Churches should get down to business.

As we came out of a Sunday mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago four years ago, we saw placards in front of us. "Bernardin has betrayed us." "Give us back our parishes." The people waiting outside were bitter at Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's plan to close down their city parishes.

The slimming down of the church had become conspicuous in Chicago and was causing pain to those affected. The cardinal had announced a $15 million deficit for the archdiocese the previous fall. But anyone who knew the U.S. Catholic Church's worsening financial situation had seen this kind of scenario coming for a long time.

As painful as this process may have been to the protesting parishioners, however, the church suffers even greater damage when the slimming down causes no pain. Pain is a warning signal that some weakness must be tackled. Faced with a huge and growing deficit, a bishop may slash the religious-education or liturgy staffs.

Parishioners who have seldom experienced what such staffs can do hardly notice the difference. Even parishioners who react more strongly may soon get used to the reduced service. When the pain signal is no longer felt, Christ's church settles down to the comfortable life of less challenging activities.

Is the Catholic Church in the U.S. doomed to a decreasing vitality? Do we have to watch powerlessly as essential services are scaled down? If so, the effects will not only be felt in our personal spiritual lives but also in the church's ability to offer the gospel to this country.

Four years ago, when I began to have interviews around the country about the future developments of the U.S. church, my answers to those two questions would have been more pessimistic than they are now. I knew the financial statistics. They tell us that, although Catholics earn much more than Protestants, they give to their church less than half of what Protestants give to theirs.

Father Andrew Greeley told me that the gap had widened further since he and Bishop William McManus had made the facts widely available in their book Catholic Contributions: Sociology and Policy (Thomas More Press, 1987). And another nationally acclaimed expert on Catholic parishes told me that he believed the Catholic contribution would decline still further because the older generation is carrying the main financial burden.

Were there grounds for hoping that the descending spiral could soon be halted? For a long time I could not see any. What made this failure more poignant to me was the strong evidence that America needs a vigorous Catholic Church, perhaps more than at any other time in U.S. history.

Today the authority of government is being reduced by much of the media, and Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to remember that we find our true individuality only through our commitments to service and community.

In these circumstances, a huge, well-organized body such as the U.S. Catholic Church (comprising more than a quarter of the population) could offer a unique practical witness to such truths about humanity.

We already have the basis of such a church, in the great numbers of committed and theologically literate laypeople. But as the essential services are progressively slimmed down, there is less chance of building on or even of preserving that basis.

Recently I have been wondering whether we haven't a remedy in our hands. In its periods of greatest vitality the church has been good at borrowing creatively from secular institutions. In most parishes there are plenty of parishioners who know how business management skills could help them tackle problems of that kind. What is stopping us from asking them to help us?

If we do, one of the first questions they might ask us to consider is: "In what circumstances might people give you money?" McManus, in his half of Catholic Contributions: Sociology and Policy, gives part of the answer. The Protestants give more than twice as much to their churches because they are deeply involved in their congregation's budget. Therefore, McManus says, "freezing out the laity at both diocesan and parish levels may be what caused the long chill on church income."

But is that freezing out necessary? I think of Michael, Veronica, and Gerald in our parish - most parishes have people of similar quality and skills. They know from their experience of business management how to involve all who are open to the invitation in forming a company's (or parish's) vision.

Good management experience has also taught them the importance of keeping people on board in a participative manner as we press toward making our vision come true.

I think, too, of Jack, an American factory manager, describing to me how he ran his company. The key to success, he told me, is "visiting our people and communicating with them in a very consistent way. We feel that if we do that properly, involving their input and ideas, they will feel a real part of our business. I want them to be involved in activities such as decision making."

As I was leaving Jack, he told me the flip side. "If we don't listen to our employees, I'll guarantee we'll fail." The firm that Jack works for is highly respected in the area.

As always, dealing with people about important, deep-felt issues requires skill. A 1990 survey showed that most company communication strategies are poor because they are based on military-type models where the superior officers dispense information to their inferiors. A parish needs to work closely with people with good management experience, as well as a developed spirituality and ecclesiology.

In a parish where such a process has been set up, adult formation might not be mentioned and might be considered too abstract or technical. But the main aims embraced by adult formation certainly would arise as part of that vision. Catholics want a better understanding of the Mass and prayer and the great annual feasts such as Christmas and Easter.

They want to know Jesus better. The mystery of God and his future for us fascinates them. A growing number want to know how all this speaks about our everyday activities and concerns.

Once our parish begins to articulate its vision, we will want to explore ways to achieve specific goals.

If the parish is following my model, these goals won't be imposed by some obscure parish or diocesan committee but will arise from our unhurried reflection on what we really desire ourselves and our parish to be.

Gradually we will consider how our aims can be realized: what program might be helpful; what personnel or training will be needed; how much it will cost. If enough of the parish has been brought into the process, can it be doubted that the motivation will be strong and the money be found?

But achieving the goals we have aimed for won't be the only result of our efforts. Perhaps the parish decides to get someone trained to help it achieve one goal. If that becomes a success, the people will look to the trained person for faith development and will feel comfortable working with that person. Faith development is becoming a homegrown and natural activity in the parish. With luck, churches will begin training or hiring professional guides to further the aims of the parish.

The diocese itself will probably have such guides on its staff. As this process continues, the diocese will become what most dioceses really want to be: a valued resource, not a remote bureaucracy.

When we talk of a parish doing such things, we are not, of course, thinking that lay parishioners will have all the power. If the parish priest ceases to have a key role as the representative of the bishop, we cease to be a church. When Saint Paul and others demand a full involvement of all parishioners, they aren't thinking of a democracy of complete equality - any more than asking for full participation of the workforce in a corporation is incompatible with its having a managing director.

Of course there will be tensions and, maybe, feelings of being threatened or misunderstood. But how many lively bodies have eliminated these problems? What we would have here is a slow, shared journey to reach our aspirations, not poorly reflected opinions forced on a parish. With good professional help this should lead us to depth, strength, and bonding.

And wouldn't such a policy bring even wider benefits? Few occupations are crying out today for evangelization more than business. Even though business gurus point strongly to participative management as the only effective road to long-term company solvency, business expert and author Robert Levering says the American workplace is getting worse.

Although most people want to do a good job, "such yearning rarely can be fulfilled [in the workplace]," Levering says in A Great Place to Work (Random, 1988). "This translates, on a personal level, to a profound feeling of alienation. Socially, it represents a tragic waste of human energy." One of the reasons for this, he says, is paternalism, which "stultifies personal growth. The irony is that, in the long run, it also stultifies the company."

If Catholics are going to bring the Good News of God's transforming power into the American workplace, we must find ways of translating scriptural and business insights into common and valued practices. If Catholic business people could see these kinds of nurturing, collaborative business practices succeed in involving people in their parishes, they might be better able to apply them in their workplaces. It could also make scripture more evidently a way to truth and depth as we explore Jesus' and Paul's inspiring vision of community.

As a parish becomes more accustomed to finding its way forward by bringing together light from scripture and business wisdom, further advances will suggest themselves. In business, for instance, appraising someone's skills through an employee evaluation has been invaluable both for the employee and the company.

Such appraisals, in a good firm, are not narrowly self-serving for the company. Evaluations work best if employees feel that the company values their skills because they are an important part of them as individuals, not just as workers.

Likewise, a parish should help people discern their vocations and encourage the Christian use of their skills. Some wise counseling and spiritual direction could release great creativity and productivity in all of us.

Our gift may be that of a homemaker or an entrepreneur, a welcomer or a counselor - the list of good things people can do is endless. For our gifts to take root and develop, each of us needs some encouragement, discernment, and guidance.

We know that the ways a parish will provide this guidance will often differ from the ways a corporation will provide it. But the key common element is in discerning our visions together and taking steps to reach it. Once that process is in place, vigorous life should follow.

By Father Edmund Flood, O.S.B. of Ealing Abbey, producer of the Faith in Life parish-renewal program and a program on renewing the Eucharist.