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Fr. Dan McMullin is not through his first year at Cornell, yet he has already brought about something we students have only dreamed of: firing Phil Fiadino and Theresa Miller — both lay “chaplains” –from the Chaplaincy’s staff. His motives, however, were presumably not to eradicate heresy nor to end the confusion of having laymen acting as “chaplains” in violation of an oft-neglected Doctrinal Note. Father Daniel is, rather, facing up to economic reality: despite an Ivy League alumni base, the Cornell Catholic Community is going broke.
I’ll lay out the numbers, helpfully provided by Fr. Daniel’s Musings column from February 8th. The CCC projected expenditures of $413, 000 year versus income of $365, 000 — a $48,000, or 9%, deficit. Their income breakdown is as follows: $105,000 from interest (implying an endowment of at least $1.5-2 million), $50,000 in Sunday collections, and $155,000 from two appeals to alumni. The rest comes from unsolicited gifts.
The most sigificant cost is $300,000 for staff, or about $50,000 per employee in salary and benefits. We expect, then, that cutting both Phil and Theresa will cover the gap and then some. But how pathetic is it that they cannot raise more money than this from alumni? Pathetic, but unsurprising: who wants to contribute to a liberal and pointless chaplaincy that lacks vigor, orthodoxy, or a truly distinctive mission? Little that the CCC does is not done better by others, including by lightly-funded Catholic student groups. And the cutting of two chaplains signals something other than optimism: they clearly do not see themselves pulling out of this particular death spiral soon. Nor will they until they actually stop whoring after some phony notion of secular relevance and get down to the business of preaching the Gospel.
Removing Theresa is the most obvious move, for though many of us would sooner have seen Sr. Donna go, Fr. Dan must retain some notion of respect for the Religious, even in their most denuded state. Theresa’s attention to the Cornell liturgical and musical life will not be missed by any who are attached to truly Catholic worship, but she was the only member of the chaplaincy who seemed to think it worthwhile to argue points with annoyed students by citing official Church documents, albeit in a scattershot way. Nor will many regret the departure of her modest skill in illicit lay homiletics: imprinted in my mind is her decision to sing an emotive song in lieu of a homily on one of the Sundays assigned to her. We wish her well, and hope she will find some job that does not involve crafting liturgies or making new felt banners.
The ouster of Phil Fiadino, on the other hand, is more surprising. The most enterprising and truly liberal — in both the antique and modern senses of that overburdened word — of the chaplains, his work as “chaplain” most closely resembles a true “ministry” of sorts. Don’t get me wrong. Phil is not a particular friend of orthodoxy, nor do I think such men as he — non-ordained, freelance, hyper-tolerant, loosey-liberal semi-intellectuals — should be encouraged as a model for chaplaincy service. But if you’re going to have a goofy, ineffectual, Truth-denying Peace-and-Justice chaplaincy, then Phil is your man! An old hand at weaving the seamless garment and protesting the Industrial-Military complex, far along the so-called Path to Pacifism as espoused by such great minds as Bishop Gumbleton, Phil is currently even playing informal sponsor to the newly-formed Cornell Interfaith Socialist Alliance. Yet the man can get along with just about anybody, illicitly preaches with far more skill and flair than any of his peers, and has even found common ground, as it were, with our august Society on issues like traditional music and high liturgical form, which he favors, albeit in his slightly eccentric, overthinking liturgist-y, middle-aged-man-carrying-an-incence-pot kind of way. Corrupter of minds and souls or no, he will be missed.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
WOW! And Fr.McMullin wasted NO time evacuating their pics and bios from the Staff webpage. And check out the new pic of McMullin wearing his Roman collar and looking very Catholic.
Looks can be decieving.
Beware!
http://www.curw.cornell.edu/catholic/staff.html
I’d rather have seen a son of Levi with brandished sword chasing them around the sanctuary. Still, if they had to go, I guess this way will work.
My mistake! Their photos and bios are still there but their photos look different than those posted on this blog.
Your encomium of Mr Fiadino was brilliant, Ambrosius!
I’ve noticed maybe last year or something that the salaries seemed to average way…way too high.
That’s a bunch of bologne a lay psuedo chaplain in the CCC racking in an average of $50,000.
I hope other people thought the same thing. The average income for upstate professionals is much lower than the rest of the country, too; so comparably those are some high paid people.
But, johnboy, surely a young professional like yourself realizes that upwards of 25% of staff costs go to such things as health care and social security tax payment — that 50 grand isn’t a take-home salary figure!
Well, as a parent and potential contributor to the CCC, when I’d get the v.e.r.y. obfuscatory newsletter which was really asking for donations, I’d always wish there’d be a letters to the editor section so I could explain WHY I wouldn’t be sending one penny to the CCC! and likewise, how they could indeed get folks like me — moms who think that a Catholic should believe the Creed - to contribute. Hint — help the student recognize the narrow path . . . Holy Mother Church. There isn’t a way, as Julia in Brideshead Revisted explains to Charles, that one can “set up a rival good to God’s.”
I must make another comment about Fr. McMullin’s photo on the CCC Staff webpage. I think that photo is very old or McMullin is using heavy doses of Grecian formula for men’s hair or someone is working magic with photoshop.
When potential $$$ donors check out the webpage they’ll see a younger looking priest and be possibly motivated to give a little extra. Image. Image Image.
Ambrosius,
Single Health care costs: $200/month ~$2400/year
Social Security: 6% ~ $3000/year
That is roughly 11%.
Average household income (not take home pay) is $37,272 for Tompkins County!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would also wager that the average parish priest upstate probably makes around $30,000 (not take home pay) at most…..
This was a shocker. While Theresa’s liturgical violations were enough to make one question whether or not they were attending a Catholic Mass, I’d have much rather seen Sr. Donna depart. I truly believe Theresa thought that what she was doing was in line with canon law, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. On the other hand, Sr. Donna seems to know better, and is doing what she does in spite of it.
But things might be changing under Fr. Dan. Publicly announcing that it’s OK to kneel during the consecration in addition to seemingly putting an end to lay chaplains preaching the homily (I haven’t seen this since the middle of the fall semester) are all very encouraging signs.
Were the two actualy fired? I just looked at the web site and their pictures are still there.
Fr. Mc Mullen is making some good changes to the liturgy since the beginning of the academic year: no more lay people delivering the homily and there is a crucifix on the altar.
I read his request for funds in last Sunday’s bulliten. I think more money will start coming in as the CCC moves away from the liturgical abuses that have developed over recent years.
I think we should give Fr. McMullen some credit…things are getting better at Cornell.
johnboy,
Sorry, but social security costs 15%, and health care for young un’s may be $2400 / year, but not for oldish fogies.
I stand by my estimate of 25%.
eod6,
what the heck? obviously they have to let them finish their contracts … they won’t be “fired” till Fall 2006.
And if you think Fr. McMullin is orthodox, well … I also have a beach resort in Rochester for sale!
Anonymous Ladies and Gentlemen, this firing has nothing to do with the merits of Fr. Daniel McMullin. Though I’m most happy to hear that he finally agreed to step in line with the long standing liturgical directives of the Apostolic See regarding lay preaching, he himself certainly did not eject Theresa and Phil because they were unsuitable to his new, conservative program.
Come on, you people don’t seriously think this.
Even if they become slightly more “conservative” in their liturgies, this won’t mean beans for the Chaplaincy. So they’ll get a few more dollars in the plate. Who cares. What they need are students who are involved, who care, and who care because what is at stake is the salvation of souls and the Faith, not the latest peace and social justice program.
The fact that it has come down to simple cash flow for these people is the most telling of all. And this isn’t the first time that they’ve had to make cuts. They used to be able to support a music director and an “intern” - and this “intern” was still around during my first year here. They’ve slowly cut away what they had to, and now it has gotten so bad that they had to cut Phil and Theresa.
If everything goes according to plan, they will have to continue downsizing until they downsize themselves out of existence - which is one of the aims of the Cornell Society for a Good Time. Because the non-existence of the Cornell Catholic Chaplaincy would do far more good for souls than its current existence, since they teach heresy, practice disobedience, deceive souls, foster indifferentism, foment dissent, and breathe, in everything they do, modernism.
As far as I understand:
Your social security estimate doesn’t match my paychecks…………
Health insurance: Single ~205/month. Family ~500/month.
Those two were not old fogies and they didn’t have families!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey in any case the point was hardly about social security/health ins.
It was the Salary (which is pre everything and that’s what I thought)…
Only thing that I think I did not consider is unemployment insurance (which is not taken out of one’s salary…).
$50,000 is A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it is perhaps quixotic of me to continue arguing this, but your paycheck simply does not reflect the reality of the social security tax. Only the self-employed see the whole tax themselves! Your paycheck shows a modest social security withholding because whoever is paying you is also paying a form of payroll tax, also into social security, which they don’t tell you about and which does not appear anywhere on your paycheck.
Also, we don’t know if these so-called chaplains are getting the full pay — maybe the fundraising lady gets a lot of dough and the chaplains don’t. I don’t know. Anyway, the point of the post wasn’t to be in awe of the sweet deal these guys had.
Sorry!
It does show, however, how much more expensive it is to pay “lay” chaplains, for services that in the past would have been performed by religious brothers and sisters at a fraction of the cost.
In a properly ordered Catholic culture, a diocese the size of Rochester would probably need about 10,000 religious to run the schools, hospitals, and ecclesial offices.
Joe and Jane laity would then have to go back to the pews and stay seated. And, go back home and start having Catholic babies, lots of them.
I wish both departing staffers well; it is my hope that they end up in the private sector instead of the ecclesiastical.
“until they downsize themselves out of existence”
Hmmm. Fr. Dan is 51 years old. It is likely he will be chaplain at CC for at least another 6+ years. You can just about bet he will slice and dice things well enough to continue taking his little vacation/trips 3-4 times a year for that 6+ year duration. Then what will happen? A sabatical? Followed by just one more 7 year span in another unsuspecting host parish. And then retirement. Isn’t that a strange existence considering this?
“since they teach heresy, practice disobedience, deceive souls, foster indifferentism, foment dissent, and breathe, in everything they do, modernism”
‘They’ of course being chaplains like Fr. McMullin. Fr. McMullin and the kind need to stop living a dual life. Stop raking the land of for self-profit.
As a Cornell Grad Alumni ‘01, I remember all the liturgical abomination we had to endure. Glad to know it might be changing.
What a waste it has been all this time.