As a Certified
Public Accountant, this writer has carried out audits on a number of
organizations. This is not a Bad Thing
for the organization or institution being audited. As we CPAs are aware, although people often
express fear and even terror of an audit, our job is actually something similar
to a medical checkup for an organization.
Yes, like physicians we can be called in when something is wrong, but it’s
better to have regular checkups to see how you’re doing and see if there’s
something you should be doing better or differently.
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| And when did you ever hear a lawyer say anything like THAT? |
That’s why we CPAs
might have a tip or two for Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church. His organization, while it has many
strengths, also has a number of problems that need resolution, so let’s come up
with a few suggestions to guide a reform program.
Yes, we know “reform”
is something of a dirty word in religious circles, but it’s still a legitimate
term, and abuse does not invalidate use.
Plus, nothing we’re going to suggest touches religious doctrine, which
we CPAs aren’t concerned with professionally, only personally. So, what’s our first suggestion?
At the top of the
list is an audit of the Vatican by an independent (i.e., non-Catholic)
accounting firm with management consulting expertise. This would be purely administrative, and none
of the recommendations would be binding, but an objective assessment of the
organization as an organization, not as a religion, is essential.
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| "My legacy is our Church, not your job." |
For one thing,
although a religion is not a business, it must be run in a businesslike
way. For example, if X amount has been
budgeted for charitable giving, then don’t give X plus Y without going through
channels. After all, that Y might have
been budgeted to pay salaries or benefits, and you aren’t really helping the
poor by making more people poor.
According to news
reports, the Vatican has been operating at a rather large deficit for a few
years, and what with the various scandals, etc., contributions and other
revenue is down. For one thing, reports
are that rental fees on Church-owned properties in the city of Rome are often
not collected. This needs to be
corrected. If a tenant is getting space
rent free as charity, fine — but make certain it’s really charity that’s
intended as such, and not just someone getting a free ride at others’ expense.
Then there’s
cost-cutting. Evidently there have been
some efforts along that line, but every time some position is eliminated, some
commentators scream that Pope Francis is dismantling John Paul II’s legacy or
something. There was, for example, an
institute that was intended to have a staff of five, but which ended up with
over two-hundred people on the payroll.
Featherbedding? An audit might be
useful to see how much deadwood there is in some of the offices, and even whether a particular office
needs to be there. What about
outsourcing? Is it a ludicrous or
feasible suggestion? This should be
checked out.
Near the top of
the list is staffing. There’s an old
joke — apocryphal — that when John XXIII was asked how many people worked at
the Vatican, he absentmindedly said, “Oh, about half.”
The problem is
that it might not be quite that many. In
a two-thousand year old bureaucracy, there might be one or two unnecessary
positions, whether we’re talking a business, a religion, or a government.
Then there’s the
problem of people angling for advancement.
We’ve heard an unverified rumor that there are actually people at the
Vatican pushing for Pope Francis to resign because they think they’ve got a
shot at the job. And when people are
trying to get someone else’s job, they aren’t going to be doing their own, or
will do their own in a way that will advance their personal interests, and not
those of the organization.
And that’s a
problem that is not easily solved. The
Turkish sultans, who also headed both Church and State, tried to solve it by
relying on eunuchs, who could not be sultan.
All that meant, of course, was that the eunuchs would compete with the
military and the businessmen to see who would control the sultan without being
the sultan. Guess how they controlled
Selim the Drunk, son of Suleiman the Magnificent?
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| Would you argue with this Secretary of State? |
So here’s a
really wild idea: staff the Vatican in non-priestly positions with people who
don’t have a shot at the pope’s job. Is
there any reason, after all, why (for example) the Secretary of State has to be
a priest? Or even a male? We understand that women these days hold some
responsible positions. Some countries
even allow them to be seen in public and to drive automobiles! Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to
vote.
And why does any
position have to be permanent? We
understand that the important positions come up for review every five years or
so. Why not make continuing in a
position the exception rather than the rule?
Filling as many positions as possible with lay Catholics who only have a
few years on the job would inhibit people angling for the pope’s job and might
actually speed things up a bit.
And why do they
need to be paid? There are thousands, if
not millions of retired men and women with ample private means who would jump
at the chance to finish off their careers with a five-year stint at the
Vatican, even as a clerk or administrative assistant of some kind. There are also potentially millions who
wouldn’t mind starting out their careers by working at the Vatican, even for
nothing: it would look very good on a résumé, and even living on the economy in
Rome would be cheaper than most colleges these days.
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| "Yes, I really advocated widespread ownership." |
But what would
you do with all the priests who would become unemployed? Well . . . why not find them parishes? We hear there’s some kind of priest
shortage. Nobody needs to lose a job
without getting another.
The big
suggestion, however, is one that even many CPAs miss giving. It’s never enough to cut costs. You have to increase revenue. For a religion, that means having more people
contribute more money.
That is not as
crazy as it sounds. Since Pope Leo XIII
issued Rerum Novarum in 1891, it has been on the books of the Catholic
Church’s social program to promote expanded capital ownership. More people being capital owners would mean
more people with more money — and with more money to give, and fewer to
receive.
That’s why we
recommend that Pope Francis might want to look into Capital Homesteading
or something similar as an application of Catholic social teaching. It certainly couldn’t hurt.
#30#
