A few years ago I was invited to speak at a conference held in Midwestern farm country. Although the event was in an out-of-the-way town and required a long drive from the nearest metropolitan airport, the turnout was quite respectable—nearly a thousand people, as I recall. It was not a Church-underwritten affair. All of the planning and most of the labor were undertaken by two women who since have become dear friends of mine. Their conference was grassroots in the truest sense of the term. They managed to round up a roster of well-known speakers and attracted participants from a dozen states.
I had been looking forward to returning for this autumn’s conference, but in the spring I received a call from one of the women informing me that the event had been put on hold. In all likelihood, she said, there would be no conference. The problem was money.
Last year the organizers had enjoyed the largest turnout yet, about 1,500 people, and that should have resulted in a clear profit, but something went wrong. A good third of the attendees were freeloaders. Somehow they had gotten into the school auditorium without paying the entrance fee. Since the fee covered the cost of lunch, which the freeloaders did not pass up, about $3,000 was lost just on meals. This was in addition to revenue lost at the door. So, instead of making a few thousand dollars profit, my friends lost a few thousand, and the losses came out of their own pockets, which are not deep. They are working women who struggle to support their families. It was gracious of them to devote hundreds of hours to preparing for the event, but they were in no position to pay what others should have paid.
Their disappointment was compounded by a particularly annoying situation. One of last year’s speakers, a priest, was put up in a motel (the town is too small to have a facility that properly could be called a hotel). His room expense was put on my friends’ credit cards. Unknown to them, until long after he had gone home, he added about $250 in international telephone charges. They have not had the heart to ask him for reimbursement. This is a small matter, perhaps, in comparison with the other dollars lost, but it rankles since a priest racked up the unauthorized charges.
Perhaps by the time this editorial sees print my friends will have decided to go ahead with this year’s conference. I hope they figure out how to secure the facility so everyone who enters pays his fair share, and I hope none of this year’s speakers leave an unpleasant surprise on the lodging bill. I also hope that my friends do not become jaded by last year’s stumblings. One would expect that Catholics traveling across state lines to attend a conference would not hesitate to pay the entrance fee (Seventh Commandment, anyone?) and that speakers would be satisfied with the agreed-upon stipend and would not take advantage of their hosts’ trust.
If I did not believe in original sin, I might feel crushed at hearing about such things, to say nothing of this year’s priest scandals. But I know too much about (fallen) human nature. That is one advantage of having been taught the catechism as a child.