March 15, 2005

New Catholic lay group formed to promote better church management

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A group of U.S. Catholic bishops and lay church and business leaders March 14 announced formation of aAbuse Tracker Leadership Roundtable on Church Management.

Its goal is to help Catholic dioceses and parishes improve administrative practices and financial and human resource management as the church confronts clergy shortages and the challenges of training effective lay leadership.

At a press conference in Washington the group also issued an 80-page "Report of the Church in America," reporting the proceedings and recommendations of last July's national leadership round table at Wharton, the prestigious business school of the University of Pennsylvania.

That session was a two-day meeting of lay and church leaders from diverse perspectives who came together in Philadelphia to analyze how church leadership can respond more effectively to leadership problems that surfaced in the clergy sexual abuse crises and, more broadly, to the rapidly changing realities in American Catholicism.

Posted by kshaw at March 15, 2005 08:32 PM