Parish meetings

Well, As a parish, we are going through some tough times. At first glance, it might look like we are in financial straits, but I think the difficulty goes much deeper. A couple of months ago, our fearless leader sent out a letter to all the families stating that we were no longer able to continue our high school tuition program. Up till now we have been paying all the parishioners' high school tuition with the expectation that they would contribute much of that back to the parish.

Anyway, we had the first of two meetings on this subject last night, and I went. There were two presentations, one by our building and renovation coordinator and the other was by the head of our finance committee. We have been talking about replacing a building lost in a fire several months ago, and the proposal included a couple of other additions to the campus. Couple that with a somewhat grim financial report, many people were quite upset. After nearly three hours of talking, questioning, reporting and (ahem) mudslinging, I had to leave. There's only so much a guy can take, you know? (BTW.. if someone made one more crack about the music, I dont know what I would have done.. lol)

It's hard to run an organization that tries to take care of hundreds of people. Chances are, any decision you make is going to piss off someone, and probably many people. I would not want to be in Deacon Ed's position. He is trying to do the best thing for the parish, the WHOLE parish. Not an easy task. I hope we can eventually "turn the corner" with this and really become a community, working together for everyone's good. For now, we are trying to address all the concerns and keep moving forward. May God help us.