Church Called to be More Transparent on Money

A chartered accountant has called on the Southern African Church to be transparent and accountable in its finances.

Writing on the Spotlight.Africa website, Paulina French notes that the local Church has not followed the example of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has published its latest audited financial statements as well as various financial reports that detail how the Church’s resources are being used.

Ms French, who was a chartered accountant in the corporate world, said that similar information is not “readily available publicly” in the Southern African Church.

“The bishops’ conference has information about its finance department on its website but no financial statements or related reports are published,” she wrote.

“Attempts to contact the person listed as responsible for finances were in vain. This shouldn’t be necessary, as financial reports should be available to any of the Church’s stakeholders at a moment’s notice: from parishes, dioceses and the conference,” Ms French said.

Kind Code of Corporate Governance

She noted that the latest update of the King Code of Corporate Governance — a system of rules, practices and processes by which an organisation is directed and controlled — came into effect in April 2017 as “best practice for all entities to meet the standards it sets”.

King IV, as the 2017 update is known, “now includes sector supplements to provide guidance to various types of different entities such as Public Benefit Organisations — like the Church”, Ms French wrote.

“I would expect the Church to be focused on and driven by an ethical culture, sound and transparent management of its financial affairs, and effective control of its resources. I trust that it is all of these things, but the fact that I, as a member and stakeholder of the Church and my local parish, am not able to easily access financial reports raises my suspicion that all is not as it should be,” she said.

“Corporate governance is very relevant to the Church. Transparency to its stakeholders on all levels, not least of all financial, may just be the basis for rooting out the elitism and unaccountability shamefully present and identifiable in the Church of late,” she wrote.

“Just as the directors of corporate organisations are accountable to shareholders and stakeholders, so bishops and priests are accountable to the stakeholders in the Church,” Ms French said.

“The stakeholders are you and I, the people who make up the Church community, the ordinary folks who sit in the pews and help to provide the financial resources that the Church needs,” she said.

“The trust of its faithful and the indisputably proven integrity and public accountability of its ministers are key components for the success and future sustainability of our Church.”