With the increase in diocesan seminarians and rising costs of private Catholic college tuition, the Diocese of Little Rock is carefully studying how it will pay to educate diocesan seminarians in the future.
The Msgr. James. E. O’Connell Diocesan Seminarian Fund is currently adequate to pay for the tuition, room and board, stipends, health insurance and travel expenses for 29 seminarians, but the fund board is looking at starting new fundraising efforts to ensure the fund grows, said Greg Wolfe, diocesan finance director.
The fund has a total of $9.7 million in assets as of June 30, which is down $800,000 from the previous fiscal year. Of that $9.7 million, $5.7 million is unrestricted and available to use for seminarian education and vocation office expenses.
The remaining $4 million, which is restricted, are the original gifts made to the fund, sometimes referred to as the “seminarian burse fund. When St. John Home Missions Seminary was open from 1930 to 1967, families or groups set up “burses” to honor or memorialize someone. The practice continues today.
“The original gifts, which add up to almost $4 million, are accounted for in individual burses,” Wolfe said. “There are burses for various priests, deceased family members and Knights of Columbus councils.”
After the seminary closed in 1967, the fund continued to support diocesan seminarians who studied at colleges around the country and in Rome. When the numbers of seminarians remained low in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the fund had sufficient income.
Since the numbers of seminarians grew from 18 in 2006 to 29 in 2008, expenses for the Seminarian Fund have increased significantly. For the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the Vocations Office has budgeted $1,142,000 for seminarian and office expenses. The average cost of annual tuition at a seminary is $26,000, vocations director Msgr. Scott Friend said.
“But our revenue is about the same,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe said the Seminarian Fund Board has hired an actuary to provide an actuarial projection. The actuary has been asked to determine what the fund needs to be to educate 40 seminarians a year.
The board members are Msgr. Friend, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor, Msgr. Royce Thomas, Doug Menz and Richard Yada, both of Little Rock, and Dennis Berry of Austin.
“Even for the expenses we are budgeting for this year, I would estimate that we would need to more than double (the fund),” Wolfe said.
Once the actuarial report is presented in November, he said, “It is up to the corporation (board) what appropriate action to take for the fundraising.”
The revenue the fund is currently generating is not paying for its expenses, he said.
“We could probably go another five years (without doing fundraising and continuing to pay for expenses), but that is really not prudent,” Wolfe said. “It’s because we are planning that we are projecting … While there could be other options, the goal is to have the fund large enough where the earnings can cover the costs of the seminarians.”
In 2006 the corporation was officially renamed after Msgr. O’Connell, the longtime seminary rector.
“I believe he began the fund,” Wolfe said of Msgr. O’Connell. “I understand that it was started because there were men who couldn’t come to the seminary because they couldn’t afford it.”
Msgr. Friend said seminary education in the Diocese of Little Rock continues to be available free of charge to all qualified students, regardless of income. Families of seminarians studying in their first four years of college are asked to donate money to the Seminarian Fund if they can, but it is completely voluntary.
To help seminarians with their out-of-pocket expenses, such as gas and toiletries, the diocese gives $150 a month to each undergraduate pre-theology student and $250 a month to each theology student.
Donations to the fund have been decreasing over the years. The main source of funds has been from the estates of deceased individuals, Wolfe said. For the 2007-2008 fiscal year, the fund received $53,000 in donations.
“What we really need is for people to build that fund,” Msgr. Friend said. “Eventually we will be in a place where we can’t afford (the tuition). Very little of (the fund) helps pay for administrative costs.
“We are blessed in this diocese. The people of the diocese have been generous and we want it to go on this way. It’s an investment in the priesthood. It’s an investment in the Church.”
Donations to the Diocesan Seminarian Fund can be sent to the Finance Office, P.O. Box 7239, Little Rock, AR 72217.