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HagiaSophia
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A group of prominent Catholic business leaders and academics announced yesterday that they have formed a nonprofit organization aimed at professionalizing the governance and administration of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, which has been reeling from a string of management and financial problems.
The new group called for the church to solicit nominations from clergy and lay people for candidates to be bishops and for bishops to consult parishioners and parish employees before naming new pastors. Also recommended were a broad series of administrative changes, including the appointment of a chief administrative officer for every diocese, publication of annual financial statements that are ''reader-friendly," and the initiation of performance reviews for priests, nuns, auxiliary bishops, and other church employees.
The new organization, called the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, says it will aim to gather the expertise of accomplished lay Catholics and use it to transform the nation’s largest religious denomination. The Catholic Church in recent years has faced a clergy abuse scandal attributed in part to poor management, a personnel crisis because of the dwindling number of priests, bankruptcy filings by three dioceses, and a raft of parish and school closings.
The founder of the round table, former Boston College chairman Geoffrey T. Boisi, said that together, the nation’s dioceses employ more than 1 million people and have annual operating budgets of almost $100 billion. Boisi, who is also a retired executive of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, cited diminishing attendance at Mass, a deterioration in financial support, and an increasing reliance on lay ministers with variable levels of training as major challenges facing the church.
''Many of these issues have been brewing for a while, but the scandal has brought them to the fore, and one key thing that has to be done is the reestablishment of a relationship of trust and cooperation through communication and transparency and systems of accountability," Boisi said. ''We’re hoping people are going to view this [new group] as a catalyst, and as an important step in the assembling of lay and religious leaders to creatively focus our collective skills on addressing some of the important and urgent management issues facing the church."
Signaling a willingness by some church leaders to consider the recommendations, two bishops from small dioceses appeared at a Washington, D.C., news conference announcing the round table. Members of the agenda-setting body of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the administrative committee, invited Boisi and other round-table leaders to join them for lunch today in Washington. Boisi said the round table has also met individually with several bishops and has been collaborating with a number of organizations representing church workers.
A spokesman for the bishops, Monsignor Francis J. Maniscalco, offered a noncommittal response to the formation of the group. ''We have many independent groups in the church," he said. ''They will go about their business, and it will up to the bishops to consider what they recommend."
boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/15/nonprofit_aims_to_aid_us_diocese_governance/
The new group called for the church to solicit nominations from clergy and lay people for candidates to be bishops and for bishops to consult parishioners and parish employees before naming new pastors. Also recommended were a broad series of administrative changes, including the appointment of a chief administrative officer for every diocese, publication of annual financial statements that are ''reader-friendly," and the initiation of performance reviews for priests, nuns, auxiliary bishops, and other church employees.
The new organization, called the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, says it will aim to gather the expertise of accomplished lay Catholics and use it to transform the nation’s largest religious denomination. The Catholic Church in recent years has faced a clergy abuse scandal attributed in part to poor management, a personnel crisis because of the dwindling number of priests, bankruptcy filings by three dioceses, and a raft of parish and school closings.
The founder of the round table, former Boston College chairman Geoffrey T. Boisi, said that together, the nation’s dioceses employ more than 1 million people and have annual operating budgets of almost $100 billion. Boisi, who is also a retired executive of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, cited diminishing attendance at Mass, a deterioration in financial support, and an increasing reliance on lay ministers with variable levels of training as major challenges facing the church.
''Many of these issues have been brewing for a while, but the scandal has brought them to the fore, and one key thing that has to be done is the reestablishment of a relationship of trust and cooperation through communication and transparency and systems of accountability," Boisi said. ''We’re hoping people are going to view this [new group] as a catalyst, and as an important step in the assembling of lay and religious leaders to creatively focus our collective skills on addressing some of the important and urgent management issues facing the church."
Signaling a willingness by some church leaders to consider the recommendations, two bishops from small dioceses appeared at a Washington, D.C., news conference announcing the round table. Members of the agenda-setting body of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the administrative committee, invited Boisi and other round-table leaders to join them for lunch today in Washington. Boisi said the round table has also met individually with several bishops and has been collaborating with a number of organizations representing church workers.
A spokesman for the bishops, Monsignor Francis J. Maniscalco, offered a noncommittal response to the formation of the group. ''We have many independent groups in the church," he said. ''They will go about their business, and it will up to the bishops to consider what they recommend."
boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/15/nonprofit_aims_to_aid_us_diocese_governance/
