At the start of the COVID crisis, all parishes (280) and ministries of the Archdiocese were shuttered as were many organizations and small businesses. The need for many services and ministries provided to their communities by various parishes did not cease with the closing of the churches and offices. Our employees live and work in the communities our parishes serve. The Archdiocese actively participated in the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans provided by the government to ensure that we continued to keep employees paid while parishioner contributions made during Mass, the main source of revenue for the parishes and ministries, was disrupted by the crisis.
We appreciate that this program was available for non-profits, including religious organizations.
Some of the facts:
- 302 parishes and schools, plus our Central Ministries offices, participated in the PPP loan program
- Certain parishes chose not to participate
- 3,300 parish and school employees work for those entities that applied for the PPP loan; 192 employees work in Central Ministries
- Parishes and schools received $31.7M in the aggregate.
- 257 loans were for parishes, totaling $15.9M, averaging $62K per entity
- 45 loans were for schools, totaling $15.8M, averaging $351K per entity.
- Central ministries received $3.1M
The Archdiocese of Boston is one of the very few Dioceses in the entire country that publicly discloses its full financial activity each year through audited Financial Statements. These have been made available to the public since fiscal year 2006. All PPP loan activity will be fully accounted for and disclosed with this activity when the annual financial statements are audited for this period.