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Greetings: February 18, 2010
If there were ever a contest to determine the best example of the old adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, a church's Sunday collection would surely be a top contender.
As a retired federal law enforcement official with significant experience in the detection and investigation of financial irregularities, I have witnessed many cases in which otherwise good, God-fearing men and women succumbed to the temptation presented by easy access to public funds or property. And in virtually every case, the targeted funds or goods were less vulnerable than is the average church's Sunday collection.
The typical embezzler begins by telling him/herself they're only borrowing the funds to cover some legitimate personal or family need. As time goes by, however, and they realize how easy it is to borrow (in this case, from the Sunday collection), they begin to rationalize about how hard they work for little or (in the case of church volunteers) no pay, and how their church really owes it to them. As one can imagine, it's all downhill from there.
Judas was Christianity's first embezzler (JOHN 12.6) but today, nearly 2000 years later, an unknown but significant number of church embezzlements are ongoing at any given time. No one knows how many, because most church leaders, being unschooled in Security and having a deep-rooted aversion to its connotation of mistrust, have never recognized or accepted the absolute need for effective internal security to both deter and detect surreptitious theft.
The preservation and application of 19th Century methods in the 21st Century is or should be totally unacceptable. It may sound a bit melodramatic, but the long-term fiscal wellbeing of your church, parish or diocese may well rest in your hands. Consequently, before you decide whether or not to take advantage of this offer of a free download of our revenue protection and collection security guidelines and related forms, I urge you to read each of our pages.
In early 2005, the Archdiocese of Chicago issued a codified version of our Sunday collection guidelines. While I don’t know to what extent and how effectively they have been implemented, I do know they led to the identification of at least one embezzler (a pastor) who was plundering his parish’s Sunday collections to support a lavish and, as is often the case, perverted lifestyle. To learn more about that pathetic case, click here.
In any event, Catholics who live within the confines of the Archdiocese of Chicago can determine whether their pastor is in compliance with those guidelines by simply observing how the ushers dispose of the contents of their collection baskets. If they do not empty them into a single container which is immediately closed and positively locked or sealed, one can say the guidelines have definitely not been implemented and the collections remain highly vulnerable to surreptitious theft.
If the collection is secured in the manner described above, one may only conclude the guidelines have been at least partly implemented. Review of other elements of the system (storage, opening, counting and banking procedures) would be required to determine whether or not the guidelines have been fully implemented.
At this writing, I know of no other dioceses that have attempted to implement genuinely secure procedures. Further, my continued inability to generate interest on the part of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or its fiscal arm, the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, leads me to doubt that either one has acted on the matter. The expression hunkered down would appear to fairly describe the hierarchy’s present posture.
So as not to end on a sour note, I’m happy to report that the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management (NLRCM), an organization of laity, religious, and clergy working together to promote excellence and best practices in the management, finances, and human resources of the Catholic Church in America, features the Chicago Archdiocese’s codified version of our guidelines at their satellite website, www.churchepedia.org.
In their present form, however, the guidelines are missing a key element relating to the recording of the serial numbers of the sacks/seals put out for use by the ushers. It is essential that those numbers be compared against the serial numbers on the sacks received by the counting team. Any discrepancies would strongly indicate that sacks were being opened and funds removed between church and counting room. I’m hopeful both the Chicago Archdiocese and the NLRCM will yet heed my advice and recognize the need to amend the guidelines to eliminate that weak link. It was that weak link that allowed the pastor noted above to carry on his embezzlement.
Most sincerely,
Michael W. Ryan
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