Pennies for heaven:
Harris, Joseph Claude
you received? Well, I'm asking: For 3,000 children in the South Bronx, for Saint Angela's 492 kids. The service provided by Average Catholic Household Gift Saint Angela's...
...We would have said, if you asked us, that we just wanted to be useful...
...They gave 1.8 percent of household income to char- was doing was valuable-handing down sensible judgments, ity...
...JOSEPH CLAUDE HARRIS propped against the sugar bowl...
...the rate of Lutherans, Catholic donations to religious charities And so the talk moved on to another form of mothering: helpwould have realized an additional $1.877 billion...
...er problems the script created that week...
...Catholics are dead last in the giving sweep- and needs...
...They Catholic respondents to the Independent Sector research gave are a tool for quiet evangelization, a sign of our solidarity with their 1991 household income as $40,903, a household income the dispossessed...
...tor, a Washington, D.C...
...The entire Sunday collection including (National Catholic Reporter, February 2, 1990...
...tions to the Sunday Offertory Collection during 1991...
...Well, I'm asking: For 3,000 children in the South Bronx, for Saint Angela's 492 kids...
...And that was followed by blatant holds...
...Adjusted for average income growth, Patrick F. Kelly has worked in Bronx Catholic schools since in 1991 the average Catholic household made $41,044...
...an average 1991 household income of $41,044 are fiscal giAt Saint Angela's School, we are now actively seeking ants, albeit sleeping fiscal giants...
...And with good reason...
...The congruity beever, Catholics, compared to non-Catholics, contribute a rela- tween Bureau of the Census and Independent Sector data makes tively tiny fraction of this bounty to our churches and schools...
...This estimate is the result of tell the story: "Rising Costs, Low Contri- multiplying the average donation of $280.15 by 18,193,790 butions Spell Red Ink for U. S. Dioceses" Catholic households...
...PATRICK F. KELLY University of New York...
...Thus what began with a paragraph about somebody's sumfore our children grew up to be our friends...
...Had Catholics only contributed at Not one of us could even make authentic Swedish meatballs...
...The service provided by Average Catholic Household Gift Saint Angela's School is ecumenical in scope, citywide in the by Geographic Region fruits of its positive results, national in its impact, and Catholic in its symbolic and real value...
...Mountains/Far West $242.44 The Leadership Development Initiative (LDI), funded by the UNITED STATES 5280.15 Milken Foundation, has provided the tools to move our program forward...
...With 1982 and was appointed principal of Saint Angela Merici approximately 18,193,790 households registered in Catholic School in September 1992...
...We're happy holds, the total 1991 American household income was $3.628 to act on behalf of our children, but anyone in the field of non- trillion...
...Clearly, a lot of the Catholic church's financial prob- tails...
...The average Catholic donation of $280 represents .7 percent merican Catholics have a lot of money...
...This is similar to the 1990 Catholic household education in the inner city to shrink and wither and grow less income of $40,435 reported by The National Survey of Religious vital...
...Evangelical Natalie said she was eased into the role by the necessity of Protestants, Mormons, and Jews give substantially more to char- listening to the times-seven tables or altar-boy Latin...
...Oh, sometimes there were a Joseph Claude Harris is director of marketing for the Renton few pages of desperate scrawled notes they had taken-to show Coil Spring Company in Renton, Washington...
...Copies What peculiar impulse misguided us in those years...
...of the worst offenders, until she learned, with some embarCommonweal 9 April 1993: 9...
...New England/Mideast $205.51 Several members of Saint Angela's staff, including myself, South $304.56 have undergone training designed to strengthen our business Great Lakes $309.73 sense, to secure and broaden our financial base, and to change Plains $340.97 our way of thinking about our status as a nonprofit institution...
...Presbyterians ing children with their homework, and becoming perhaps too make somewhat more money than Catholics, with an average deeply involved...
...the church reaches the marginalized of American society...
...Writing English papers for a brother away at college was the The discussion began with Florence, who blamed her prob- earliest evidence of Laura's bad habit...
...With 95.7 million houseanniversary...
...The episodes were the stuff of everyday liv- Salinger's Frannie or Voltaire's Candide or the fate of the ing in times gone by, Mama's wisdom triumphing over domestic Hindenburg...
...Lutherans are about as fis- never worried about 'self-realization.' She was content in her cally blessed as Catholics with an average household income love for Papa and the children and she was sure that what she of $40,502...
...from all reports the Catholic church in the Catholics gave $5.096 billion in recorded contributions in the United States is strapped for cash...
...parents' errors, we are not heavily burdened with guilt...
...it long enough to get hooked on the smell of dust and old bindings in the stacks...
...Still...
...Had Catholics matched that rate, their total contribution would wiping the flour off her hands on her apron...
...I reviewed the actuCATHOLIC UNDERACHIEVERS al contribution records of 329,757 registered Catholic households in 278 randomly selected parishes in forty states...
...Since mer vacation could lead in time to a substantial contribution all of them turned out to be admirable persons in spite of their toward someone else's graduate thesis...
...Mama tually all Protestant denominations...
...This article is their good will-and even book titles and page references I might based on a Lilly funded study "Estimate of Catholic Contribu- find useful...
...think tank, in a study of giving and Catholics now possess the highest per capita income of any volunteering conducted by the Gallup Organization, reportgroup in the United States...
...COUNT ON MOM we had to do what we knew something about, and that led down BUT DO IT YOURSELF a slippery path to years of vicarious successes and dishonorable achievement...
...Actually, Florence Catholic giving at 1.4 percent of income is lower than vir- told us, "I wanted to be Mama-at least some of the time...
...Then, suddenly, we were knee-deep in daily THE JOYS OF HOMEWORK demands of another order...
...Here, in the South Bronx, it means providing for schools Identification (a project of the The Graduate School of the City such as Saint Angela's...
...This varies by region [see table above...
...The Bureau of the Census estimates the 1991 averprofit development programs will tell you it takes years to se- age American household income at $37,922...
...By next Monday...
...The series told stories about a first-gen- the football team and needed time to develop his lungs and leg eration Swedish family: Mama, her husband, and their three muscles...
...That led to what Catholic giving is .5 percent below the average for all house- was politely called revising...
...The average Catholic household is a sleeping giant when it comes PENNIES FOR HEAVEN to putting money in the collection basket...
...Although he was a bright lem on a television show called "I Remember Mama...
...Were Catholics to become simply average givers, Catho- ghost writing...
...Independent Seccure a return on the investment...
...REPORT ON THE COLLECTION BASKET It is commonplace in Catholic circles to lament the lackadaisical giving habits of members...
...crises, smoothing out the lives of those she loved, and all in a Ernestine claimed that at one time she may have been one half-hour with time out for commercials...
...Mama was the star of the show: wise, loving, gener- a box of chocolate chip cookies but five hundred words about ous, and patient...
...Thus the total do- Florence couldn't remember the plot of even one show, only nations of 18 million Catholic households in 1991 amounted "the comfort of Mama's answers and her solutions to whatevto $10.461 billion or 1.4 percent of household income...
...hand was forever incomplete, we may have liked the idea of Many of our stories involve rueful admissions, as finishing and handing in and getting a good grade for a job well we acknowledge mistakes made in the years be- done...
...It started out," she recalls, "with looking over their stakes...
...alumni and friends to help our children...
...The 1992 edition of Giving and Volunteering in the United Street Journal, January 8, 1990...
...During 1991, Catholics gave, on average, $280.15 to the Sunday collection...
...A reunion is sched- All discussions of income begin with a measure of average uled for the spring of 1994, to celebrate the school's ninetieth income for American households...
...parishes, that means Catholics made $746.7 billion during 1991, or 21 percent of the aggregate American household income...
...Foundations are being researched...
...As time went on," she said, "a couple of my older chillems would be solved if Catholics were only a little more or- dren would leave me assignments, written on file cards and dinary...
...Big sister could send him something he needed: not children...
...Yet of household income for the average Catholic household...
...The Milken Foundation is a non-Catholic foundation that has helped dozens of inner-city schools, Catholic rocketing costs and stagnant revenues, a combination that is a and non-Catholic, to set up programs to insure fiscal and pro- fair definition of a fiscal fiasco...
...We had never learned to make angelfood cake or currant jelly, or even to take up hems...
...Headlines Sunday collection during 1991...
...Confined to quarters by the times we lived in and the prevailing mores, we could sit at kitchen tables between meals Leisurely lunches are a source of pleasure to old and loads of laundry helping the children...
...Perhaps we didn't have enough "own-life" to occupy our minds...
...have been $13.441 billion...
...some had stayed with Avenue S.W., Seattle, WA, 98126 ($12.50 prepaid, 106 pp...
...writing assignments and making suggestions...
...Besides," she recalls, "he wanted to make petence and serenity...
...the estimates of household income by denomination from the The bald fact is, Catholic schools in the inner city are the most Independent Sector study a useful reference in establishing visible, and arguably the most effective, instrument by which Catholic household income...
...Both articles speak of sky- States estimates that Catholic households gave an average of 8: 9 April 1993 Commonweal $575 for all charitable contributions in 1991...
...It will not be to our credit, as stewards of the that was approximately 8 percent greater than the average for church's material and spiritual resources, if we allow Catholic all Americans...
...lic donations to religious charities would climb by $2.333 Elsie made much the same confession, but added some debillion...
...The average gift to charity for all religions is 1.9 percent she played grew, however, as children increased in numbers of household income...
...Because the work at friends who share a common fund of memories...
...The part ity...
...Yet American Catholics with gram health...
...income of $2.333 and they give 2.1 percent to charity...
...Catholic anonymous cash donations for 1991 is estimated to be $5.479 Parishes Face Squeeze as Donations by Members Fall Off' (Wall billion...
...Often boy and ultimately a successful broker, he hated those weekly she watched it with her children, marveling at Mama's com- theme assignments...
...As Andrew Greeley points out, how- ed respondents' 1991 income at $36,797...
...All of of the study are available from Joseph Claude Harris, 2610 38th us were superannuated English majors...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 7
