L.A. Archdiocese Expects to Recoup Costs of Papal Visit : Departmental Budgets Compensated for Expenses Not Met by Donations, Other Income

While two other Catholic dioceses in California struggle with debts from the September visit of the Pope, the Los Angeles Archdiocese says it will be able to meet its expenses.

This is despite the fact that the Los Angeles Archdiocese so far has received a little more than $2 million in income toward the roughly $2.6 million it spent on the visit of Pope John Paul II.

Msgr. Jeremiah Murphy, the archdiocesan director of support services, said the archdiocese’s various departments will absorb costs of the papal visit that are beyond what will be met by donations, parish collections and commemorative booklet sales.

By the time the remaining 40 to 50 parishes (out of 286 in the three-county archdiocese) send in money they received, the income should reach about $2.2 million, Murphy said in an interview.

$300,000-$500,000 Gap

“The shortfall will be absorbed by the ordinary operations of the chancery,” said Murphy, who added that no other steps are planned to seek other income. He estimated that the gap would be as much as $500,000, “but probably closer to $300,000.”

By contrast, the Diocese of Monterey and the Archdiocese of San Francisco are still attempting to finance debts of about $1 million each from hosting the Pope after the pontiff left Los Angeles. Monterey has applied for a $1-million loan and San Francisco is taking money budgeted for other purposes as well as running a low-key campaign for contributions.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese has also reaped higher-than-expected income of $21.9 million from 184 items in the Doheny Collection that have sold in two auctions. A Gutenberg Bible brought a record $4.9 million in a New York auction Oct. 22 that netted $12.4 million. The most recent sale Wednesday in London brought $9.5 million.

However, that money, and the income expected from four more auctions, will be used exclusively to create an endowment fund for the operational expenses of the archdiocese’s seminaries.

Msgr. George H. Niederauer, rector of the graduate-level St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, said that interest from the endowment fund will be used to offset the yearly expenses of the seminary and college at Camarillo and a high school seminary in San Fernando. He said the income will lighten the burden on parishes, which are assessed for seminary costs. Tuition and board is $3,500 a year at the 110-student seminary for those able to pay, but the fees cover only 25% of the actual cost of educating the future priests, Niederauer said.

The financial breakdown on estimated income and costs of the papal visit was the first given by the archdiocese since the Pope spent a busy Sept. 15 and 16 in the city.

Murphy said that final figures would not be available for “a couple of months.” He said that the expense total is not known because some chancery departments are still assessing what costs were incurred because of the papal visit and what were incurred in the normal course of their work. Also, he said that a final accounting has not been made on donated services.

At any rate, Murphy said, parishes so far have sent in $700,000 from a special late August collection and $550,000 from sales of booklets. Another $800,000 was received in donations, including a $500,000 gift from the Dan Murphy Foundation in Los Angeles.

“I don’t think there are any outstanding bills from outside agencies. There isn’t any debt in that sense,” Murphy said.

“People who organized the events here did an excellent job in keeping costs down,” he said.