What went wrong? Interim report analyzes failed Assumption Church restoration fundraisers

Confusion. Mistrust. And a sense of grievance. Those were the words Paul Mullins used to describe the feelings people had about the failed fundraising campaigns for restoration of Assumption Church.

Mullins, a local lawyer, offered to analyze the history of the parish's fundraising campaigns and wrote an interim report — released Aug. 11 — detailing where things went wrong.

"I think that will help clear the air to help determine if there's the support to help restore the church," he said.

According to Mullins, a confidentiality provision prevented the Diocese of London from communicating to the restoration board about the scope and the full costs of the campaign — which was designed and managed by Philanthropic Management Consultants, Inc. (PMC), a contracted company.

PMC had to comply with several provisions, including one where they had to provide "detailed financial accounting for all the monies that were received and spent," said Mullins.

However, the company was not in compliance with that and a number of other provisions, he said. And when the diocese tried to enforce those provisions, the board of volunteers who had championed for the church's restoration saw the actions as "undermining the campaign."

"Unfortunately, because the board members did not know that the diocese was trying to enforce major provisions of the contract with the fundraisers, it created a great deal of mistrust and confusion," said Mullins.

The bishop ended up terminating the campaign because it was costing a lot more money than it was generating in funds to restore the church.

"The board members were not supportive of that because they thought they were on the verge of a great success," said Mullins. 

And the result of it all were "a lot of hurt feelings," said Father Maurice Restivo.

The interim report is a way to air out the dirty laundry and hopefully bring back some community support again, he said.

"We're kind of taking a couple of steps back to when we were in a real productive mode, and hopefully we can continue in that mode toward restoration," he said.

New donations

At the end of the interim report, Mullins wrote of several ways to repurpose the church in order to finance the restorations.

Possibilities such as coming to an agreement with the University of Windsor to establish an Indigenous institute to recognize the Huron People who donated the land to the parish will need to be discussed, he said.

However, the Assumption Parish would prefer to see the church restored as their parish church.

One person who is ready to see that happen is Amherstburg philanthropist Al Quesnel, who said he was matching up to $5 million of community donations for the restoration.

While not $10 million may not be enough to cover all the repairs the historic building needs, Restivo sees it as a huge start.

"People see us coming and going when they enter and leave Canada, they see Assumption Church first and last," said Restivo.

"I have hope that this church can be restored. I think it's a very important place for Windsor-Essex, for the whole region."