''It is imperative we give them capabilities to succeed as leaders," said the Rev. Dave Nuss, director of vocations for the Toledo Diocese. ''It's more than accounting and payroll."
While bookkeeping skills are important, broader management skills are just as critical, said Nuss, who routinely has priests meet with local corporate executives to glean business savvy.
Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati has been providing an elective class on parish finances since the mid-1980s, one of the first seminaries to begin doing so.
''Some of these guys are going to be the CEO of multimillion-dollar operations," said Dennis Eagan, who teaches the class, adding that many of his former students later call to thank him.
The Archdiocese of Chicago provides workshops on management and personnel issues for newly ordained priests. It also matches new pastors with mentors, a common program in large dioceses, said the Rev. Louis Cameli, the archdiocese's director of ongoing formation.
A course in pastoral administration at St. Mary's Seminary and University, a Baltimore school that trains priests for 20 East Coast dioceses, covers everything from balancing a budget to fund-raising to building maintenance.
The seminary places great importance on getting priests ready to lead parishes because some become pastors within a year of ordination, said Betty Visconage, vice president for institutional advancement.
''The faculty sees this as their primary mission," she said.
Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch, a Cleveland-based group of liberal Catholics, would like to see every seminary require courses in human resources, management, and community organizing.
''Most priests want to be a priest because they want to be ministering to people, not because they want to be a manager," Schenk said. ''Most do management badly."
But the Rev. Edward J. Burns, executive director of the secretariat for vocations and priestly formation at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said each diocese has its own administrative style and therefore should be left to decide how to instruct priests.
