Raising Money for the Pope

D ominican Father J.M.R. Tillard in an il­luminating article on the role of bishops in the New Dictionary of Theology (Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987) remarks: "In the New Testament it is impossi­ble to find a clear view and even definition of the precise function of the persons designated as episkopoi (i.e., bishops)." Twenty centuries later and the Directory of the Pastoral Ministry of the Bishops notwithstanding, epis­copal job descriptions are still the subject of debate.

Nonetheless, the one function of prelates that seems perennially incontestable is raising funds. There was ample evidence for this at last November’s annual meet­ing of the US. hierarchy. Ordinaries were asked to solicit their parishes for the next 10 years on behalf of retired re­ligious, increase their support for their $29 million na­tional conference and resuscitate the ailing financial life of the Holy See.

Newly retired Cardinal John Krol, one of 15 cardinals assigned the task of trying to resolve the financial prob­lems of the Vatican, explained in some detail the declivi­tous economics of the central administration of the church.

Last year, the Holy See took in $57.3 million but spent twice as much: $114 million. To cover its shortfall, the Pope himself used personal donations that, in better times, he would have given instead to mission dioceses and various charities. The rest was made up by depleting reserves.

While the Vatican may be still years away from burn­ing the furniture to heat the pontifical household, from all vantage points its predicament appears genuinely serious.

The situation is astonishing. We are talking about the central offices for one of the oldest and largest religious institutions in the world and a custodian of much of the historical records and important art of the entire Western culture. The Vatican on the brink of financial ruin--how could this be?

To hear church officials explain it, the present crisis is the result of several unavoidable factors: a decline in the value of the US. dollar (against the Italian lira the dollar has declined by 10 percent in one year alone), increasing labor costs (now 57 percent of the total budget, it is ris­ing at a rate of $5 million per year), low returns on its in­vestments (estimated last year to yield about 3 percent), and the increasingly costly activities of running both a daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, and one of the world’s largest radio stations (adding over $25 million to the cost of running the curia).

Does the Vatican Bank scandal figure into all of this? (In 1984 the bank voluntarily paid $244 million to the creditors of the Milanese Banco Ambrosiano because of its unwitting involvement in the 1970’s in a stock man­ipulation scheme that resulted in Ambrosiano’s bank­ruptcy.) Impartial observers think not, since the bank is a legal entity separate from the Holy See. However, profits of the bank are today only a fraction of what they once were and no longer provide a steady source of gift in­come to the pontifical budget.

The financial crunch has spurred some U.S. bishops to action. In the early 1980’s when the Vatican first voiced concern about its financial predicament, the Peter’s Pence collection was upgraded among episcopal priori­ties. The $5 million collection has almost tripled as the result of better promotional efforts and increased dioce­san interest.

Despite the success of the Peter’s Pence, U.S. bishop advisers to the Holy See have suggested that Rome might find a more effective vehicle for fund-raising in the style of Notre Dame’s development efforts: build an endow­ment. The approach also draws inspiration from an initia­tive of the Knights of Columbus whereby $10 million was raised and set aside with earned interest given to the Pontiff every year. The new strategy envisioned by Cardi­nal Krol, however, would rely upon large gifts from wealthy individuals and foundations totaling $100 mil­lion. While the Peter’s Pence collection would continue to be improved upon, the main fund -raising would be or­chestrated through a special campaign independent of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The plan could work. Indications are that some Catho­lic donors have already shown an interest in participating in the fund-raising drive. Like all big fund-raising ef­forts, major gifts are first lined up quietly before any for­mal announcement is made about the campaign. Signifi­cant capital in hand gives other donors the feeling that the ship is sailing and they best get aboard. Before this idea is truly seaworthy, however, it deserves a good going over by a much larger crew.

First, Catholics ought to have a more complete under­standing of the financial condition of the Holy See. Not even the bishops themselves have seen the kind of inde­pendent audit report that would meet the public account­ing standards they themselves apply to the operations of their own dioceses. Promising beginnings along these lines have taken place, and in the not too distant future, better public reporting is expected. Yet too little is known at present about the functions, management and finances of the Holy See in order to determine how donated funds will be spent. Although charitable funds were not in­volved in the Ambrosiano affair, church officials would be naive not to realize that this sad episode continues to harm the Vatican’s public image and makes public finan­cial disclosure all the more imperative.

Second, although key members of the U.S. hierarchy are participating in the U.S. fund-raising plan, it has been argued by other members of the Cardinals’ council that the special fund-raising for the Holy See should be as broadly based as possible to avoid creating the impres­sion that a select and wealthy few are being courted and cultivated and offered patronage roles as Vatican insid­ers. This is wise advice that many major donors surpris­ingly enough would espouse. The church is one. When its central administration lacks the resources to achieve its mission, this should be considered a problem for every member of the church. Though there has been tension be­tween U.S. bishops and the Holy See in recent years, there is no evidence of a collective indifference to the economic straits closing in on the church in Rome. A small independent fund-raising effort could unintention­ally cast an image of curial loyalists valiantly struggling to rescue the impecunious pontifical family while the majority of U.S. prelates indifferently go on with their business. To prevent this kind of perceived polarization, the fund-raising discussion ought to be occurring at the level of the bishops’ conference with the full participa­tion and shared wisdom of all U.S. dioceses--not just among those elite few with higher concentrations of wealthy donors.

Third, the church needs to make better use of the laity in its financial workings so that the latter can participate in a more meaningful way. What the church possesses for the service of others is held in trust by the entire Chris­tian community. This community as a community will some day be answerable to God for the way in which it has either multiplied or squandered its talents and re­sources. It follows then that all the baptized have a stewardship responsibility. The church amply recognizes this principle in its new Code of Canon Law (1983), which re­quires parish and diocesan financial councils to be com­prised of laity. It is time to move this principle forward at all levels of the church, so that lay persons progress beyond their functioning as mere conduits of currency to that of sharing responsibility for the use and manage­ment of church funds.

If the findings of the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley and Bishop William E. McManus in their recent book Catho­lic Contributions (Thomas More Press, 1987) is valid, the church in the United States may continue to face de­clining rates of contributions in the coming decades. This trend, in combination with the steeply rising costs of its parishes and schools, suggests that the church here may soon face a grave financial crisis of its own. This need not be so, especially since the rapidly changing stance of the laity toward fuller participation in the church and an in­creasingly vibrant parish scene suggests more rather than fewer assets. The problem has been that the average Catholic remains so unexposed and unengaged in the in­ternal life of the institutional church that he or she under­stands the cost of today’s ministry and mission poorly, if at all.

This is why the church has had to scrimp along in so many areas. In the United States it has virtually no re­tirement program for its religious, for example. It has meagerly paid teachers in its schools and parishes. Its evangelization efforts nationally through the use of tele­vision and the media come down to a paltry annual col­lection of funds not even equivalent to the production of one prime-time television episode. Virtually thousands of young people have expressed the desire to work in church-related careers as lay ministers but are prevented from doing so because the church lacks the resources to educate and employ them.

One need not be omniscient to see that the mainsail of this bark of Peter is interwoven with financial threads so integral to its structure that it determines the vessel’s movements. The Vatican’s unhappy economic plight pro­vides the entire church with an advantageous moment for each Catholic to focus upon the question of stewardship and its variant implications for the church’s mission.