At a time when many parishes, and many dioceses, are facing serious financial problems and looming deficits, this sort of news is downright miraculous:

For the last few months, St. James Roman Catholic Church in Johnson City has seen a decline in weekly donations.

About two out of four weeks the parish fails to meet its weekly budget of $14,000, said the Rev. John Donovan.

A bequest from the late Robert L. and Catherine H. McDevitt – part of more than $30 million the Binghamton couple left to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse and three Southern Tier parishes – will provide a cushion for St. James, Donovan said.

It should have similar benefits for other initiatives and programs across the diocese.

“It’s going to allow us to continue everything we do with a little sigh of relief, especially now that we’re in a recession,” Donovan said.

The McDevitts’ bequest is thought to be by far the largest single donation to the Syracuse Diocese. Most of the $30 million is in IBM stock and will create the Robert L. McDevitt and Catherine H. McDevitt Funds.

Assets from the funds will be used for the Hope Appeal, the diocese’s annual fundraising campaign; the education of seminarians; medical care and financial aid of bishops and priests; Seton Catholic Central High School in Binghamton; and the McDevitt Residence for Retired Priests in Binghamton.

The couple also left money to their former parishes: St. James and St. Thomas Aquinas Church and St. Patrick Church, both in Binghamton.

Last month, it was announced that the McDevitts had donated $50 million to Le Moyne College to support the Jesuit college’s programs in science and religious education.

That gift is the largest single gift ever left to Le Moyne, is among the largest donations made to any institution in Central New York and exceeds all single higher education donations to any local school except Cornell University in Ithaca.

Both McDevitt gifts surpass the size of any philanthropic gift in the Central New York area except some given to Cornell. In 2006, William G. Allyn, second-generation patriarch of the Skaneateles-based Welch Allyn medical implements company, gave what was previously thought to be the largest gift. He left his entire estate of $23 million to the Allyn Foundation, which he started in the 1950s to serve residents of Onondaga and Cayuga counties.

Previous large gifts to the diocese include the $1 million Joseph and Elaine Scuderi donated to Bishop James Moynihan’s Catholic education fund in 2007.

In 1999, the McDevitts donated $1 million to the Heritage Campaign, a diocesan capital campaign that raised pledges of $51 million on its $33 million goal. The McDevitt pledge included a stipulation for the creation of the McDevitt Residence for Retired Priests, which is next to Seton Catholic Central High School.

The McDevitts donated $100,000 to the Hope Appeal in 2001. That had stood as the largest single gift to the annual campaign, said Christopher “Kit” Parker, director of stewardship and development for the diocese.

The couple also donated $100,000 to the bishop’s fund for education in 2003, Parker said.

The McDevitts were quiet, humble and private people, say diocesan officials who knew them.

“I met them on several occasions and I always remarked at the humility and the simpleness of their life,” said the Rev. Cliff Auth, diocesan chancellor. “You would never know of the generosity they had. They were private yet generous.”

There’s much more at the link.