No cash? No problem. Catholic Church pilots digital offerings

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

The Ro­man Catholic Church in Trinidad and To­ba­go is pi­lot­ing dig­i­tal of­fer­ings across six church­es. Ac­cord­ing to The Catholic News, “This ini­tia­tive forms part of the arch­dio­cese’s on­go­ing ef­forts to make stew­ard­ship safer, eas­i­er, and more ac­ces­si­ble while sup­port­ing parish­es in their pas­toral and ad­min­is­tra­tive work.”

The pi­lot project will utilise End­Cash, the se­cure dig­i­tal pay­ment op­tion that al­lows the faith­ful to make parish con­tri­bu­tions us­ing their mo­bile phones. Through this sys­tem, parish­ioners can make con­tri­bu­tions by scan­ning a QR code dis­played in their parish, with­out the need to han­dle cash or cheques.

The six church­es across the arch­dio­cese in­clude St Joseph, St Joseph, St Mary’s, St James, St Fin­bar’s, Diego Mar­tin, Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help, San Fer­nan­do, San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma and St Joseph, Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

The Catholic News said posters and brochures will guide parish­ioners through the steps of down­load­ing the End­Cash app, set­ting up a wal­let, and scan­ning the parish QR code to con­tribute.

Arch­bish­op of Port-of-Spain, Ja­son Gor­don, moved to as­sure Catholics that the ini­tia­tive does not in­ter­fere with the sanc­ti­ty of wor­ship. He said in a video state­ment, “This ini­tia­tive is not meant to re­place the sa­cred­ness of our wor­ship. It is just meant to make it much eas­i­er for you to give your do­na­tions, your con­tri­bu­tions, your stew­ard­ship to us. So, we’re ask­ing you as we do this, let us ex­per­i­ment to­geth­er. Let’s see how it works to­geth­er. Give us great feed­back, but we want to work with you to make your life much eas­i­er.”

He said the pi­lot project will start with the six church­es and then move out to oth­ers. Such a pay­ment method is be­com­ing more com­mon in church­es around the world as the Catholic Church adapts to the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy.