You can pay for almost anything with your cellphone — coffee, rent, leases. While the nation moves toward a greater preponderance of digital payment, a question can be asked: What is to happen to the cash collection and church envelopes?
Cathio, a new organization that looks to synthesize the Catholic faith with the latest in fintech solutions, is hoping to be the answer to that question.
“Cathio is a lay initiative that not only strives to save the Church money, but positions it to provide greater transparency of financial transactions and the connectivity of people of goodwill with good works,” said Cathio adviser and former ambassador to the Holy See Jim Nicholson in a May 31 press release.
Cathio spokesperson Arian Hopkins explained that the creation of a new platform — rather than simply utilization of secular platforms like PayPal or Venmo — comes in response to a culture where Catholic organizations are removed or negatively affected by publicity algorithms, hampering the Church’s ability to effectively fundraise.
Part of the attempt at reform moves past the payment processing system, with Cathio positioning itself as a trustworthy and transparent charitable partner through implementation of its own cryptocurrency — CathioCoin.
Full story at Angelus.
Who determines where the cash goes? Who provides documentation for tax purposes? Source article has no apparent link to a wewbsite for further info.
This is a great strategy and initiative! I hope it can help the Church begin a new discuss about how it operates and look deeper into new global/platform level strategies to manage the Church. A strategy like Cathio implemented across all diocese would reduce huge amounts of duplication and wasted time and funds. The ripple effect of moving the church’s operation forward to organize and work like a modern-day digital company would be huge. The consolidation of redundant departments, implementation of best practices and the use of real measurements of services and would allow the Church to move forward and hopefully learn to engage all those who have left or never been evangelized. Finance is the right place to start.
How about starting with requiring publication of complete audited financial statements from ALL Dioceses?? We, the little people in the pews, contribute part of our God given wealth back to the Church. Public traded companies, whose securities many of us buy for our retirement, must publish audited statements. Why not the Church? My Diocese has annual audits, but declines to publish them.
If the Church wants credibility, they have to earn it.
Mike M: absolutely agree with your proposal. Cathiocoin? The use of crypto currency is fraught with risks and the possibility of corruption. More transparency of the Church’s use of its financial resources would inspire more confidence.
I’m stunned that people would even consider this. After my parish allowed a homosexual group to infiltrate and march in it’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade (the committee meets in our parish and we have a Mass right before the Parade and a get together after) I stopped giving in my envelops but I do throw in a few dollars every week now because I attend almost every other day and I figure it’s the least I could do to help. Stopped many years ago giving to any collection that has the Bishops and Pope’s name connected to it.
More and more we experience visits to countries where restaurants and other public accommodations don’t want to, or won’t deal in cash. They want all transaction to be completed with credit cards or with smartphones, Some are, according to friends even discouraging the use if cards, The US us quite behind when it comes to money and tech, The church us even further behind?
What dreadful times we live in. Institutionalized sin. Consider our phony money. Compare pre-1965 coinage to what circulates today; or pre-1933 bills to today’s. The purpose of phony money is to, over time, rob the poorest among us to benefit the richest. Now a bunch of digit sequences are supposed to have tradable value. What would Our Lord say?