MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter
Joe Winter | Sep. 19, 2013
EDEN PRAIRIE, MINN. Church and school finances and a proposed $165 million capital campaign were on the agenda of a St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese meeting Monday that was held for priests only, and a group of Catholics who are calling for greater transparency from church leaders found themselves without a seat at the table.
Members of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform sought to have the meeting open to its members as well as to any laity who wished to attend. Robert Beutel, a St. Paul attorney and co-chair of the board for the group, said administrators and financial officers of parishes and of the archdiocese who are not priests, as well as deacons, apparently were excluded from the event — titled Priest Finance Day — held at an Eden Prairie church.
In response to the reform group’s request, Archbishop John Nienstedt, who did attend, said in an Aug. 21 letter that the meeting is “intended to be a professional gathering for those who have been duly ordained to the Catholic priesthood.”
Up for discussion were the capital campaign to raise money for Catholic schools, charities, seminarian education and preservation of the St. Paul Cathedral and Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis; the annual Catholic Services Appeal; and lay and priest pension plans, said Beutel, who obtained the agenda from a member of his group.
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