Helping retired religious

Richard A. Sokerka

All of us who grew up as a student in Catholic schools or a parish religious education program, have a soft spot in our hearts for the religious who taught us not only academic subjects but also formed our faith in the Catholic Church. And we all have great memories of those days gone by.

For myself, the memories that flood back to me are of the Dominican Sisters of Newburgh at the former St. Mary School in Passaic, the former Pope Pius XII High School in Passaic and the Congregation of the Holy Cross Fathers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

If not for their dedicated service to the Church and its youngest members, how strong would our Catholic faith be at this point in our lives?

Now in their later years, those same religious are the ones looking to us for help. Each year, hundreds of U.S religious communities receive financial assistance made possible by the Retirement Fund for Reli­gious. Communities can use this funding for immediate retirement expenses or invest it for future needs.

Our support for the Retirement Fund for Religious also helps religious communities care for senior members while continuing important ministries to the people of God.

As youngsters growing up, we never knew that the religious worked for little to no pay and no pension or that religious communities were financially responsible for the support and care of all members, separately from the parish and diocesan structures of the Church.

The situation today is that only 5 percent of the religious communities are adequately funded for retirement and many small communities struggle to care for elder members due to a lack of financial resources and personnel. Moreover, the average annual Social Security benefit for a religious is $6,843, whereas the average U.S. beneficiary receives $18,034.

Today, religious past age 70 outnumber religious under age 70 by nearly three to one. There are 28,418 religious past age 70 living in the United States. In 2019, the average annual cost for their care was roughly $47,000 per person; skilled care averaged $72,000 per person.

Those numbers are real eye-openers That’s why it is important for us to remember those religious who guided us in our faith and formation so long ago and be as generous as we can this weekend when the collection for Retirement Fund for Religious is taken up Dec. 12–13 at all parishes in the Diocese.