Diocesan Council temporarily suspended retreat and conference center programming at the Emrich Retreat Center in the wake of a close examination of the center’s business and financial operations. Following a penetrating task force report on Tuesday, June 24, council accepted the recommendation of the task force to close down retreat and conference programming on July 1.

Task Force convener and council member Colleen Lough read the report that cited “insufficient documentation and lackadaisical accounting practices.” The report also said the financial records and affairs of Emrich are in disarray and employment practices do not meet acceptable guidelines.

Emrich board chair Phil MacBride and Emrich Director Hugh Munce, who were in a small gallery of people attending the council meeting, were clearly stunned by the recommendation.

“This seems rather abrupt,” MacBride explained. He said the center has $70,000 in contracts for the coming year from groups that will now have difficulties finding a new retreat location. “And the staff will take it like a bombshell.”

“Emrich has been a place of true ministry and true outreach for this diocese,” Munce said, suggesting a broader look at the retreat center beyond the financial problems that he acknowledges exist. “We have a staff that is outstanding ... We are a church and we are going to do this to people?”

“There is nothing that Hugh said that I would dispute about the ministry that they are called to do and how much they love this place,” said Kristine Miller, the diocesan stewardship director who helped Emrich evaluate the potential support for a capital funds campaign in 2007 and served on the Emrich Center task force that made the report. She informed council earlier in the year that there was not sufficient support for such a buildilng campaign.

“[As] it has been discussed at multiple board of managers meetings,” Miller added, “it is not a successful, viable entity and it is bleeding money. That is regrettable. If there were another way to fix this problem, I think we would have discovered it before now.

“We have to cease operations temporarily; it’s the only way to sustain this piece of property in the long run,” Miller said.

A motion to delay the suspension of conference activity until August 1 was discussed, but council voted with the task force recommendation of July 1. Lough underscored the urgency of the situation.

“The bottom line is that it is bleeding money, hurting the household and not paying its bills,” Lough said.

The council resolution calls for the existing Emrich Center Task Force to facilitate “the closing and securing of the facility, overseeing the details of employee compensation as detailed in signed employee letters of agreement or previously signed contracts, and remittance to all vendors.”

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