Paycheck Protection Program ‘helped bridge the gap’ allowing parishes to adapt, employees say

In mid-March, an eerie quiet settled over parishes in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

As Maryland Catholics entered those uncertain and frightening early days of the coronavirus pandemic, pews sat empty as public Masses were suspended, almost all events were canceled and Catholic school students traded their campuses for their homes.

Meanwhile, the work of the local parishes continued and in some cases expanded as the economic fallout of the pandemic became clear. One problem was that parishes’ primary source of income – the offertory basket – had been cut off just when churches were needed more than ever.

Six months later, parishes and schools have rallied to adapt to the new normal amid COVID-19. Pastors are celebrating Mass outdoors and on Facebook, parishioners are giving more electronically and Catholic school teachers are preparing for a new school year of learning – both in-person and online.

Many employees of the archdiocese, however, said they needed help to get to this point. They credited the federal Paycheck Protection Program with helping parishes – many of which were already struggling financially – weather those first weeks of the pandemic.

The program, known as PPP, allowed small businesses to receive federal aid in return for keeping their employees on the payroll. It’s estimated that the program saved or stabilized 600,000 jobs in Maryland alone.

Critics have taken issue with tax-exempt institutions such as churches receiving federal aid, but Catholic leaders, including Archbishop William E. Lori, have defended the move, saying the church provides essential social services.

Religious groups, including the Catholic Church, successfully lobbied for individual parishes and schools to be counted separately so they would qualify for the aid as small employers.

“The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to protect the jobs of Americans from all walks of life, regardless of whether they work for for-profit or nonprofit employers, faith-based or secular,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ domestic policy committee, said in July.

Under the rules of the program, entities in the archdiocese used the aid only to pay their employees. Here’s a look at how some of that money was spent through the eyes of three employees who benefited from the program.

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Maritza Morales

office manager, Sacred Heart of Jesus/Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Parish, Highlandtown

Morales’ parish sits in the heart of Baltimore’s Latino community, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. As the pandemic started, she began working from home, but her workload didn’t ease, it actually grew.

She said her pastor, Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., went the “extra mile” to make the best use of the assistance.

“When he got that money, instead of shutting down completely, we were able to be available for the community,” Morales said.

Now back in the office part-time, Morales helps people sign up for free COVID-19 testing that’s held weekly on the parish campus. Morales, who is bilingual, walks people through health questionnaires and works to give them the best time for testing. She says about 95 percent of her callers are Spanish-speakers.
Morales said PPP kept the parish afloat through those heady early days of the pandemic.
“It meant a lot because, in the weeks that no one could come in, we were putting out information that they could give to us through the mail or even drop it off at the door, but it wasn’t working as well,” she said.

The scheduling takes up about 20 percent of her workweek, which includes coordinating deliveries of food to people suffering from COVID-19 and others who have become housebound because of the pandemic.

“A lot of the families that have children and have lost their jobs because of the pandemic are helped by getting a box of food every week,” Morales said.

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Jenny Smolen

business manager, Catholic Community of South Baltimore

The pandemic pushed Smolen’s parish more into the digital age than ever. The tech skills of Father Josh Laws, her “millennial” pastor, were up to the task. Most organizations can take years to beef up their online presence. The churches of the Catholic Community of South Baltimore only had a few weeks.

Smolen, who handles the finances for the churches, said her parish received about 70 percent of its donations through in-person giving before the pandemic. With that option off the table for most of the spring, donations dwindled.

“For a good month with the churches closed, people did forget about their envelopes. The change that you get in the offertory is always a big part of the operations,” Smolen said.

PPP funding gave her parish much-needed time to transition to more electronic giving, she said.

“That helped to bridge the gap,” Smolen said. “It allowed us to catch up with our messaging.”

After a wind storm damaged the steeple of St. Mary, Star of the Sea, one of the churches in the parish, Father Laws took to Facebook to appeal to parishioners. They heeded the call, donating small amounts via Venmo, a mobile-phone money-transfer app, and more regularly via credit card.

Smolen walked many parishioners, who had given via an envelope for years, through the process. She said electronic donations are now about half of the parish’s donations, up from about 30 percent a year ago.
“Things have rebounded, and I think I want to say we are back where we were. It’s been kind of surprising and obviously very nice because our online presence is now pretty big,” Smolen said.

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Leon Fleming

maintenance person, St. Peter Claver, West Baltimore

Fleming is usually a one-man show at his parish. Responsible for keeping the church buildings clean and doing simple repairs, he likes to joke that he’s a “jack of all trades, but a master of none.”

But the pandemic has meant that Fleming needs reinforcements. To keep the church as sanitary as possible, an outside team scours it after each service. Even after they have left, Fleming goes over all the high-touch surfaces again – pews, door handles, bathrooms – to ensure parishioners are safe when they attend Mass.

Special precautions such as the outside sanitation team have eaten into St. Peter Claver’s already slim budget, but the federal program has ensured that Fleming stayed on the job, keeping the church at its best.

As St. Peter Claver recently reopened for Mass, Fleming said the cushion created by the PPP aid allowed Josephite Father Ray Bomberger, pastor, to pay the staff and not rush the reopening.

“Well, I think it helped a lot. It helped a lot of people in the church,” Fleming said.

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