Statement of Purpose for the CCCR Resource Team on Archdiocesan Transparency

1/3/13
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FOR THE CCCR RESOURCE TEAM     
ON ARCHDIOCESAN FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Origin and Purpose
The Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), a Minnesota non-profit incorporated in 2009, represents a growing community of Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who, inspired by the teachings of Vatican II, are seeking more active participation in the direction of their local church.  CCCR appointed a committee in October 2010 called Archdiocesan Financial Transparency and Accountability Resource Team.  The team’s purpose is to promote

• detailed reporting of the financial statements of archdiocese, and
• regular channels of communication for retrieval of information by the laity.

Authorization

The Roman Catholic laity is authorized by baptism to participate as fully responsible adults in the mission of the Church through parish and diocesan structures.  They are obligated to support them financially.  To do that responsibly they need full disclosure of detailed financial statements of the Archdiocese and regular channels of communication for the retrieval of information. 

Current Practice

There is one regular channel of communication open to the laity for information on Archdiocesan finances, i.e., the annual financial reports in the Archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Spirit.  The report contains broad categories of expenses in the millions of dollars.  The departmental budgets and who is responsible for them are not included. There are no criteria listed for evaluating the effectiveness of any of the funds expended.

Specific Requests for the Archbishop or his Office of Finance:

• Establish a schedule of open meetings with open agendas for the laity with archdiocesan financial consultants
• Provide an organization chart including all entities depending on Archdiocesan funding
• Provide an explanation of the budgeting process
• Explain the process by which priorities for spending are established
• Establish a policy of openness and transparency so that questions such asthe following may be addressed:

What is the salary of the Archbishop as the CEO and what additional sums are made available for disposal at his discretion? 
How many seminarians are covered by the seminary expenses and for whose benefit and at whose cost are they being trained? 
What are the specific costs of the department of marriage and family?  How is the effectiveness of the department evaluated?
How many students are included in the expenses for schools?
What programs are funded for the ethnic ministries and how are they evaluated? 
How many marriage annulments are handled by the marriage tribunal?  What is the average cost of each?  Who pays for them? 
What are the Cathedral expenses covered by the Archdiocese?
For the names of CCCR Board members, click here.


Resource Team on Archdiocesan Financial Transparency and Accountability:
Robert Beutel
Bruce Carlson
David Gibson
George Kohler
Benton Randolph
Bernie Rodel
Eileen Rodel
Paula Ruddy
Mary Woida
To communicate with the Resource Team, use info@cccr-cob.org. 

Archdiocesan Transparency and Accountability Resource Team: Report for 2012

We call our team “Follow the Money.” But it is about more than money. We were convinced by Vatican II that we, along with the hierarchy, are the Church. In order to have an institutional church in St. Paul and Minneapolis that is unified in its mission and true to the message of Jesus, we must be responsible for helping to build it. We must support the Archdiocesan management in providing services to the people, and the Archdiocesan management must be open with us about the sources and uses of funds as well as engaging the best practices of good management.

The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management is an organization founded by Catholic business leaders with the mission of aiding dioceses, parishes, and Catholic non-profits in developing good management practices. The Roundtable advocates and supports its members in living up to standards of excellence, based on principles of honesty, integrity, fairness, respect, trust, compassion, responsibility, and accountability.

We proposed to the Council of the Baptized, the voice of our community, that they recommend joining the Roundtable to the Archdiocese. The Council accepted our proposal at its May 5 meeting and appointed our Resource Team to be the Research/Drafting Committee of the Council. Two of our members who are on the Council, Bernie and Eileen Rodel, are Council liaisons.

The Council's goal is to hear the sense of the faithful on their concerns of conscience and to make the concerns known. One of the Council's strategies for determining what the faithful are "sensing" is to hold hearings. The hearing on how the people are thinking about contributions to their parishes was held on Thursday, November 15, 2012, at Royal Cliff event center in Eagan. It focused both on our own responsibility as supportive members of our parishes and our archdiocese, and on the responsibility of the Archdiocesan management to give us information and good accounting for the contributions it receives.  About 100 people attended. 

Jim Moudry set the stage with an explanation of how Vatican II shifted the center of gravity in the Roman Catholic institution from the official leadership to the whole people of God by its emphasis on baptism as the sign of our membership.  Pope, bishops, priests, and laity are equally baptized.  The re-centering that happened at Vatican II may be difficult for the hierarchy to adjust to, but it fits with the worldview developing in Western civilization in recent centuries and is thus irrevocable.  It is evolving but it cannot go back.  All of the baptized are responsible for the church.

Participants at the hearing took a short survey covering their financial giving practices and their attitudes toward supporting the Archdiocese.  They gave oral testimony about their thoughts and feelings and handed in written questions they would like to ask the Archbishop.  All of this material will be incorporated into the paper accompanying the recommendation to the Archdiocese to join the National Leadership Roundtable.

Handouts included the 2011 Archdiocesan financial report and a list of frequently asked questions with the answers we were able to find.  Those FAQs are published in a second article following this. 
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Any one who wants to join this team, call Paula Ruddy at (612) 379-1043. Your help is welcome.