Financial Reporting in the

Catholic Church

By:
Aashish Suresh
M Arun
Nitesh khosla
Prince Nagaria
Shivanshu Pandey
The 3-Layered Structure

Global
Church

Regional
Church

Local Church
Global Church Regional Local
Church Church
The Pope and
The Vatican THE BISHOPS PARISHES,
AND DIOCESES PRIESTS AND
The Pope was LAYPEOPLE
bishop of Rome, The bishop
head of the college appointed pastors Parish
of bishops and head and oversaw represented
of Vatican city educational the place and
institutions people with
whom they
worshipped
Key Observations
Decentralized Church funds

Independent collection of funds by all the three

levels of Churches

Primary Source of offering was Free-Will Offerings

Bishop maintained control over the Church assets

 No Framework

Problem
Analysis
to attain
financial
accountability
Loss credibility
among the
people
 Problem Statement

To build a more transparent

and centralized financial
regulation system and in turn
help instil confidence in the
external stakeholders of the
church
Possible Solutions
Add a compulsory financial audit at all
the levels of Church and publish the
same in papers
All the parishes and diocese should
send consolidated financial statement
every year

Transparency should be maintained at

all the levels of Church

Increasing the check on parishes and

diocese
Recommended solution

initiate Smoothen
compulsory communicati
financial on
audit
Increase
transparen
cy

This will help in retaining the

trust of people in the authority
of the Church
Action Plan
The followers of Church having good
knowledge of Book keeping can be called
upon for maintaining and auditing of the
1. financial transaction on voluntary basis

All the financial transaction needs to be

recorded on Day to Day basis
2.

Vatican shall intervene whenever differences

occur between two levels of the Church
3.
Contingency Plan

Pope Benedict XVI and the Church

must start the process of
restructuring the Hierarchy so that
there is no power overlap between
different levels of the Church.