NEW ORLEANS (WVUE)—When Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church permanently closed in July this year, it was part of the Archdiocese of New Orleans’s largest restructuring since Hurricane Katrina.
The church building at Our Lady Star of the Sea was constructed in 1931. The campus is now shuttered. The parish was merged with St. Mary of the Angels to form what is now St. Josephine Bakhita Catholic church.
More downsizing in the Archdiocese of New Orleans could be ahead. For long-time parishioners like Teresa Poche, who attended Our Lady Star of the Sea as a teenager, that final mass at her church was painful.
“All of a sudden you realize this is the last time we’re all going to be together as a group. It was hard,” said Poche.
The most recent round of church closures and consolidations in the Archdiocese of New Orleans involved 13 parishes. They were selected for a number of reasons.
Money was a critical issue. Attendance at those affected parishes was declining, as were their weekly collections. My own parish in Bywater is financially struggling.
Earlier in July, the weekly bulletin posted collections taken during masses from the previous week. There was roughly $3,000 collected, while expenses were around $9,000. The deficit of about $6,000 was printed in red ink.
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The Archdiocese of New Orleans has its money problems. In 2020, it filed for bankruptcy as claims of child sex abuse by clergy piled up. Since then, it has racked up tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.
A future settlement could top $100 million. That perhaps is the archdiocese’s most glaring expense, but the soaring cost of property insurance in Louisiana is only deepening its financial hole.
“The finances of the archdiocese are in a precarious state,” said Dirk Wild.
Dirk Wild is the archdiocese’s chief financial officer. He says the state’s insurance crisis is making it practically impossible to maintain the approximately 1,400 pieces of property that fall under the archdiocese’s umbrella. Wild said insurance premiums have tripled for some parishes.
“For an average parish, property insurance alone not including flood insurance, averages about 13% of the revenue they take in. That equals about $70,000 a year. That number has increased three times from 2020 to 2024. So, they used to be paying $23,000 a year. Now they’re paying about $70,000 a year,” Wild said.
According to its calculations, insurance costs for the entire archdiocese in June of 2020 was $5.3 million. By June of 2024, it has soared to 15.7 million dollars. Wild outlined the increases by percentages.
“When you look at the cost from 2020-2021, 3% increase. From 2021 to 2022 a 42% increase. From 2022 to 2023 a 36% increase and then from 2023 to 2024, a 49% increase. When you add those up that only equals 130%, but you probably realize that’s not how math works. These are compounded on top of each other. So the actual cost increase from 2020 to 2024, this year is 295%, actually over 295%. In essence, about three times the amount of what a parish was paying in 2020,” said Wild.
To help cut its expenses, the archdiocese has sold some property like the old St. Jude Community Center on North Rampart Street. But that clearly won’t be enough.
Wild says more parishes will likely be merged or closed, and their ability to cover their property insurance will be a factor in those deliberations. The aim, says Wild, is to make sure surviving parishes can provide services and minister in their communities.
“So if there isn’t enough funding available for an individual parish to sponsor those types of activities, perhaps merging with another and combining parishes is a better solution. And it’s likely going to happen, certainly if the costs continue to increase, or even if they stay at this elevated level, it’ll be hard for us to sustain all of the parishes as they are,” said Wild.
While the Archdiocese of New Orleans substantially influences individual parishes, it has no control over their finances. Wild says each parish functions as an individual 501(c)(3) organization.
Their financial responsibilities, Wild said, are separate from the archdiocese. If a situation arises where a parish is struggling to pay an expense, such as an insurance premium, the archdiocese would not necessarily be responsible to bail out that parish.
“Under Canon Law they are separate institutions. They’re a separate organization and so, no, especially with the archdiocese being in bankruptcy, the archdiocese is unable to fund insurance or any other cost for the parishes. So, they’re on their own to fund those costs,” said Wild.
That was the case at the former Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church. When the Archdiocese of New Orleans published its list of parishes that were selected for closure/consultation in the fall of 2023, parish leaders at Our Lady Star of the Sea say they made a concerted effort to turn the church’s finances around. The seemingly ever-rising cost of property insurance made that difficult.
“Property insurance across the state has basically doubled. So, it did factor into the financial burden of the property of the church and trying to keep up with its normal expenses,” said Terese Poche.
It’s no secret the Catholic Church has lost substantial numbers over the years. Poche believes much of that has to do with sins committed by its rogue priests, clergy and the people who protected them. Poche says faithful followers are paying the price for those scandals.
“We aren’t the Catholic Church. And I think a lot of people have shied away from the church not due to the parishioner’s fault. It is really from different aspects within the Catholic Church itself that has made people move away from the church, including the scandals and different things that are going on in the church overall,” said Terese Poche.
Poche and other members of their old church are trying to appeal the decision which closed their parish. They do so with the understanding the chances of that changing are slim and more parishes may face the same reality. While Dirk Wild said more church closures or mergers could happen in the future, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has not indicated a timeline for such decisions.
“It’s painful progress, change often is. But I think it’s progress if we can actually move the ball forward and have more vibrant communities even if we have a smaller number of parishes,” said Dirk Wild.
“It is a sanctuary. It is a spiritual place. It is the house of God and the fact that you can close the house of God, the fact that you merge a house of God and you put the finances above the people, which is the mission of the catholic church, that’s a troubling aspect,” said Teresa Poche.
In Catholicism, God performs miracles. When it comes to Louisiana property insurance, many pray he delivers.
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