An online Catholic church resource supplier has launched a parish registry program to help cash-strapped congregations.

Similar to wedding registry programs, the parish gift registry started by CatholicChurchSupply.com enables a local church to set up its own wish list for parishioners to contribute to or to purchase.

"We know that many parishes are hurting during this economic downturn, so we created the parish registry program to help," said Ian Rutherford, president and founder of Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, which runs the online business. The online lists are "an excellent way for parishes to get the church supplies they need while not having to spend money from their declining weekly collections."

The idea for the program came from one local pastor who told how church members liked to give tangible gifts to their parish, said Mike Davis, sales and product manager at Aquinas. "We set up a registry fro his parish, and the parishioners spent thousands of dollars on church supplies," he said. "This was a great help, financially, to a relatively small parish."

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