Word: parishes
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...council issued a 60-page booklet listing its past recommendations to the cardinal. He has followed some, but without making any direct response to the council. Many others he has ignored-including recommendations for such widely followed practices as a personnel board to give priests a say in parish placement and diocesan encouragement of parish advisory councils...
...attacked the "demonology about China in the U. S. that has dominated journalistic information and even scholarship on China." China has been portrayed as "a parish for its alleged expansionism" and "a robot like society with regimented human beings," Lin said...
...This "famine of information" also exists within church councils. The bishops are misinformed about their own holdings and have plunged into ill-advised building sprees because they did not realize how poor they really were. Another victim of secrecy is the beleaguered parochial school system, which consumes 60% of parish incomes. Gollin says that new public support will never come until the account books are opened and the bishops convince taxpayers that the schools really need the money...
Decentralization is as much at fault as secrecy. In money matters, the chief pastors of the country's 18,244 parishes are largely autonomous. Even central purchasing plans for dioceses are surprisingly rare. One diocese saved $241,000 a year just by consolidating parish insurance policies...
Bemoaning the economic ignorance of most priests, a financial adviser to the New York archdiocese told Gollin, "It's a good thing they have God on their side." They need secular help as well. Urban parishes increasingly depend on raffles, lotteries, Monte Carlo nights and bingo to make ends meet. Priests often consider gambling demeaning, if not immoral, but their parishes need it. The annual $15,000 or so it provides may keep the parish school open. One priest explains, "Bingo isn't a sign of greed. It's a confession of defeat-an admission that...