(GSR photo / Dan Stockman)Īnd those expenses might be lower thanks not only to economies of scale, but also because a small congregation may not need, say, a full-time finance officer, but would be hard-pressed to find one to work part-time. 13, 2016, at the Resource Center for Religious Institutes national conference in Anaheim, California. "Each community would contribute money to cover the expenses." "The idea is any employees will be employees of the governance corporation and not each individual community," Connors said. When it is required, the board then provides leadership and carries out the congregation's wishes until completion. The communities and their respective civil corporations continue to own all their assets, such as land and buildings, while the governance corporation simply manages those assets. We needed to find a way to do things with integrity and honor the heritage of each congregation and give them the support they need." "With a covenant, the idea is similar, except you have one community that's still capable and takes over for the other, but the reality is everyone's in the same boat. "It's a way to ensure the integrity of each community," she said.
That continues the structure of a superior with a leadership council, with the council in this case being the board members, Connors said.Ĭonnors said this model allows each congregation to continue and ensure care for its sisters until the last sister dies. And when there is no one to be the spiritual leader, Connors said, Rome can appoint a pontifical commissary as the leader, which could be the congregation's representative to the board or, more likely, the board chair. In the future, when no one from the community is able to serve on the collaborative corporation's board, they can appoint a vowed religious from outside the community as their representative. The religious congregations appoint representatives to the new civil corporation's shared board and pay the corporation for whatever services it supplies.
#Mercy model the model resource free#
The congregation's leadership is then free to focus on spiritual issues.
Every congregation has two identities: the entity recognized by the church under canon law and the nonprofit corporation recognized by the government.Ĭollaborative governance has the civil corporations from the two communities create a third corporation, which handles insurance, human resources, property management, legal issues, and all the other tasks the congregation requires as well as any management tasks needed for sponsored ministries. The model Connors created in late 2013, known now as collaborative governance, focuses on the civil corporations of the congregations involved. "She said, 'Let me go think about it' and came back with a very early, simple draft of how it might look." "We said to her that we were trying to put together some model that's not exactly a covenant," Scholl said. Frank Morrisey, who had been working with Canadian congregations facing completion. Connors studied and worked with Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Fr. Kelly Connors, a canon lawyer who focuses on governance issues. Sharon Holland, then president-elect of LCWR, suggested the communities talk to Presentation of Mary Sr. The two communities consulted with the Resource Center for Religious Institutes and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. It's coming close to the end."īader said that when the partnership was proposed in 2013, covenant relationships - where two communities essentially merge but keep their separate identities in the eyes of the church - seemed to be the only option, but it did not seem to be a good one: It would only temporarily address the leadership question and would mean one community would essentially subsume the other, even if they remained technically separate. "We'll probably do an extension for one year to work on the transition. "We have a chapter coming up in 2019, and we're anticipating the current leadership team is the last one," said President Sr. The majority are unable to work because of advancing age. They sold their convent in 2011, and a majority of the sisters moved to a retirement community. The Franciscan Sisters of Mary had stopped pursuing new members in 2001. The Precious Blood sisters knew they couldn't solve their neighbors' problems for them, but they also knew both communities would be better off if they faced the issues together. Louis, were facing the future, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, about 20 minutes east in Bridgeton, Missouri, were asking for help. (GSR photo / Dan Stockman)Īnd as the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood in O'Fallon, Missouri, just west of St. Sisters of the Most Precious Blood President Sr.
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