The national collection for the Retirement Fund for Religious takes place Dec. 11-12, giving Catholics in the Diocese of Helena an opportunity to share in the care of senior religious.

The collection coordinated by the National Religious Retirement Office in Washington, D.C., provides financial support for day-to-day care of thousands of elderly Catholic sisters, brothers and religious- order priests.

The 2009 collection brought about $28 million, $33,971 of it from the Diocese of Helena. Uses of that money include nursing support and purchase of prescription medications.

Many religious who serve or previously served in the Diocese of Helena, but whose institutes are headquartered elsewhere, may benefit from the Retirement Fund for Religious, said Sister Janice Bader, executive director of the National Religious Retirement Office and a member of the Missouri-based Sisters of the Most Precious Blood.

Since 1988, Catholics in the United States have donated $617 million to the fund. Nearly 95 cents of every dollar contributed is used to aid senior religious, Sister Bader said.

Support has been generous, but even so, many religious communities lack sufficient resources for retirement and elder care, she said. Of 573 communities that submitted data to the National Religious Retirement Office in 2009, fewer than 7 percent were fully funded for retirement, Sister Bader said.

Wage-earning religious are a source of money to assist the retired, but as the number of women and men in compensated religious vocations declines, so does that retirement support, she said.

“Census projections indicate that by 2019, religious past age 70 will outnumber those under 70 by nearly four to one,” Sister Bader said. “We want to do everything possible to help religious communities prepare for the dramatic income reduction that will accompany this demographic shift.”


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 11, November 19, 2010.