St. Louis, Mo., Mar 12, 2018 / 20:08 pm
While the intellectual formation of pastors is dominated by philosophy and theology, their pastoral duties also require something beyond the intellectual and spiritual aspects – a business component.
The Pastoral Leadership Institute has developed a curriculum to train priests in business and an administration skills, enabling pastors to better understand the financial properties of a parish.
Seminaries "have so much other stuff to cover, that they're required by the diocese to cover, that they frankly don't have time to cover this very important topic," said Charles Zech, an economics professors at Villanova University, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Zech, who has studied parochial finances, has noted that there is often little oversight, which lends an opportunity to both embezzlement and error.