(ANS - Rome) - The Lateran Pontifical University is offering a course to help church bodies to manage human and financial resources.  "Is this unique internationally? What is the goal of the course?It is to prepare the Church to face the new challenges of a complex society that requires transparency and new skills," said the Rector Magnificus, Bishop Enrico dal Covolo SDB, a Vatican Insider.

The school caters for those who have or will have managerial responsibility or a management role in parishes, dioceses, Church bodies, non-profit organizations andother organizations within the ecclesial landscape, to prepare and accompany them to fulfil their role with skill, knowledge and professionalism. The initiative aims at training people as coordinators who will help to optimize the human and economic resources by combining expertise and gospel values." 

“As a school, it is one of a kind,” said the Rector of the Lateran University.“The objective is to take good established practices in the secular environment and use them to help pastoral workers to address everyday problems, such as managing economic resources transparently, the good organization of human resources, effective communication, the need for innovation and greater involvement of the community."

The Master’s programme will commence on 16 February 2015 and will run for a period of fifteen months.In addition to classroom training, students will receive constant mentoring and individual guidance integrated with practical experience. At the end of the course they will work on a final project to demonstrate the skills they have acquired.

The course will be headed by Giulio Carpi, a layman who has followed and developed a number of training projects that are among the most forward-looking in the Church. “Managing human and economic resources is not a simple thing,“ says Giulio Carpi, “especially for people who are engaged primarily in the Church’s pastoral ministry. We want to give them the tools they need to combine good management and pastoral activity, especially in these days of increasingly scarce resources and rapid change of the rules of organization and communication."

The ultimate goal is then to marry the missionary nature of the Church with a set of useful and effective technical skills, in keeping with the Gospel and the Magisterium of the Church.

Published 13/11/2014