About Us

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis Empowering Pastoral Leaders project received a $1 million grant from the Lilly Endowment National Initiative to Address Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders in 2016 to fund an array of programs through 2018.   These programs are detailed throughout this website.  

In 2019, the Archdiocese received an additional $189,119 from the Lilly Endowment to continue with Phase II of Empowering Pastoral Leaders and the funding of its programs through 2021.  

The Aim of the Empowering Pastoral Leaders Project is “to develop pastoral leaders who have a solid foundation in financial literacy and appropriate skills in leadership and management so that their ministries flourish and parishioners grow as disciples”.

Our goals that enable this Aim are: 

  • To actively engage, motivate and inspire in ways that empower our pastoral leaders to enhance their leadership and management skills so they can address the challenges that undercut their parish ministry.
  • To provide educational opportunities for pastoral leaders and seminarians to enable them to solidly connect leadership and management to the theology and spirituality of priesthood and ministry as well as to the mission of a parish.
  • To enable pastoral leaders to become more comfortable with a spirituality of money and generosity and to enable pastoral leaders to better communicate a spirituality of money and generosity to their parishioners.
  • To provide financial counseling opportunities for pastoral leaders and seminarians to achieve personal financial literacy so that personal concerns with money do not impact ministry.
  • To grow a Ministerial Excellence Fund that provides opportunities for pastoral leaders who have debt due to education (including parents who have incurred debt due to their children’s college education) and those who are experiencing a financial emergency as a result of illness or a spouse losing a job.
  • To grow the effectiveness of all archdiocesan offices that relate to support of pastoral leaders on the parish level, especially the archdiocesan office of stewardship and development with the goal of enhancing the stewardship skills of pastoral leaders.

More details the Empowering Project Leader project is available by contacting Dan Krodel at dkrodel@archindy.org or 317-236-1562.

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