What kind of transparency for the Church? Proposing operational transparency for processes, solutions and decisions in the Catholic Church

• Published in: Church, Communication and Culture
• Main Author: Cristian Mendoza Ovando
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-05-01
• Subjects: transparency; stewardship; catholic church; operational transparency; participation; church management
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23753234.2020.1767508
• ISSN: 2375-3234; 2375-3242

Transparency is a modern call for society, and is currently becoming a challenge for the Church. Despite several practical efforts at making the Church more transparent, the question regarding what kind of transparency the Church should apply as a principle seems still to be largely unanswered. In this article, we propose a path of transparent processes, solutions and decisions in the Church that could be put into practice by dioceses, parishes, schools, etc. This article has two objectives. First, we explore the various concepts of transparency in current research. In this part, we stress that although transparency is commonly requested as a necessary policy for organizations, it is a multidimensional concept not easy to put into practice. Second, we suggest that operational transparency, which is an application of the principle of transparency mostly regarding marketing ideas, could be useful for the Church. Certainly, the utility of operational transparency should respect the spiritual mission and the unique focus of the government of the ecclesial institution; the Church cannot be considered a regular business enterprise, although it has a business side. In every step, we relate transparency to stewardship as, in our opinion; they are two dimensions of the same reality.