National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management?

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.

This is just what we do not need - another group of people wanting to change the structure of the Church.

Among its 27 priority recommendations, the round table called for strengthening a little-known national board, called the National Advisory Council, by publicizing its membership and allowing it to "initiate, as well as react to," proposals for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The round table also offered 21 longer-term recommendations, including a call for a "vigorous training and education program for new bishops," focusing on management skills, as well as for the development of a process for evaluating homilies and music at worship services.

Something about this whole affair seems suspect...Perhaps we can be enlightened on just who these "prominent" lay Catholics are?

If anyone recalls, it was Geoffrey Boisi who orchestrated a "secret meeting" with Cardinal McCarrick some months ago...Deal Hudson reported on it here.

Article.