A Business Plan for the Catholic Church

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"The progress that's been made in a few short years has been astounding." The group also has management and finance committees, which meet regularly, and holds an annual conference for executives and church leaders at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Best Practices

So far, much of the work has been focused on drafting national standards for best practices, which were released in 2007. Kerry Robinson, who acts as executive director of the Roundtable, argues that each diocese "basically operates according to whatever the local ordinary thinks is best." Last year, the group distributed a church in America series of DVDs and workbooks that give parish and diocesan leaders simple-to-use instructions for management tasks that are commonly bungled, such as job templates for new layperson hires and how to design an annual budget. It also launched ChurchEpedia, a site where they hope religious leaders will share best practices.

Whether they can get the majority of U.S. bishops to take their advice is another matter. The DVDs and workbooks are a hit in the 74 parishes of the Tucson diocese, but Robert Vasa, the bishop of Baker, Ore., says he has never heard of the series. Still, former Honeywell chief Larry Bossidy says he was impressed with the number of bishops who turned out for the Roundtable's June conference. "While they all looked upon it with some concern and skepticism at the outset,"' says Bossidy. "I think that has given way now to an acceptance."'

Others point out that church leaders have a long history of resisting input from lay groups. Margaret Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion & Culture, notes that many groups that start with calling for simple changes end up challenging such canon laws as priest celibacy and the church's absolute control over clergy appointments. "It is true that there is an atmosphere of suspicion of lay groups, and the roundtable has run into that," says Steinfels. (The Leadership Roundtable's Robinson insists that the group has no intention of challenging doctrinal matters.)

Whether due to Boisi or not, there are certainly signs that the church is starting to turn to the tools of modern management. Parishes have increasingly appointed chief operating officers and chief financial officers to manage the business. Catholic universities such as Villanova University and Boston College now offer master's degrees in church management. If Boisi has his way, the Leadership Roundtable may one day be supplanted by management-savvy clergy who can quote Peter Drucker as well as they can St. Peter.

Click here to see a video interview with Kerry Robinson, executive director of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management.

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.