Clergy Computing Financial, Spiritual Impact of Papal Visit

Pope John Paul II is gone but he’s not forgotten, not in the hearts of Catholics who live in the cities he visited on his U.S. tour and certainly not in their pocketbooks.

Local church officials say they have seen increased church attendance, heightened interest in the priesthood and an energized flock in the wake of the Pope’s visit. But they also face the prospect of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for his tour.

Los Angeles officials, however, said they expect to meet their $2.5-million budget.

In San Francisco, Archbishop John Quinn has asked parishes to take up a special collection to help pay the $3.3-million cost of John Paul’s 20-hour visit to that city. More than $1 million remains to be raised.

In Columbia, S.C.--where the cost of the five-hour visit totaled about $500,000 and the debt stands at about three times that--the church is mailing a plea for money to donors suggested by local priests, and has received small, unsolicited checks from around the country.

The money comes from people who saw the Pope on television and are still on “a spiritual high,” Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler said.

In San Antonio, officials believe that they spent less than the $2.5 million they budgeted; as of Sept. 11, they had collected about $2 million.

In Monterey, Calif., just over two-thirds of the $2-million budget was raised before the visit. In New Orleans, the cost is estimated at $2 million, and the latest figures, tabulated a month before the Pope’s arrival, indicated that the archdiocese had raised between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Officials in Detroit, where $1.5 million was budgeted, said they are still computing.

Miami officials said they expect to meet their $1.8-million budget.

And in Phoenix, where costs are estimated at $1.5 million, a profit may be realized once parish collections and video sales are counted.

The money came from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, so “it will go to a communitywide charity, to feed the hungry or to the homeless, something like that,” said Bill Stover, chairman of Phoenix’s papal visit finance committee.

Archbishop Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles is convinced that the church in his city will realize another kind of profit from the visit.

“When the Pope comes and challenges us to become better Christians and to become much more aware of the homeless, the needy, I am convinced that the outpouring to that invitation and challenge will be a hundred times more than the expenses. And I expect that to happen here in Los Angeles,” he predicted.

Other short-term and long-term effects are foreseen by many.

The Detroit Archdiocese heard from “agnostics, from different groups, even from atheists,” said spokeswoman Brenda Marshall. “There’s something in the air. It was a fantastic experience. Even for people who were really blase, now he’s somebody real, someone human, someone they admire.”

During his visit, the Pope repeatedly emphasized the need for more priests, and apparently some paid him heed.

“At our seminary, they’ve been having people showing up saying they’d like to be priests,” Marshall said.