The 40% Solution applied

Last year at a meeting at St. Al's, our pastor explained how we could get our Sunday Mass attendance percentage up to around 40% by purging about 40% of the members off the parish rolls. (At least, that's one thing I took away from the meeting, see The 40% solution.) Some months back this process began with an announcement that remaining a member of the parish would require re-registering, see There went out a decree that the whole parish should be re-enrolled.

The (print-only) minutes of the September 4, 2008 parish council meeting announced the success of the program.

4. Pastor's remarks
  b. Re-registration
    i. 1,200 forms not returned

Last we were told, there were 2,915 registered households in the parish, see Reality Check: Some Little Known Parish Facts! A reduction of 1,200 to 1,715 is about a 41% reduction. The 2006-07 District 16 Planning Commission Report showed 8,937 parish members. The percentage reduction would take that down to 5,258. The 2,249 Sunday Mass attendance percentage then goes from 25% to 43%.

The least worrisome explanation of the reduction is that people who left the parish for other parishes were left on the rolls. If our parish's record-keeping is typical of all parishes, then the 700,000 or so members claimed for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee would really be more like 400,000. If so, many Archdiocesan percentages will also be improved considerably.

At our parish, this reduction might involve a bit of an overshoot. The little-known parish facts included that 1,921 parish households contributed money, and it looks like the re-registered parish is about 200 fewer households than that. The Pastor's Remarks continue,

    ii. Persons who have been contributing but have not registered will be contacted via phone tree.

Presumably to be told to either fill out the form or stop sending those checks.