INTRODUCTION
The
topic I have been called to talk on, The Economic Ethics of the Ministerial
Priest, no doubt appears to situate the priest as minister, an ethical man
and an economic entity. Consequently there is a clarion call for the priest to
prove himself unwanting on those counts. To achieve much realism, the topic has
had to be modified in a subtle way, as can be elicited from the approach.
I. PRIEST AS
MINISTER:
The Priest as such is one who in
spite of himself, chosen by God to minister to the people of God. And nobody
takes this honor unto himself except he who is called, as Aaron was (Heb. 5:4).
He is to present Christ to the people of God, nourish them spiritually and
MATERIALLY and plead on their behalf before God. Vatican council II is very
clear in recognizing the priest as another Christ. In Decree on the Ministry
and Life of Priest. (Presbyerorum Ordinis) Vatican Council II says;
Priests
by the anointing of the holy are signed with a special character and so are
configured to Christ the priest in such a way that they are able to act in the
person of Christ the head (Par.2). Quickly we recall that in Pastores Dabo
Vobis of Pope John Paul II, the pontiff describes the priest as “a
sacrament representation of Christ head and shepherd”. If we were to go further
the catechism of the Catholic Church states;
“The redemptive
sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all, yet it is made
present in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the church. The same is true of the one
priesthood of Christ; it is made present through the ministerial priesthood
without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood. “Only Christ is the
true priest, the others being his ministers”. As alter christus he
expected to be sensitive to the existential situation of the people he is
ministering unto. Hence in the course of his preaching on occasions Christ was
quick to feel concerned for the multitude at their physical well-being. In Lk.
9:12ff. Jesus spent some time preaching on the crowd.
When evening was drawing near, the apostles (Disciples) suggested to Jesus that
he should consider sending them away on time enough for them to go to the
villages and buy food for themselves. Jesus then told them to give the crowd
something to eat themselves. Having blessed the fish and bread, the sustain
food was served. The behavior of Jesus is suggestive of the fact that a priest
should be all things to all men, being in the world yet not of the world, and
being circumspective in all occasions. Man is made up of body and soul and a
reasonable balance is expected to struck. It is a foolish pretext to hold that
in the world of reality one can exist healthily absolutely independent of the
other (spiritual and material well-being). A hungry man is an angry man and an
angry man is deficient in the service of God or the fellowship of Christ.
H.H. Hobbs once
advised:
“Make money
honestly – lots of it
Use it wisely –
all of it
And dedicate it
religiously – cent of it”
On serious reflection it becomes
reasonable to suggest that the behavior of a priest towards things/wealth
should be akin to our relationship with fire; if you are too near you will
burn; if you are too far you
will freeze herein comes there great ethical demand on the priest. There
should be a right mental attitude, which is manifested as an established
behavior. This behavior must stand out of the common approach of the mundane
world which is basically oppressive, self-centered and non Chrito – centric.
The relevance or irrelevance of the behavior logically moves us to the next
section of this paper; Question behavior if some priests at handling
temporal goods
II. QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS ECONOMIC
WELL BEING:
As ministers of God and fenders of
the sheep of Christ, certain behavioral patterns towards money and other
temporal goods raise serious questions bordering on insensitivity and
distortion of values. we may only address a few of such discomforting behaviors.
a.
RECORDING
KEEPING CHURCH ASSETS:
Being the chief custodian of church’s
assets, the priest and ultimately the diocesan bishop have a duty both in
justice and charity to guard religiously such asset, ensuring that authentic
documentation is maintained. It is observable to the glory of god that many
parishes have welcome structures edifices for the greater propagation of faith.
these includes nursery/primary school, Secondary schools, Clinics,
Rehabilitation Centers, etc. the worry here is that the priest(s) in charge of
those establishment unfortunately cannot keep a meaningful record of the
composition of such structure in terms of land and building, motor vehicles,
furniture and fittings, stocks available, debtors, creditors and generally
current or operating ‘funds’. It is a good practice at least once a year to
take stock of such items. Depending on the nature of the nature of the
understanding one is safer to institute continuous stock – taking. An
undisputable universal fault of most ministers is poor maintenance culture. It
is pain that the concern of some people vis-á-vis usage of vehicles is “as long
as it can kick and move ride on”. It is usually only when such vehicles are
flatly grounded that maintenance can be discussed. Sometimes the cost implication
become so much that abandonment takes places. Even the residential building of
some priest look like abandoned properties and most unkempt due to lack of
adequate maintenance.
b.
Staff Salaries
and Wages
I have no doubt in my mind that all of
us are tired of hearing the expression: fair wage. It has become so common –
place that its implementation appears to end with discussion. The priest ought
to set a pace for others to follow. Here I find the greatest show of
insensitivity among priest who some people in their pay – roll. They could be
Cooks, Drivers, Teachers, Nurses, etc. If it does not happen in this part of
Nigeria, i boldly report that our round in some of the parishes of some
Dioceses, there are some full – time employees who are paid N2, 500.00 per month. Even at that some
such people are paid upwards two months arrears. The propensity then takes
flight in occult compensation. Remember some of these employees are married,
with children. To make the bad situation worse these are employees are best
described as cash – cows at full employment and with no breathing space. Even
the statuary annual leave is often denied these employees. Now I ask: where is
the social justice which the church is known to be upholder of? Is there any
fair play?
Granted that comparison can be odious
it still stands to reason to imagine that N2,
500.00 can be a critical minimum amount such employers spend in a day on the
average. Yet this same sum is a month’s salary of an employee married with
children. A priest is a man for others, emptying himself for others, just like
his master, Jesus Christ. Alexander pope once said to Jonathan Swift “I am rich
enough and I can afford to give away £100.00 a year. I will enjoy the pleasure
of what I give by giving it alive and seeing others enjoy it. When I die I
should be ashamed to leave enough for a monument if a wanting friend was above
ground” Alexander pope was born in the year 1688 and he died in the year 1744.
Let us equally remind ourselves that justice delayed is justice denied.
c.
Collection in
church and other levies:
The rate at which some of our churches
are turning to money collection centers is becoming alarming and discomforting.
Nobody wants to suggest here that the church can perfectly do without financial
support. But the rate at which money is solicited for is far from ideal.
Different enticing names are given to different collection, necessitating – it
is supposed – two or more apart from the normal Sunday collection. Time is
unnecessary misused wasted or at best some unfair economy is given to the
Sunday homily/sermon in order to save time for the much needed several
collections. Even it could happen that seventy per cent of the sermon, if not
more, will be devoted to working up people of God to empty their purses during
the collection. With dances staged, some – to make serious matter sound funny –
may display dances which if quantified, will go nothing less than 400.00 while
they put into the collection box not more than 20.00 cumulatively. What is more
disturbing is the fact of taking some levies as precondition for the reception
of some sacraments. The reception of the sacrament of reconciliation (and
therefore the Eucharist) is dependent on the prospective recipient having paid
his AMC or whatever name a particular diocese gives it. For a person to be when
it comes to baptized, some fee is payable. The situation in some instance is
worse when it comes to sacrament of marriage. Even for harvest and Bazaar
levies, ordination/religion profession levies, the stage of reception of the
sacrament becomes a favorable collection point, otherwise the sacrament s would
not be administered. In all fairness the recipient of the sacraments may have a
blame: unless he is held to the throat, he would not live up to his financial obligation
with the church. All the same, perhaps the ministers are not doing enough
catechesis or comporting themselves so becomingly that the follower naturally
supports the church. The priests need the money and perhaps the Christian
cannot afford the money. Here lies the serious problem.
On this my suggestion is sometimes
straight jacket approach to rules and regulation may not be Christian enough.
There may be need to consider certain issues and people on their own merit.
There must be exceptions prudently established. After all exception makes rule.
Of course too many exceptions destroy the rule.
d.
Accountability
The priest as
such is a servant. He is called to service. He is serving a people for God.
Necessarily he renders account first to the people he is serving and finally to
God. Christ in his teaching was not oblivious of the need for accountability.
Hence inter alia, the parable of the master who demanded account from his
servants, people deserve the right to be well informed of the inflows and outflows
as concern them, especially of funds. As service, open door policy is
advocated. The priest must NOT ONLY BE BUT MUST ALSO BE SEEN TO BE DETACHED.
There are several funds in the church, which attract the inquisitiveness of the
member of a parish. Some of these include bazaar funds (incomes and
expenditure), building fund accounts, special projects (e.g. Nursery/Primary
and Secondary school account, Hospital/Maternity/Clinic records). Of course
these are to the extent to which the congregation is committed. Functional
finance committee should be in place in every parish as a mirror image of the
Diocesan finance committee as advocated by canon 492 .1. Banking culture should
be established such That all incomes get first banked while all approved expenditures
are affected through drawings from the bank. To maintain his integrity it is
most advisable that a priest avoids as much s possible being a sole signatory
to an account owned by a parish. There is equally nothing fundamentally wrong
with occasionally publishing the parish account for the Parishioners to
be informed. It is advocated in no uncertain term that there is need for
occasional external auditing of the common account, even if there is already in
place a term of internal auditors. This suggestion does not in any way EXCLUDE
the Diocesan Center. For the avoidance of doubt, we do here mean to infer that
the bishop is ordinarily accountable to the priest. Let us simply safely say
that on occasions, the bishop is in a better shape if he reassures his priests.
At this juncture, a question comes to
mind: is it ethical – apart from dryly preaching the word – for priest to
assist in generating the income with which he runs his constituency and
maintains himself? To this I answer with this story;
A monk arrived
at monastery ruled by an old abbot and requested to be admitted. He found all
the monks busy making and mats. Surprised, he said to them; “why do you work
for a meal that is perishable? What one should seek is the sustenance of the
imperishable spirit!” the abbot had him put in an empty room and he was left
there. Meal time came and the guest anxiously waited to be called to dinner
since it was getting late and he was hungry. He finally went to the abbot and
said: “Father, aren’t the brothers in this house eating today”? “Of course they
are”, replied the Abbot. “Then why haven’t I been called?” The Abbot replied:
“Because you are a spiritual man and o not need food; we however need earthly
food because we are flesh- and- blood men and therefore work to earn our
meals…..` The embarrassed Monk learned his lesson the HUNGRY way.
Times
are becoming harder and harder for our society. Human need (not want) which
impact on physical well – being and economic survival are rising in geometric
progression while requisite incomes are dwindling also in a geometric
progression. A meeting point is hard to come by. Therefore all hands must be on
deck to alleviate the suffering of the masses. Something near economic
independence should be aim at by the church. Understandably, the church here
still remains the laity and the priests, with the priest playing the leadership
role. It is now necessary for us to into the third major section of this paper.
III. SUGESTED
WAYS OF HELPING OURSELVES ECONOMICALLY:
It is a truism to say that much
financial burden is placed on the laity by the hash economic facts of the
society. Parents and guardians have many children to cater for: feeding them,
clothing them, see to their health care and giving them formal education. The
financial implications are simply enormous up to this point. Add to these the
care and sustenance of the clergy. Therefore it stands to reason that clergy
must find ways and means of reducing the BURDEN on the laity. Because of the
value content of such suggestion in a similar paper delivered to Awka Decease
on November 17, 1999, this paper would incorporate some of the points
addressed.
a.
Investment in
manpower training:
This
is a long –term measure in a way. With
the decease being blessed with more and more priest endowed with intrinsic but
unharnessed talent, the Diocese will be doing herself a lot of good if some
priests are trained in fields of study other than Theology and Philosophy.
There is need for diversification. Our present age as we know is an age of
professionalism and mature division of labor. The priesthood of today is lived
with this age, not the age past.
Economic self – actualization by the
church via her priest and laity cannot rightly be said to dampen the
spirituality of the church. With prudent approach, it could quickly work as a
catalyst and a beautiful way of preaching the Gospel. We must equally
appreciate the need for dynamism in ways and means of preaching Jesus Christ in
His constancy within a changing and scientifically prone world.
Positive dividends will be realized
if our Priests train in such areas as Architecture, Banking, Computer
application and Technology, Accountancy, Publishing, Insurance/Actuarial
science, Civil Law, Civil engineering, Educational Administration, and General
Management. The fact alone the Church has own professionals among the Priests
definitely reduces cost of hiring such professionals from elsewhere. One
wonders aloud what – if anything – is fundamentally wrong with the Church,
through Priest professionals, owning and manning firms of professionals like
Civil legal Chambers, consultancy firms and even Accountancy/Audit firms. These
are clean and clear sources of income physically realizable or as cost
reduction.
b. Floatation of Bank
With
pooling of talented professionals in those secure fields, it might be worth
considering floating a bank. It is painfully true that the banks capitalize on
the ignorance of Priests and misdirect them. Some are not given accurate
information concerning the various forms of banking (e.g. Fixed deposit,
Current account and saving account) and the attendant benefits, risks and
uncertainties. Lack of knowledge of how to agree (reconcile) one’s record of
deposits and withdraws with the position report (bank statement) from banks can
cause some embarrassment to a customer. If in a Diocese two or three priests
are trained in Banking Industry. It does not necessarily mean that Priest(s)
will be all in all in the bank. The fact that an informed Priest is there,
playing a supervisory role, will act as a serious deterrent to non – priest
staff who might otherwise wish to defraud the bank.
C. Consultancy Firm
It
is not be disputed that a consultancy firm with a management team in the fields
of Accountancy, Banking, Business, Law and Actuarial Science will place a
Diocese in a position of economic progress. Many Dioceses and Parishes – not to
talk of the society at large – often want to start an income – generating outfit.
Wisely they would professional reasons to be convinced that such projects will
be profitable or at least stand at a break – even point. Herein comes the need
for feasibility report would be handled by the consultancy firm. In general, a
feasibility report would address the issues of location of a business in terms
of market availability (demand) sources of raw materials, availability of water,
light and means of communication, access road, quality and cost of available
labour availability of financial institutions and market, extent of possible
competitors, etc. Other technical issues addressable in a sound feasibility
study would include estimates of working Capital requirement, loan facilitates
and their terms, Capital expenditure budget, expenditure projection, income
projection, profitability indices, management and marketing terms and teams,
and nature of possible demand (Seasonal or non – seasonal). A good feasibility
report forms a solid foundation for the success of any business. This is why it
becomes a reliable source to any diocese that has a firm with professionals so
trained.
D. Publishing
and Broadcasting
We must not close our eyes to the trend
in the world, which makes the need for broadcasting and publishing very urgent.
I am afraid that the Church in our part of the world is not yet doing enough to
address this fact. We must use what is current, what the world understands to
advertise Christ. Therefore some Priests need to be encouraged to venture into
the fields of publishing and broadcasting. There is no doubt that some of our flocks
get lost through the mass media where the Church has nothing to offer through
the same means to correct theological errors being rolled out to the listening
masses. We cannot deceive ourselves thinking that the mass media has no
psychological impact on hearers.
e. Investment in Stocks and Shares
This
forms a very decent way of reaping the good fruits of long term savings.
Unfortunately, many people cannot fancy this source of income. From
investigation, people fell highly discouraged as a result of the meager
dividends receivable. Actually the increase in shareholdings and the
appreciation of the market value of the share make such investment worthwhile.
An oral discussion on this will clarity clouded issues.
IV. CONCLUSION
I feel an inner urge not to end this
paper without stating some issues that may make or mar the message in this
paper.
1. We know of the common saying: “United we
stand, but divided we fail”. Consequently the success or failure of any decided
undertaking is the lot of all in the Diocese. Therefore t is suggested that we
must always look out for who can do what best, irrespective of any mean
consideration like place of origin or sentiments.
2. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
Therefore a target must be set and adequate feasibility study made. If there is
material disagreement, steps must be retraced. Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threat (SWOT) must be carefully determined.
3. When responsibilities are assigned, a
healthy operational environment equally needs to be created. A defined
authority must accompany any responsibility. This statement stands the test of
time. It is equally verifiable.
4. In as much as teamwork generally results in
synergy, we must be careful to ensure that people who operate on parallel
frequencies are not assigned the same duty as a team. Should this mistake be
made, the result will be counter – productive.
5. Experts/Specialists need to be recognized
for what they are. Their opinions need to be respected. The idea of a non –
expert dictating for an other hand, such experts ought to appreciate the
limitations of the uninformed in their fields and take time to explain their
activities.
6. It is good to know something about
everything, and everything about something. That is the essence
of specialization. On this, people should be allowed substantial time to
consolidate in their assigned duties, making allowance for understandable
mistakes. There is a paradox I want to share with you: “the only way to avoid
mistakes in business is to gain experience, and yet the only way to gain
experience is to make mistakes”.
8. We know of the saying no venture, no
successes. Understandably man is change averse. This fact notwithstanding,
there is need to take a calculated risk by immediately succeed if we try, but
we can never succeed if we try, but we can never succeed if we don’t try.
Finally
let us realize our unique place in the drama of life as Priests ministers to
the world, living in an economic environment as instructors and participants
and having a common domain as Priest, conscious of our unity in diversity.