Parish Workbook | St. Ann Catholic Church

Our Parish St. Ann-Normandy

St. Ann was founded in 1856 and is the mother parish for large areas of Northwest St. Louis City and much of North County.
The parish has an elementary school with 168 students, and the pastor of the parish is the director of the Newman Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
This is a parish of nearly 350 households. The Parish church was dedicated in 1952 and seats 600.
The primarily African-American parish area neighborhood includes some middle-class and racially diverse neighborhoods where many St. Ann parishioners live.
Mass attendance has declined along with the decline in parishioners. The parish is aging as baptisms and children in Catholic schools are declining, and few, if any, children are in PSR.
Parish investment in the school is higher than the recommended range, but the parish is able to control expenses and grow reserves.

The parish territory encompasses 16 civil jurisdictions (and parts of two others), and the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and its student population.
The population has declined by over 30% in the last three decades, and yet the racial diversity has remained relatively stable.
Somewhat of a transitional neighborhood as the percent of households that rent is 50%, and the percent of single persons living alone is 43%, many of whom are UMSL students.
The median household income is $36,700, which is well below the archdiocesan average of $60,700. This masks the fact that there are several small, more racially diverse middle-class neighborhoods within the parish boundaries.
Only 5% of the resident population is Catholic, which is well below the archdiocesan average of 18%.

Red dots are parishioner households; blue dots are Catholic households that are registered at a different parish.
There are many more Catholic households in the boundaries (394) than there are parishioner households (279).
This means that more Catholic households leave the boundaries to affiliate elsewhere than come into the parish from outside the boundaries.
Most African-American Catholics in the parish territory return “home” to their North City parishes for membership and worship. Likewise, Hispanic Catholics in the area will affiliate with either Our Lady of Guadalupe or All Souls parish.

51% of St. Ann students come from the parish area, whereas the rest come from a broad area of North County and North City.
Most (64%) of Catholic school students in the boundaries attend St. Ann school.

Parish membership has been on a consistent decline for decades
Pre-COVID Mass attendance had been declining.
Mass attendance as a percent of capacity is below the archdiocesan average of 33% in 2019 and 25% in 2021.
Pre-COVID Mass attendance as a percent of registered parishioners at weekend Mass was 34-39%, well above the archdiocesan average of 27- 29%.
An aging parish with declining baptisms, declining children in day school.
As Catholic families in North County generally do not choose public education, there are few children in PSR.
The high number of funerals is because more than half of its funerals are non-parishioner in recent years.
73% of day school graduate attend a Catholic high school

Offertory has been on a modest decline through the decline, consistent with the decline in parishioner households.
Parish investment in the parish school has been significantly above the recommended 20-30% of offertory.
High subsidy in 2021 is because of
$130,000 repayment of bad debts with PPP money.
Parish revenues have in recent years been exceeding expenses, growing reserves.