By Linda McGrory

The Catholic Church is appealing for more donations from parishioners to help plug a €4m debt left over from staging the World Meeting of Families (WMOF).

The hosting the event including Pope Francis’ visit during the summer, cost the Church just under €20m.

Some €15m was raised through parish collections and other donations from home and abroad in the run-up to August’s celebration, but a deficit of €4m remains. Senior clerics hope that will be partially defrayed by its fifth national collection for the WMOF next month.

Separately, it had been estimated that the State’s final bill for the event including security and logistics, would top €10m.

Notices about the fifth WMOF collection have been appearing in parish newsletters nationwide.

The Diocese of Ossory, in an appeal to its 85,000 parishioners, said: “The overall cost to the Church in Ireland for hosting WMOF comes to €19.4m.

To date €15.4m has been raised by way of local church collections and by other donations. This leaves us with a deficit of €4m.

“In order to help defray this debt we are asking you, once again, for your support in promoting our fifth national collection which will take place in churches, North and South, over the weekend of November 10-11.”