A Report of Stewardship within our Christian Community
Each year at this time, I write to provide you with additional information on your parish’s financial standing. The story has never been an easy one to tell. In recent years, the Cathedral of St. Raymond community has struggled to cover our expenses and we have failed to build any reserves to help us maintain our aging facilities.

While I can’t say we’ve completely overcome our financial troubles, I am heartened by some of our progress in the last year. Specifically:

• While we have good weeks and bad weeks with our Sunday collection, overall we average $19,952 per week. That is up from $17.848 from the prior year.
• Our cash flow problems were minimized with more consistent giving over the summer months.
• Our school families have increased their support of the parish.

I thank you for your role in our improved standing, but once again, I must respectfully ask you to again increase your support of St. Raymond.

While our numbers were better last year, we still had a shortfall in our Sunday collection budget that we must overcome. Moreover, in the next year, our Commons addition will open and with it will come higher utility bills.

On a spiritual level, stewardship is a necessity of belonging to a community. Simply put, if you belong to a community and use its services, you mist contribute to its upkeep. We have no other source of income besides our parishioners.

Enclosed is a financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005. Please take some time to study this data and decide how you can help. We are asking each family to increase their weekly contribution in both amount and frequency of giving. We need your contributions—it will make a difference.

St. Raymond’s has been a thriving parish since 1917 and with your help; we will continue our great tradition of service to Joliet for decades to come.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. James Burnett
October 23, 2005