"The Church has the responsibility to safeguard and diligently manage the goods entrusted to her for the fulfillment of her evangelizing mission statement ". This affirmation used by Pope Francis in the Motu proprio Fidelis dispensator et prudens, could summarize the reason for the thesis on the economic budget in the canonical order defended last Friday, March 20 at the School from Canon Law University of Navarra by Carlos Luis Paez. The new doctor, a native of Guatemala, is 31 years old and is graduate in Economics with specialization program in Finance. The thesis was directed by Professor Diego Zalbidea.

 The budget is a tool that facilitates the efficient, transparent and management manager of the Church's resources. The administration of goods cannot be limited to foreseeing what will happen through calculations and estimates of the future, but also involves providing the Church with the necessary means to carry out the activities that its mission statement demands. The Code of Canon Law regulates budget in canons 493 and 1284 § 3.

The author of thesis proposes to overcome the reductive view of budget as a forecast only and to define it, following the Code, as an instrument for provision. Provision includes foreseeing income, expenses, circumstances and scenarios, but goes beyond that. Christ has entrusted a mission statement to his Church, and those who administer it must also provide the necessary goods to make it happen. Provision (whose root is the same as providence) moves the Church out of the comfort and security offered by the goods it already possesses. Understanding budget in this way demands growing, advancing and developing the mission statement of the Church: at final, to be a Church going out. "How I would like a poor Church for the poor" affirmed Pope Francis shortly after being elected as successor of St. Peter.

The economic budget makes this reality possible. It makes it possible to foresee needs, avoid unnecessary expenses and save resources in order to reach more people and situations. The budget also facilitates the co-responsibility of all the faithful. It presents to them in advance, in a clear and concrete way, the different projects and needs of the Church. If the faithful see that their goods are administered diligently and with transparency, they will feel stimulated to correspond to the gifts received from God by sharing them with the Church in order to develop the mission statement that is their responsibility as baptized faithful. In this way a true provision is made and the Church can reach the existential peripheries of humanity with its good news of salvation and mercy.

In the face of prejudices about the Church's ability to manage its assets professionally and transparently, thesis has brought to light an interesting historical fact. Those who first used the economic budget and subsequently developed it were people who administered ecclesiastical goods. Specifically, the Franciscan Luca Pacioli is considered the father of accounting for writing the first treatise on subject in 1494. The Benedictine monk Angelo Pietra and the Jesuit Ludovico Flori would follow years later with their decisive contributions to the history of accounting.

The thesis has brought to light some examples of particular legislation that can be model of the use of budget. The new doctor has studied, among other sources, the regulations of the diocesan councils for economic affairs of the archdioceses of Toledo, Milan and Chicago.

If the administration of goods is not linked to the Church's mission statement , it is easy for it to become a technical question for specialists. This supposes an unquestionable loss for the most material dimension of the Church, which thus loses the approach that must guide it. Moreover, and above all, it also harms its spiritual dimension, which will thus suffer a loss of credibility. On the contrary, if the Church's mission statement is able to permeate everything, even the administration of her temporal goods, the Gospel witness becomes even more credible and mercy is then also realized through them.