnessing. I shared our preliminary steps here at St. Matt’s, e.g., acquiring Red Cards, going to meetings, sharing information, and organizing. More on this topic coming … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – February 16, 2025

Pray, Act, Hope “Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as if everything depends on you.” That classic saying comes to my mind these days, as I think about how we move forward in 2025. Consider just one critical moral issue: how do we treat our immigrant brothers and sisters? We pray for immigrants at Mass, and I expect most of us pray for them personally. All good. Beyond that, what actions can we take? Where can we find help? Some possibilities: Pay particular attention to news about immigration enforcement. Not all of it is legal. I’m convinced that some people want us to stop … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – February 9, 2025

The Common Good “Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do nothing for you.” Mother Theresa I recently ran across this quote, and it got me to thinking about recent federal government actions, particularly those regarding immigration. Pope Francis was blunt, calling Trump’s plans for mass deportation a “disgrace”. We need hope, courage and organization to counter such a disgrace. Let us draw on Scripture, our faith, and the preaching of Fr. Steve and Fr. Thomas to give us hope and courage. As for organizing, our Parish Council has begun discussing … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – February 2, 2025

Stories I’m glad that this weekend’s Masses lead to “Soup and Stories” about Fr. Steve Adrian, our long-time pastor, mentor and friend. We had a wonderful funeral Mass for him last month. Now it’s time to celebrate his life and legacy with a shared meal and shared memories. (Downstairs in our Social Hall. All are welcome.) Stories inspire laughter, learning and love. Stories form friendships, communities and traditions. Story-telling is part of being human. Lately, I’ve heard a few friends make defeatist talk. They point to the many, real problems in the world. Some bring up the change in … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – January 26, 2025

How’s Your Social Life? “Self-imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America.” (Derek Thompson, “The Anti-Social Century”, in the February issue of The Atlantic). That quote really caught my attention. In it, Thompson summed up a concerning trend. Many people have reduced their out-of-home socializing over the past couple of decades. Rather than go out to eat, or to a movie, or to church, or whatever—people might stay home to eat, watch television, or scroll on their phones. I’m not saying that home, television, or phones are intrinsically bad. … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – January 19, 2025

Compliments (post December 21) “Phil, I have never been to a better organized funeral. The army of gracious volunteers were ready with assistance at every turn. The liturgy was exquisite. It was such an honor to be there.” (one of several emails) That was just one of the many complimentary emails I received after Fr. Steve’s funeral last month. Emails highlight our gracious, talented, and committed volunteers. We say we’re a volunteer parish—and we took volunteerism to another level for Fr. Steve’s funeral. I also heard many compliments in the course of events. Recall that we welcomed Fr. … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – January 12, 2025

2024 Moments (in reverse order) When I sat down to write this week’s column, various moments from 2024 kept popping into my head: • On the 4th Sunday of Advent, Fr. Thomas preached on Mary and Elizabeth meeting each other. He noted that this is a good way to experience God—in ordinary moments, not just spectacular moments. Case in point: during his homily, while talking about Mary, Elizabeth, and the baby Jesus, one of our St. Matt’s infants was providing background music. • At Fr. Steve’s funeral, I marveled at how so many things came together for a wonderful celebration of his life and … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – January 5, 2025

Rejoice! Rejoice, be glad, and give thanks! Our Lord is come. That’s unusual grammar, but it points to a religious reality. God came in person two thousand years ago. God continues to come into our lives. That reality leads us to say again, Merry Christmas! According to our religious calendar, we’re in the Christmas season until January 12, the Baptism of Our Lord. (After that, we’re in Ordinary Time until Lent.) I don’t know what music the malls are now playing; we’ll sing our Christmas songs for two more weeks. Our community’s Christmas joy is tempered by the loss of our long-time pastor, … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – December 29, 2024

Funeral, Advent, Christmas Many thanks to all who helped with Fr. Steve Adrian’s funeral on Saturday, December 21. It was truly a celebration of the life of our long-time pastor, mentor and friend. How we can continue to honor Fr. Steve’s life and legacy? Suggestions: • Pray—for Fr. Steve and his family, our St. Matt’s parish community, our West Side friends and neighbors, and Community of Saints (COS) Regional Catholic School. • Work—for social justice, peace, and the common good. • Contribute—stories, photos, and remembrances of Fr. Steve. We expect to share some at Soup & Story … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – December 22, 2024

Life Eternal, Life on Earth Fr. Steve Adrian passed into eternal life on Sunday, December 1. I know everyone is keeping him and his family in their prayers. Thank you for those. I’m also grateful for the countless parishioners, volunteers, staff and friends who have met, prayed, and planned for his 11:00 a.m. funeral next Saturday, December 21. Per Fr. Steve’s wishes, visitation will begin at 3:00 p.m. the day before—on Friday, December 20. There will be a brief ceremony to “Welcome the Casket”. After that, visitation will continue until a Vespers service at 7:00 p.m. After Vespers, there … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – December 15, 2024

Institutional Matters It’s time for an update from the institutional church. That is to say, I recently attended another APBA meeting. (APBA stands for Association of Parish Business Administrators, my professional association.) I generally enjoy the meetings, as I like to ask questions of knowledgeable colleagues, learn what I can, and offer support to new administrators. You see, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis doesn’t do all that much to support new administrators. The Arch has some required trainings, focused mostly on ensuring compliance with canon law and civil law. Those … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – December 8, 2024

Have a Blessed Advent Happy New Liturgical Year! I say that because the season of Advent is the beginning of our church year. I look forward to Advent each year, because we get to sing special Advent hymns—great hymns full of anticipation and longing. I also like Advent’s gradual build up to the full glory of Christmas, as opposed to skipping straight from Thanksgiving to Dec. 24-25. It’s Complicated . . . . . . to prepare for heaven. That was my main takeaway from a seminar we hosted a year ago, aptly titled “Preparing for Heaven” (PFH). As we look towards the end of 2024, PFH has been on … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – December 1, 2024

Love the Poor What do you do when you encounter someone who’s begging for help? How about when a panhandler directly asks you for money? I often wonder what to do. Jesus said that we’ll always have the poor among us (Mt 26:11 and Mk 14:7). I fear that comment sometimes misleads people into thinking we need not do anything on behalf of the poor. That seems a pretty selective reading of Scripture. After all, Jesus goes on to say (in Mark) that “Whenever you wish you can do good to them . . .” One of the many things I appreciate about our St. Matt’s community is that we visibly express our … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – November 24, 2024

Remembering I’ve been enjoying La Ofrenda, the table with photos at the back of our church this month. I can’t say I recognize many people, as my memories before 2021 are of other parishes. (I do recognize one photo, of a much younger Fr. Thomas, shown with his late mother. I remember meeting her many years ago. Can you identify that particular photo?) I just added photos of my late mother Vera, father Harold, and sister Carol to our Ofrenda. My brother Don lent them to me after our recent road trip to Mitchell, South Dakota. Here’s the story. We drove to Mitchell to attend the funeral of … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – November 17, 2024

Recent Finance Questions (and Answers) “Are we solvent?” The answer is yes, we are solvent. Your regular contributions play a major role in assuring we continue to be solvent. They make our regular operations possible. Thank you for your support! “How’s the charter school doing?” Another major budget role is played by our school building’s tenant, Quantum STEAM Academy. QSA’s regular monthly rent payments go towards paying off the school’s elevator, our boilers, and other building maintenance. “Where are we with the parking lot renewal project?” We’ve raised over $70,000 in cash and … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – November 10, 2024

Annual Representation Letter (APR) A few days ago, I submitted our F24 (Fiscal Year 2024) APR to our Archdiocesan Chief Financial Officer, Tom Mertens. The APR affirms that we do indeed have a parish Finance Council; that the Council meets and discusses our finances at least quarterly; and that we report our finances to the parish. Recall that we mailed out a parish financial report a few weeks ago. More recently, we posted our FY25 budget on our website. Hard copies are available by request of the office. Parish financial matters are often invisible to the wider world, but they’re … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – October 20, 2024

Who’s Everybody? “Everybody knows them,” said the school librarian to me. I had just asked her what the school library hours were. This was in 1996, when I had just begun teaching high school religion at Chapel, a Catholic international school in São Paulo, Brazil. I was still learning my way around campus, and I wanted to check out the library, to see what resources it offered. The first time I tried the library, it was closed—and the hours weren’t posted. I was disappointed. When the librarian said, “Everybody knows them,” I immediately had a couple of negative reactions. The first was … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – October 13, 2024

Participate A few weeks ago, Fr. Thomas made these points in a homily: we are called to be more than just pious observers. Everyone has gifts to share. Never underestimate our power to help—at St. Matt’s and beyond. For example: • At our September Parish Council meeting, we learned about a local program to help families. It’s called “Faithful Hospitality”, and its goal is to empower the newly arrived with stable, short-term shelter and connections to employment and other resources. (If that reminds you of Casa Guadalupana, one of our parish ministry partners, I’m with you. Both programs … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – October 6, 2024

APBA, Stewardship I recently attended a meeting of my professional organization, the Association of Parish Business Administrators (APBA). I find it useful to learn from colleagues throughout our Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. At the same time, I can share things I’ve learned. One of the meeting’s highlights was a talk by Jeanne Schaaf* of the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota (CCF). Jeanne spoke on Stewardship as a Way of Life. Jeanne also shared this thoughtful piece, from our Archdiocesan Stewardship website: “Who is a Christian disciple? One who responds to Christ’s … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – September 29, 2024

Church Roof Update We have good news and bad news about the roof leaks in our church building. The good news is that some of the problems have been addressed. In July of 2024, the roofing company replaced metal flashing around the perimeter of the top roof, at no cost to us. That work was not done in 2019 when the roof was replaced. After the roofing company representative told me what they accomplished in July, I understood better why we used to have leaks in certain areas whenever we had heavy rains. Recall that we often had a bucket near Door 1. That spot hasn’t had leaks since … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – September 22, 2024

Who Ya Gonna Call? Over the past several weeks, staff and volunteers have noticed more persons on our campus who seem like they might be unhoused. We’ve talked to several of these folks, leading us to ask how we can help them. Who might we call? To improve our ability to respond—especially regarding the unhoused—we recently reached out to the city. That led to a meeting that Angela and I had with Chris Michels. She’s the administrator for a St. Paul program called “The Familiar Faces Initiative”. She’s working on two ways that could help us help people needing shelter and other … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – September 15, 2024

We Are Only Saved Together I was inspired by a recent book reading at the Church of the Assumption in downtown St. Paul. Author Colin Miller read excerpts from his new book, We Are Only Saved Together: Living the Revolutionary Vision of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. A little background: Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin founded the Catholic Worker movement in the 1930s. Basics of the movement include houses of hospitality, growing food together, and newspapers. (St. Matt’s regularly receives a copy of The Catholic Worker, the newspaper Day and Maurin founded. We currently place … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – September 8, 2024

Vatican II, aka the Second Vatican Council Last week, I wrote about what my daughter Bea noticed about our liturgies, especially the homilies of Fr. Steve and Fr. Thomas. She’s appreciated them very much, as this summer she was playing piano at another parish in our Archdiocese. There, she noticed that the homilies were long, yet light on substance. Often, they evoked a pre-Vatican II mentality that Catholics are better than other faiths. Speaking of Vatican II, I was recently asked about it. Why do we bring it up so much? Fr. Steve preached on it and writes columns about it. Fr. Thomas … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – September 1, 2024

Notes From Another Parish “Dad, his homilies are church repellent!” So said my daughter Bea several weeks ago, with regard to another Catholic parish in the Archdiocese. She played piano there for several Masses this summer, in addition to playing at St. Matt’s while she was in town. “Tell me more,” I said. And so she did. She said that this other priest’s homilies were usually about 20 minutes long, but with little content. As I understood her comments, this other homilist usually said that “God is good, and we should listen to God.” So far, so good. Bea went on, however, to note that he … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 25, 2024

Adventures in Scheduling We’ve recently had a couple of scheduling meetings, in order to plan our calendar for the next 12 months or so. It’s very useful to bring together staff members, key volunteers, and Fr. Thomas. We find out who’s doing what, when, and in which space. It’s important to budget our time, space and people for maximum community benefit. Several examples come to mind. For instance, Faith Formation programs are often on Wednesday evenings. That’s also when choir rehearsals occur. Another example involves Loaves & Fishes (L&F), one of our ministry partners. To feed … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 18, 2024

About Our Budget - 2 I wrote a couple of weeks ago that our Finance Council approved our budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (F25), which began July 1. Last week, I wrote about our revenues. Today, I’ll explore our expenses. One major expense is monthly payments of $10,000 on our million-dollar loan from Catholic Finance Corporation (CFC). We took that loan out in 2016, to install an elevator in the school building ($800,000) and redo the boilers ($200,000). Capital needs are expensive! And they’re necessary . . . we’re also paying CFC about $2000 interest per month on our line of credit, … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 11, 2024

About Our Budget - 1 I wrote a couple of weeks ago that our Finance Council approved our budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 (F25), which began July 1. Today, I’m sharing some details. We’re projecting $950,000 in revenue for F25. Of that amount, we’re budgeting $231,200 to come in through “Sunday Giving”. That includes envelopes (or their equivalent) for weekend Masses, Holy Days, and Christmas and Easter. That compares with $230,400 for last year, F24—an increase of $800, or about 0.3 per cent. That’s basically negligible—or as an accountant would say, it’s not material. If you do the … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – August 4, 2024

Thinking About Systems If you were to call 911, what would you expect to happen? I know I’d expect an operator to respond quickly. And if needed, the operator would dispatch someone to my location. Our 911 system is just one example of the way our government serves us. There are many others. They’re on my mind these days, as we approach important elections in November. Yes, sometimes a system breaks down. Our governmental systems are large, complicated, and operated by fallible humans. It’s important for us as citizens to pay attention and hold systems to account. Generations before us … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 28, 2024

Finance Matters St. Matt’s Finance Council met on Thursday, July 11. Members approved a Capitalization Policy and our budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (F25), which began on July 1. (F25 concludes on June 30, 2025.) We adopted the Capitalization Policy as a matter of good financial practice. Our chosen threshold is $5,000. That means that items costing more than $5,000 will be treated as capital assets. They’ll be depreciated for financial statement purposes. Anything less than $5,000 will be considered an expense, paid for out of a given year’s budget. As for our new budget for F25, we project … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 21, 2024

PACE & PRISM (P&P) We’re well into July—or as I sometimes think of it, P&P season. This month, I’m documenting all sorts of things for Catholic Mutual (CM), our insurance company. By doing so, we knock thousands of dollars off our insurance costs each year. PACE refers to personnel items. PRISM refers to facilities. I value the whole process, as CM guidelines are basically good practices we should always be doing. The rebate is like very nice frosting on the operational cake. Speaking of Facilities • A major component of our August 1 report to CM is a lengthy Capital Repair … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 14, 2024

PACE & PRISM (P&P) One of my business administrator colleagues recently commented that the many abbreviations used in our work remind her of growing up as an Army brat. Apparently, our Archdiocese rivals the military in the sheer quantity of abbreviations. As you read on, be warned. So, what’s P&P, you might ask? And you might add, don’t tell me it’s short for PACE & PRISM. I answer: PACE stands for Protecting All Church Employees. PRISM stands for Property Responsibility in Service to Mission. These are programs offered by our insurance company, Catholic Mutual (CM). When … [Read more...] about Parish Administrator’s Note – July 7, 2024