Annual collection helps religious communities address retirement shortfall

The annual retirement fund for religious collection will be held Dec. 7-8 in the Diocese of Corpus Christi. Now in its 26th year, the National Religious Retirement Office (NRRO) in Washington, D.C. coordinates the collection that benefits more than 34,000 senior Catholic sisters, brothers and religious order priests.

Last year, the Diocese of Corpus Christi contributed $65,316.74 to this collection. In 2013, the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, Missionary Daughters of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, Religious Missionaries of St. Dominic Inc. and the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary received a combined total of $75,482.58 in financial support made possible by the Retirement Fund for Religious. Additionally, women and men religious who serve or have served in the diocese but whose communities are based elsewhere may benefit from the annual appeal.

The 2012 appeal raised $27 million and enabled the NRRO to distribute $23 million to 440 religious communities throughout the country. Communities utilize these funds to bolster retirement savings and to subsidize such day-to-day expenses as prescription medications and nursing care.

Despite the generosity to the collection, numerous religious communities struggle to provide adequate care. In the past, Catholic sisters, brothers, and religious order priests—known collectively as women and men religious—served for small stipends that did not include retirement benefits. Their sacrifices now leave their religious communities without adequate savings for retirement. Of 548 communities submitting data to the NRRO in 2012, only eight percent were fully funded for retirement.

At the same time, the number of religious needing care is on the rise. In 2012, 61 percent of the religious communities providing data to the NRRO had a median age of 75 or older. Accompanying the higher median age is a decrease in the number of religious able to serve in compensated ministry. By 2023, the NRRO projects that retired religious will outnumber wage-earning religious by four to one.
Visit www.retiredreligious.org to learn more.