The Boston Herald reports today something we knew, but didn’t have the figures to back up: The Archdiocese of Boston had a bad year financially last year. Collections were off 17 percent in the fiscal year ended June 2003, i.e. the heart of the breaking of the Scandal, and troubles in the stock market didn’t help by dropping value of investments by 40 percent.
The good news is that early indications in Archbishop O’Malley’s first year is that the numbers are rebounding somewhat. I also notice that the article doesn’t mention the annual archdiocesan appeal which usually raises somewhere around $15 million. I guess I’ll have to wait and see the archdiocesan paper, The Pilot, for that.
