St Mary's in Donnybrook, Dublin, was sold by the Discalced Carmelites to help maintain financial viability. 
Ireland’s religious orders are increasingly facing financial challenges, write Greg Daly, Chai Brady and Colm Fitzpatrick
The frantic call for funds to restore Notre Dame de Paris after the disastrous fire at the start of Holy Week will have baffled many, as will have done stories some months ago about how Ireland’s Diocese of Waterford and Lismore had to dip into reserves to pay out priestly stipends towards the end of last year. Isn’t the Church rich? How on earth could the Church not be able to pay for such things?
Of course, those more clued in to these things tend to realise firstly that even the Vatican has an annual turnover vastly less than, for example, UCD, and that the Church is best understood as a family of families or network of networks, rather than as a single coherent organisation. In a practical financial sense, there’s a case to be made that there is no such thing as ‘the Church’.
For all that, though, it’s possible to get a sense of financial realities facing today’s Church, and those interested in the future of Irish religious life could do worse than to look at Ireland’s Charities Regulator, where headline figures for scores upon scores of orders, congregations and communities can be examined.
Bleak
At face value, the picture they present is bleak: looking at the figures for the financial years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 it seems that there wasn’t even one priestly order in the country that broke even consistently year upon year, while not one province of Ireland’s Sisters of Mercy or Presentation Sisters received more money than it spent between 2015 and 2017.
It’s not a situation that is sustainable, says Fr Martin Kelly, whose Spiritan Province almost broke even in 2017, after two years where it spent more than two and three million more than it received. “What we’re living off is shares and bank loans,” he says, adding that the situation cannot continue indefinitely. “We’re talking about a matter of years, single-figure years,” he says. “Care for the elderly is one of the main expenses. But also we have care for missionaries overseas, and we have also works in Ireland.”
While income can fluctuate depending on bequests and profits from sales of property, Augustinian Provincial Fr John Hennebry agrees that the current situation is not sustainable. “At the moment there is a need to withdraw from reserves to balance the books each year. That’s my point: for any charity, any business, or any family that’s not sustainable,” he says.
While the Augustinians are currently in the process of selling land in Ballyboden, south Dublin, and are looking into how they might continue their ministry in a changing Ireland at the moment, Fr Hennebry says, the challenge is to maintain existing ministries and commitments in Ireland and abroad, while the aging profile of the province takes its own toll on the order’s purse.
“We try to maintain, obviously, our present ministries – we have commitments both here in Ireland and overseas, and we’re anxious to respect them. I suppose a new feature on the landscape is healthcare, but that is in many ways probably replacing former expenditure on formation, so while I wasn’t provincial at that time I suppose there must be a certain balancing out of those two,” he says.
“But then we are also committed to assisting developing provinces in that area of formation as well. I would say that certain of the other provinces are richer in personnel and poorer in financial resources,” he continues. “We assist whenever we are able and wherever we can.”
While administrative costs are a new expense which the order has to grapple with, Fr Hennebry says that cutbacks aren’t especially on the agenda since individual communities and the province as a whole tend generally to be diligent and prudent with their expenses.
Fr Joe Bulman, Provincial Bursar of Ireland’s Dominicans, who have in recent years sometimes spent a third again as much as they have received, says there’s only so much that that kind of prudence can achieve.
“Well, basically what you do is you have to make cutbacks, though there’s only so much you’re able to cut back on, and then after that you have no choice but to dip into the reserves,” he says, adding that this situation is for all that not very sustainable.
“It won’t be long before very serious questions have to be asked,” he says, adding that the Dominicans’ biggest expenses are formation and healthcare.
“It’s the younger men coming in and looking after the older men,” he says, noting too that as well as domestic missions the Irish province supports men in India, Trinidad, and South America, as well as contributing to subsidise the order’s work as a whole including through the ‘Angelicum’, its pontifical university in Rome. “We pay taxation to the Generalate, and they pay from there,” he says, adding that Ireland is one of the provinces that contributes most to the order’s total funds. “I think we’re number six on the list at the moment,” he says.
With the closures of the Dominican communities in Athy and Limerick and struggles around an attempted closure in Drogheda having hit headlines in recent years, an obvious question is whether cost is a factor in these decisions.
“It is, but cost is a very minor consideration,” he says. “It has to be on the list obviously, but closure has to do more with manpower and focusing our abilities.”
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Only last week Ireland’s Franciscans announced that they would be withdrawing their community from Waterford, and Fr Aidan McGrath, the order’s provincial in Ireland, says this is similarly a question of manpower rather than costs, though he says that the financial situation for the friars in Ireland is precarious.
“My bottom line is it’s not sustainable in the long term, but in the medium term it’s something that has to be done because things are being put in place, planning for the future, where you have a lot of older men, and men with particular needs,” he says, adding that when it comes to nest eggs having been put aside, “the hen is laying”.
Admitting that this shorthand take is crude, he nonetheless says the reality is stark, and that today’s Franciscans are now reliant on the actions of their forerunners. “I suppose the prudence of previous generations is now bearing fruit,” he says, pointing out that the order has costs both at home and abroad. “We have huge responsibilities here in Ireland, but also for example we have to sustain an entire mission in Zimbabwe, and there’s absolutely no saving there,” he says, adding that with high inflation in Zimbabwe, it’s impossible to make savings in Ireland on the scale necessary to generate necessary funds for the African mission.
“Everything goes up about 200% per week, so what you’d save here would be nothing by comparison with what’s spent out there. All of those things are all taking a toll,” he says, adding that the domestic costs for healthcare and converting houses so they are suitable for elderly men is taking a toll at home. “It’s not really unforeseen but as life goes on, what was tolerable 40 years ago is no longer tolerable,” he says.
Caring for elderly community members is a pressing priority nowadays, and according to Sr Elisabeth Healy, Congregation Prioress of the Dominican Sisters Cabra, that at least is guaranteed.
“I can assure you that we do have a system in place to ensure that our elderly and frail sisters are looked after,” she said, while Sr Rita Minehan, a member of the Brigidine Sisters’ leadership team says a curious challenge for Ireland’s aging orders can be what to do with resources when aging provinces no longer need them due to declining numbers.
Property
“We would still be okay asset-wise, with property and things like that. We don’t have that immediate worry like some of the orders probably might have, because we’re also looking at what we’re leaving behind, our legacy to the future,” she says.
In a sense, the challenge of how to pass on what the order has is about maintaining a mission focus to the end.
“Even if we can’t be out there in the field, we would be supporting others who can be, who will be, into the future,” she says. “That would be our hope, while we need to care for our elderly sisters, we’re all quite elderly now, but at the same time that the focus would remain on mission.”
One example of this, she says, is how the order gave its convent school at Mountrath in Co. Laois to the local community. “It’s a resurrection moment for Mountrath in the sense of the future potential of the building and how the community group are running with it,” she says, adding that the order has also built a new spirituality centre in Kildare town, and donates to Focus Ireland and the Society of St Vincent de Paul, since housing is one of the “urgent needs of our time”, she says.
“We have gifted quite a bit and we’ll continue as long as we can to do that kind of thing into the future, while at the same time we have to make sure we have enough that we don’t become a burden on the State, for the future,” she adds, noting too that while some of the sisters, though aging, are still directly involved in ministry, the real challenge now is looking to the future, and “leaving a legacy”.
“We would also be very conscious of where we have ministered overseas and of helping those missions as well, and also where we haven’t been that are appealing for help – we would be very conscious of that in the developing world,” she says, expressing the view that while the sisters’ model of religious life is approaching its end, she is hopeful of new forms of lay ministry emerging, possibly drawing its inspiration for the early Irish Church.
The inspiration of Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation Sisters, remains a guiding light for the sisters today, according to Sr Sheila Kelleher, Provincial Leader of the order’s South West Province. She says being financially sustainable into the future will be vital if the order is to live out its charism through spirituality, education, and parish and a range of other ministries, including the iScoil learning community, the Lantern Project, and the Cork Migrants Centre.
“The charity’s investments are pooled centrally and invested at Central Leadership level, to maximise total return through diversified portfolios, whilst providing an adequate level of income for the day to day running of the unit,” she says, adding that the sisters’ investment strategy sets them up well for the future.
“We believe that this strategy will contribute greatly to economic sustainability into the future and enable us, with the employment and support of lay people, to continue the mission of Nano,” she says, explaining that the province’s income is mainly generated through return on investments, salaries and the sisters’ pensions.
Against this, she says, building costs remain high and some larger convents are being sold to reduce maintenance costs, while administrative and care costs continue to increase. “Care of an ageing Unit is a significant expenditure. Currently 16 very elderly sisters who need ongoing care are in nursing homes.”
Despite an aging membership and rising costs, the order remains active in various ways, Sr Sheila stresses, adding that “reasonable and prudent” decisions need to be made around managing finances.
“Proceeds, if any, from disposal of property, are set aside for care of the sisters and continuation of our ministries into the future,” she says, adding that the order tries to match its reserves to its needs. “Rationalising the running costs of community living is ongoing through economies of scale, increased efficiencies, moving out of large buildings to smaller houses and investment in sustainable energy sources.”
Pointing out that the order has donated a number of properties to house homeless and other needy people, and that this is ongoing, she says “we are constantly evaluating our ministries and properties to determine if they continue to serve the mission of our congregation”.
Teaching brothers were once another omnipresent feature of Ireland’s religious landscape, and though they are in decline their bald financial figures do not always make this clear, with occasional spectacular jumps in income and expenditure, such that it can be hard to spot the pattern.
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According to Bro. Edmund Garvey, provincial leader of the Irish section of the Congregation of Christian Brothers European Province, this can be explained by sales of properties, included in the accounts at historic cost value.
“The balance sheet will be low, but on those occasions when we sell a property, a big income item appears in your statement,” he says, pointing to a large one-off income of over €20 million in 2015. “Those properties sales were done to fund a big expense in 2016, and what that was, was the voluntary contribution we were making to Department of Education for contribution to the Residential Institution Statutory fund.” This will be completed in May, so those spikes will not be experienced again. “That will be one big expense we will not have to meet,” he says.
At the same time, he adds, the order is still struggling financially.
“The funding of our annual deficits is a pressing matter for the trustees, they’re meeting regularly and they’re consulting with advisors,” he continues. “That’s looking at our property, our property needs as we having an aging membership into the future and can our investment sustain us into the future? So, what’s happening is the investments that we have, the income, that income sustains the charities.”
With investment incomes being drawn down alongside occasional property sales the order keeps going, such that “there are sufficient resources to continue the charitable objectives of the order into the long term”, he says, adding that almost all resources expended are on charitable activities.
“We’re running institutional ministries, supporting the brothers, and where possible supporting the Christian Brothers’ mission throughout the world,” he says, adding: “At present, particularly in relation to the overall question, we are sustainable and will meet our historical liabilities and commitments. And we are trying to position ourselves in such a way that we can meet all of our home needs but increasingly contribute to developing parts of the congregation. We see real possibilities for that.”
Drawing down on reserves is vital for continuing the Presentation Brothers’ focus on charitable activities, especially education, according to Bro. Raymond Dwyer, Provincial Leader of the order’s Anglo-Irish Province.
“We operate on a deficit budget each year and are required to draw on our financial reserves to meet our operating and charitable expenditure – our charitable activities are such that they do not generate sustainable revenues,” he says.
Explaining that many members of the order give their services for free in various ministries, he says supporting elderly and overseas brothers is vital.
“We also support our men in their work in Africa who have little or no means of support locally. In addition, we a have a need to care for members of the Order who have donated all their adult life to the furtherance of our charitable objectives.
“Many are now in retirement with little or no personal income,” he says, adding the order is “acutely aware” of the need to manage its finances carefully in the future.
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The resources of the De La Salle Brothers in Ireland are being “ploughed back into schools and also into pastoral centres”, according Provincial Leader Bro. Laurence Hughes, who is “very confident” about the order’s sustainability.
“All the money that we make, what we’ve always done in the religious order is to plough it back into the actual mission itself – that’s how we can sustain it,” he says, adding that a key part of the order’s work going forward will be working with lay people – Le Sallian Partners – who work in the orders schools and administration.
“We just had our chapter a week ago in Ireland, we actually had our Le Sallian partners working with us in the chapter itself which is unusual, because normally a chapter is just for the religious but we’ve included them because of the amount of work that they do obviously running schools, headteachers etc.,” he says.
Stressing that the order is an international one, he says this helps to make it sustainable. “The Lasallian mission wouldn’t go under in any one country in the world without help from the mother house,” he says. “So, if the desire of the mother house, the Superior General, is that this particular country requires to carry on the Lasallian mission then monies will be found to make sure that happens.”
Ireland’s Columban Fathers are already in a position of relying on international support, according to Provincial Fr Ray Husband.
“Well, the thing is a lot of our income recently is depending on bequests, and then as a region – before we were the ones that were sending money out to our various missions, but that has changed now in recent years and we rely on income from general headquarters in Hong Kong. They would provide some budget for us,” he says.
The main expenses for the province are the upkeep of its Irish headquarters and nursing home at Dalgan Park in Co. Meath.
“The two big drains would be the upkeep of Dalgan itself and then our nursing home facilities,” he says. “We have a very, very elderly congregation now, very, very elderly men, but I wouldn’t want to paint a bad picture either – people are still sending us money and it goes specifically to our missions and our priests who work abroad. We facilitate that.”
Irish people, he stresses, are “very generous”, and continue to enable the work of the province in such countries as Pakistan and Myanmar. “Because people respond very generously thank God we are able to send money out there, but the running costs are high,” he says.
Fr Michael McGoldrick, Provincial of Ireland’s Discalced Carmelites, said while the headline figures gloss over how some parts of the province can be financially sustainable, there are real problems that have needed to be tackled through the sale of property.
“We had to sell a properly two years ago – we were advised to sell a property because we were heading for, basically, bankruptcy if we didn’t. Our accountant said – this is going back, what, three years ago now – to me, you’ve got to sell something because you’re eating into your reserves at such a serious rate there will be nothing in eight or nine years.”
The sale of the St Mary’s building in Donnybrook hasn’t addressed the longer-term difficulties, but it has made things more manageable, he says. “That hasn’t fully solved the problem, but we’re certainly much nearer to being financially viable. The future’s going to be quite problematic in the sense that donations are going down, and expenses are going up, particularly medical expenses.”
Supporting the province’s mission in Nigeria to the tune of over €200,000 a year is a huge cost, he says. “It’s our responsibility until such time – which I don’t anticipate happening for a long, long time to come – as them becoming independent. If anything the amount of money needed to go out is going up, because they’ve increasing numbers in formation.”
Medical costs need to be factored in too, he says, both in Nigeria and in Ireland where nursing home care is very expensive, but it is essential, he maintains.
At the same time, he says, these financial challenges shouldn’t always be seen as bad things.
“We’re just going to be a poorer Church, and that’s not a bad thing. I’ve never thought that was a bad thing. I wouldn’t say we’ll be on our knees, that would be exaggerating, but things will be very tight and that’s not a bad thing. We’ve a vow of poverty, and if we have to live it a bit more seriously that’s not a bad thing.”
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