Northern California Owes $2.6 Million for Papal Visit

Six months after Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States, church officials in Northern California are faced with a debt exceeding $2.6 million.

Church officials in Phoenix have yet to pay nearly $165,000 for renting a stadium.

“We knew we would have some deficit, but we didn’t think it would be of this magnitude,” said Bruce Egnew, director of finance for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The church still owes at least $1.5 million for the Pope’s 24-hour visit, Egnew said. Father Miles Riley, chief publicist for the archdiocese, put the total at $2 million.

The Monterey Diocese, where the Pope spent six hours, has a debt of $1.1 million, spokesman Ted Elisee said.

Other Cities Clear Debts

The debts have been cleared in other cities the Pope stopped at during the Sept. 10-19 visit: Los Angeles; Miami; Columbia, S.C., in the statewide Charleston Diocese; New Orleans; San Antonio, and Detroit.

The Diocese of Phoenix owes about $165,000 for renting Sun Devil Stadium but has retired other debts, church officials say.

The San Francisco Archdiocese, representing 375,000 Catholics, has raised about $2 million since the visit, Egnew said.

To reduce the debt, the archdiocese plans to sell pieces of the elaborate $500,000, six-tiered stage used for the Mass at Candlestick Park. Other fund-raising tactics include second collections in the churches, receptions and direct appeals to the community, Egnew said.

“It’s always harder to raise money after the event,” Riley said. “Not a little bit harder, a lot harder.”

In hindsight, he thinks preparations were too elaborate.

“It was top dollar all the way, and I think if we had to do it over we would start off with, ‘Look, this is too big for us, we can’t afford it,’ ” he said.

Riley said the church should have asked members for help instead of money. “What I am talking about is allowing people to contribute their time, their energy, their crafts, their industry, their service,” he said.

Elisee said the Monterey Diocese spent $2 million and owes between $1 million and $1.1 million. However, he said some money is expected from collections taken before the visit.

Other sources that will be tapped, Elisee said, include appeals to individual donors and to the 45 parishes, representing about 145,000 members. The diocese also has been selling memorial magazines at $5 each and videotapes for $25.

In Los Angeles, costs were $2.7 million; $2.4 million was raised through donations, grants and a commemorative book sale, said Msgr. Jeremiah Murphy, director of the Secretariat for Support Services.

Murphy said the difference has been absorbed in the budgets of the various departments of the archdiocese, largest in the nation with more than 2.6 million Catholics. “There’s no debt,” he said.