UNITED STATES
NPR
[with audio]
by Caitlin Kenney
March 06, 2013
Now that Pope Benedict XVI has officially gone into retirement, the next leader of the Catholic Church has a lot to consider, including finances.
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
The next pope will be the spiritual leader of the world’s Catholics. He will also be leading a multibillion-dollar financial empire. And from a business perspective, the Catholic Church is struggling.
We talked to several people who study the business of the church. Here are a few of the issues they pointed out.
1. Globally, the church’s employees are in the wrong place.
Most Catholics live in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and that’s also where growth in church membership is higher. But only about half of all priests are in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
If the church were a business, the CEO would just transfer existing workers to other parts of the world. But the church just isn’t organized to make that kind of thing happen.
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