European Union" "
The replacement of the franc by the euro has raised a problem that has not escaped the attention of Magnificat, a French consultancy agency entirely at the service of the Church, specialized in fund-raising, in direct marketing and in various associated activities. The introduction of the euro in France has meant that the Sunday collection of alms risks being seriously reduced, point out the experts of Magnificat. The French had been in the habit of giving a 10F coin to the collection box and are now said to have translated their gesture into a one euro coin. But “by giving only one euro you would only be giving 6,56F! That would be tantamount to a 34% reduction of your donation. At the diocesan level, this reduction would amount to several million francs of lost revenue”, says the Magnificat agency as part of a poster and pamphlet campaign aimed at boosting donations. At the present time, 60 dioceses have ordered posters and pamphlets, with conversion tables and an invitation to turn the new currency into “an opportunity for the Church”. Some parishes have directly ordered this material. The pamphlets had an initial print-run of 1.4 million copies and are now being reprinted. Information about the initiative has been widely reported by the mass media. In Austria, on the contrary, the advent of the euro actually favours almsgiving, according to a report carried by the Kathpress press agency. According to a mini-survey conducted by the agency during the Christmas and New Year festivities, almsgiving and donations by Austrian Catholics are still mainly in Austrian schillings: probably because the faithful use the Sunday collection box to get rid of their stockpiles of small coins. Both in Vienna and in Graz parish priests report the continuing use of the old currency also for other typical gestures of devotion such as the lighting of votive candles. The communities under the spiritual care of the Franciscans form an exception; curiously, they report a greater use of the Euro and also the first donations in the new banknotes. “Already during the Christmas Mass the faithful made offerings in euros explained Father Emmeran Stacheder of the historic church of the Franciscans in Salzburg but we also found many foreign coins in our collection boxes”.
