UNITED STATES
Catholic Philly
BY BETH GRIFFIN
Catholic News Service
Joseph F. X. Zahra, deputy coordinator of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, said his group identified dioceses that exercise good financial management, operate in “an open, transparent manner” and have “the right controls in place to avoid misuse of funds.” He is pictured in a 2012 photo. (CNS photo/courtesy Aid to the Church in Need)
RYE, N.Y. (CNS) — The financial reforms established by the Vatican’s new Council for the Economy drew on good management practices of dioceses in the United States and elsewhere and will serve as a model for dioceses throughout the world, according to a Maltese economist tapped by Pope Francis to modernize the church’s obsolete financial structure.
Joseph F. X. Zahra, the council’s deputy coordinator, said his group identified dioceses that exercise good financial management, operate in “an open, transparent manner” and have “the right controls in place to avoid misuse of funds.” He declined to name specific dioceses and also said good management practices were not confined to the United States.
Zahra predicted the new financial “machinery and administration” will position the Curia as a “best practices” benchmark for other dioceses worldwide to follow.
Zahra spoke to Catholic News Service by telephone Nov. 11 from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana where he addressed students, faculty and administrators. His visit there was part of a series of “communications sessions” organized by Centimus Annus Pro Pontifice, a pontifical foundation dedicated to social justice.
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