Catholic Church Gets the Wharton School Treatment

I attended a fascinating conference last month entitled "The Church in America, Leadership Roundtable 2004," sponsored by and held at the Wharton School here in Phildelphia. The conference was surprising in many ways, not least of all because of its location at the University of Pennsylvania, which is not noted for its friendliness to religion and the Catholic Church in particular. But it demonstrates Wharton's extraordinary ability to marshal the energy and money of its many successful grads, in this case committed Catholics deeply interested in their church. The conference gathered about 200 Catholic leaders, both lay and clerical, including many bishops, to talk about the Church as a problem in management. The group consisted of clerics (bishops, priests and nuns who run church institutions), academics (mostly Catholic university presidents and a few deans), CEOs, and some well known Catholic intellectualswriters/consultants (if that's a category). While it was genuinely fascinating, and one of the most civil Catholic conferences I've attended, it left me with a few qualms.The organizors' assumptions were articulated in terms something like this:

1. The Church in America is on a "burning platform" (a term coined by former GE mogul Jack Welch); it must change or it will gradually fall apart; the status quo is not an option.

2. The key to survival and new growth is a mangerial revolution: the Church must abndon its "feudal" organization and way of doing business and adopt a "performance culture", accountability, modern human resources practices, modern market analysis and communication techniques, and strategic planning. This does not require applying a corporate model or abandoning the dioceses' autonomy; a sophisticated partnership model would be more appropriate.

3. None of that would be possible, however, without a radical expansion of the role of laity not just in parish life, but in leadership (not necessarily sacramental) roles at all levels.

My response to all this was a classic Catholic "Yes, but..." I certainly agree the Church is on a burning platform, that a managerial revolution is needed, particularly with respect to accountability, and recognition of the importance of the laity is not just a matter of necessity because of the disappearance of priests and nuns, but for sound theological reasons. Nevertheless, this analysis, while correct and helpful, overstates the importance of the managerial issues, because it does not explain adequately why the platform is burning. It is burning not just because many bishops have shown themselves to be inept or misguided managers, as the response to the sexual abuse cases has shown. It is burning, first, because the Church's core spiritual message is falling on increasingly deaf ears in a culture profoundly inimical to its beliefs and values, and, second, because Catholics are so divided among themselves about what Catholicism means and what it means to be a good Catholic. We can hire McKinsey or some other high powered business consultant to create a beautiful, well-engineered, gleaming managerial enterprise, but if it is producing the spiritual equivalent of buggy whips, it is still going to fail. My worry is that the Church's problems are of a different order than those that can be addressed by managerial remedies, even very important ones such as greater pastoral and financial accountability.

Of course, I don't want to set up too stark an antithesis here: better management will enable the Church's spiritual message to be conveyed more effectively, and its resources deployed more efficiently and with more credibility. Structural reforms that lend more dignity to the laity's (ESPECIALLY WOMEN"S) vocations and contributions will have a very positive spiritual effect. But, to mix metaphors, we need a wellspring of spiritual renewal to douse the flames on the burning platform.