Message from Monsignor René Mathieu (1) Much of the Saint André Church block, including the church/former Catholic Center/rectory, was scheduled to be sold on July 30. St. André Housing (the former school) is also to be sold next fall by the Diocese of Portland as part of this overall transaction. While the sale was revealed publicly by other interested parties a few weeks ago, I was reluctant to react until everything was in place; I had been disappointed in the past regarding the proposed sale of properties followed by last-minute cancellations. The good news here is that this sale can provide welcome development in the neighborhood that originally supported the church property for over 100 years. My prayer is that plans of the developers will add to the quality of wellbeing in that neighborhood. The chal-lenge for the parish is as follows: the sale price was $300,000 for the parish (before commission), far below the original asking price of $1,249,000. I am not surprised by the difference considering how much money will be needed to develop the prop-erty. But the proceeds of this sale confirm what I have suspected for some time, that the original cluster plan based on estimated sale prices of properties will never pro-duce the dollar amounts initially expected. We will therefore need to revisit the clus-ter plan as our vacant buildings are eventually sold. Related to this matter is the na-ture of the money received from the sale of church properties. These funds are re-stricted for certain uses and I will dedicate another weekend (when there is sufficient space in the bulletin) to explain the matter because it is a complicated matter and I want to provide a full and clear explanation. Meanwhile, this important transaction will lower the amount of money needed from the parish offertory to insure and main-tain empty and unused buildings -- and that is a good thing for us, and ultimately an important goal, as we move forward. (2) The sound system at Most Holy Trinity Church has been a source of continuing frustration due to problems with micro-phones, receivers and amps. The system may have reached the end of its useful life, so we will be seeking proposals for a new system. I appreciate your patience in this matter. Meanwhile, new heating/air conditioning units for the church are on order. Installation should take place in August. (3) Good Shepherd Parish Seafood Raffle tickets remain on sale after Mass. Tickets are $1 each or six for $5. The grand prize is $300 worth of seafood. Other prizes are described later in the bulletin. Don’t wait till the last minute! The drawing will take place in 2 weeks, on August 16. (4) This summer, some of our junior high and high school youth have been joining together for various activities. To date, they have had a movie night, a “girls night” that in-cluded baking, a movie and a sleepover; they helped raise money for youth programs by selling their baked goods at the parish yard sale. A group of young men spent an afternoon playing disc golf in Saco and went out for pizza afterward. Upcoming events include a hike up Mt. Agamenticus in York on August 16 with Fr. Dickinson. More information is available online at the parish website or you can call the parish office. Youth visiting us for the summer are also welcome. (5) Thank You of the Week: To parishioners who faithfully perform the tedious task of counting the week-end offertory week after week. Thank you!
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:15:07 +0000
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