A Message from our Pastor

Dear Saint William Parishioners,


Back in February 2023, Fr. Kyle, Fr. Juan Diego, and I preached a series on stewardship themed, You Can Count on Me. We covered what it means to be a parishioner, why we register in our parish, and why we tithe. During those weeks we preached on how you can count on our staff and us, the priests of St. William, to be good stewards of your generous gifts to our parish. The fiscal year of 2022-2023 was an eventful year for our parish. Our evangelization, healing series, and prayer team training for adults has served hundreds of parishioners who have had encounters with our Risen Lord. After the hailstorm in April 2021, we got our education building back in use in September 2022 to start our Faith Formation year for nearly 1,100 students. We were finally able to hire our full staff to serve our parish. We continue to see our Mass attendance grow as we are still transitioning out of the pandemic. We had a significant net income at our Big Event in the spring of 2023. All these and many other beautiful things are happening in our parish, but as our fiscal year ended in June it was plain to see that we did not meet our financial goals for the year. Thank God for a great end-of-year campaign and the Big Event, but we still ran a deficit.

While we have a reserve to help fray the hit of our deficit, it is not the ideal way to spend our financial reserves. My desire is that our weekly collections and end-of-year giving will cover the operational costs of our beautiful parish. As you can imagine, the bills at St. William are considerable. For example, I just signed a check for over $23,000 for our July electricity bill. Our monthly mortgage payment is more than $53,000, which is one week’s average collection. To cover our operational costs, we would need our collections to average around $75,000 a week. A $25,000 weekly increase may seem insurmountable, but the reality is that it is not that difficult for a parish our size. We have almost 4,000 registered families in our parish. If each family could increase their weekly tithe by $5-$10 we would surpass our weekly goal, which would afford us the ability to service our $5.6 million debt quicker, take care of our staff, and tackle the many maintenance issues that we have at our nearly 20-year-old campus. I too tithe, and for me, our parish is worth the sacrifice. I pray that I can count on you to respond the same.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone for the success of our Big Event which takes place each spring. The Gala for my 50th birthday celebration felt more like a family gathering than a fundraising event. I enjoyed your company and singing mariachi songs together. I felt so much love that day and throughout the Big Event. I am truly blessed and privileged to be your pastor. You can count on me to continue to pray and serve the parish of St. William with the Father’s heart. My hope is that one day the funds raised at our Big Event could be used for special projects, like a maintenance building we desperately need, and are working to build, instead of supporting our daily operational costs. With all of us pulling together as one family, I believe this is achievable if every family participates in weekly giving to our parish. It takes each of our families to provide for our beautiful home. Can I count on you?


Ad Jesum per Mariam,


Fr. Francisco Rodriguez III
Pastor