Leftovers

I was in the Lay Institute last night for my usual lecture and, as I had arrived later, I was brought to see a room containing what was left over from World Youth Day (JMJ). As you can imagine, huge preparations were made, and a lot of "stuff" had to be prepared. A certain amount of this stuff was not used or will no longer be used and so, from the Diocesan Curia, they are attempting to sell as much of it as they can to help to defray the costs of the event.

In fairness to the people involved, most things are being sold at cost price - this is more about decreasing the loss than about making a profit. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the numbers that attended JMJ were huge - but a great many of those who attended didn't officially register meaning that the organisers didn't receive the income they had been counting on that would have come from the registration fees. This means that the costs incurred in preparing for the event were not offset by the income and, as we all know, when you spend more than you actually have, that is called debt.

In many ways this situation is reminiscent of the Irish experience after the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979. After this visit it took quite a long time to pay the costs associated with it - may people (you may recall) debated whether all of the costs had been strictly necessary but, I suppose, the answer to that question probably depends on which side of the fence you are standing.

The room that I was brought to last night is already half empty. Parishes have taken advantage of the opportunity to replenish things like vestments, albs, sacred vessels, and altar linen - all of which have a relatively short life span, due to the climate which is extremely hot and humid. Computers that were bought for the event are also being sold off (although, as was pointed out to me, without any guarantee), as are printers, t-shirts, umbrellas, hats, confessionals, as well as a large amount of bags of food (this, non-perishable, food was what was given to thos registered so that they would have food to snack with, or even make a basic lunch).

Will they sell it all? Probably not.
Will this be sufficient to pay off all the money that needs to be paid? Certainly not.
But this is the beginning of a process and, I am pretty sure, they will get there before too long - in the meantime the room still needs to be cleared: it will be used for catechesis, meetings of the clergy, and other things as the year progresses and the normal rhythm of things (without JMJ looming on the horizon) reasserts itself.