A FALL in church collections for the Dublin diocesan development fund could create "serious problems" if the trend continues, the Archbishop, Dr Desmond Connell, has warned.
Diocesan returns for 1995-1996 show a 5 per cent drop in collections for the SHARE fund from £3.75 million to £3.55 million and Dr Connell has asked people to increase their contributions by 10 per cent to assist the building and refurbishing of churches in poorer parishes.
Should the decrease continue it would create "serious problems for the diocese and for the present level of pastoral care", he said.
In a letter to be read at Masses this weekend, the Archbishop refers to recent church refurbishments in the archdiocese. A substantial programme of repair and restoration work is planned on more of the older churches during the next few years.
Last year, Dr Connell established a pastoral services fund from SHARE to help pay for pastoral services in the archdiocese.
In his letter, the Archbishop will tell parishioners: "There are many parishes in our diocese which suffer from high unemployment and deprivation despite the overall improvement in the economy. These parishes need help and depend on your support of the SHARE collection each week."
Diocesan returns for 1995-1996 show a 1 per cent increase of £85,000 in the contributions for the support of priests.
Overall, diocesan income was £25.490 million, about 50p per week for each person in the Archdiocese. This represented a 1.3 per cent decrease on last year's baseline figure of £25.833 million when a one off collection for Rwanda in 1994-1995 was discounted.
Expenditure meanwhile dropped slightly by 0.5 per cent to £25.797 million.
Mr Ray Hogan, of the Diocesan Finance Secretariat, said that in the past year the Dublin archdiocese had contributed £1.4 million towards the maintenance of its primary schools, in addition to £200,000 towards building costs.
The archdiocese was showing a strong commitment to heritage and conservation in the refurbishment of churches, he said.