The deal signed between the two universities will see Villanova bring educators from its Center for Church Management and Business Ethics to the classroom in Rome.
The new program will bring a measure of American financial savvy to Italy鱿鱼视频app notoriously murky Church finances, dovetailing with Pope Francis鈥 push for reform and transparency, especially when it comes to Church bank accounts.
Students at the Pontifical Lateran University鱿鱼视频app new School of Pastoral Management will also receive online training from Villanova, in addition to the chance to take part in a one-week summer program at Villanova鱿鱼视频app main campus in suburban Philadelphia.
Charles Zech, director of the Center for Church Management and Business Ethics at Villanova, said pupils would benefit from his team鱿鱼视频app 11-year experience of running such programs.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e all aimed at improving Church management; it鱿鱼视频app a real problem that parishes aren鈥檛 better run,鈥 he said after a signing ceremony to mark the partnership.
The first students to attend Rome鱿鱼视频app School of Pastoral Management began their training in February and are due to visit the U.S. campus in April 2016. The collaboration will see Villanova faculty teach modules starting next February, after which Zech anticipated seeing an immediate impact.
鈥淭he nicest thing I鈥檝e heard is pastors who have students in the program, who say: 鈥極ur Church workers learn something in the class one week, then they apply it in our parish the following week.鈥 So we have immediate applicability to the things we鈥檙e teaching,鈥 he said.
Before Villanova professors arrive in Rome, pupils will this fall learn how to assess the needs of the communities they serve. After studying areas such as ethics and precisely how to start a pastoral service, they will be trained in managing financial resources.
Giulio Carpi, director of the School of Pastoral Management in Rome, said the course was designed to improve the handling of both economic and human resources. 鈥淭here鱿鱼视频app a great need today to have better management in churches,鈥 he said, adding that Europe had perhaps fallen behind the United States in this regard.
After speaking to pupils in Rome, Zech agreed that there were significant differences in the way parishes are run in the United States and Italy. 鈥淎 lot of the concepts that I took for granted were foreign to the students, they didn鈥檛 understand what I was referring to,鈥 he said, using 鈥減ledging,鈥 or planned annual financial giving, as one example of a fundraising technique unheard of in Rome.
鈥淧romising that at the beginning of the year I will contribute a certain number of dollars over the year 鈥 many of the students in the program found that to be a strange concept,鈥 Zech said.
He chalked the knowledge gap up to the lack of state funding for churches in the United States, meaning church managers had to diversify the way they raised money. 鈥淚n Italy that鱿鱼视频app not the case,鈥 Zech noted, 鈥渂ut it might be someday.鈥
While the pupils had much to learn from Villanova, Capri noted that change was already underway in Italy. He said the papacy of Pope Francis 鈥 who has pushed for an overhaul of the Vatican administration 鈥 has sped up the reform process in Rome.
鈥淐ertainly the Holy Father has prompted a great acceleration from this point of view. Two years ago an exercise like this would probably have been more difficult,鈥 he said.
Capri has high hopes for a new and global generation of church managers, with both laypeople and clergymen currently taking the Pontifical Lateran University course. 鈥淚n the first edition, we already have four countries represented. The second edition will be at the international level, in English, Spanish and Italian,鈥 he said, adding that people had already signed up to take the next available seats in the classroom.