Article January 29, 1990 Issue

FROM THE Directors

"Guardianship of Church Funds"

The Christian Science Board of Directors

Students of the Manual of The Mother Church will recognize this as the title of Article XXIV, a careful study of which makes evident the remarkable and rigorous system of checks and balances that Mary Baker Eddy established to safeguard the finances of her Church.

Awareness of the provisions in this By-Law is a safeguard to members as well. From time to time we hear about someone who has fallen prey unwittingly to what proves to be a dissident group using direct mail to raise funds and to sow seeds of doubt and distrust by alleging fiscal misconduct at headquarters. The Manual comes to the rescue and lifts such questions out of merely "Whom do we believe?" Each year the Treasurer's annual report is printed in the official organ of the Church, The Christian Science Journal, for all to see whether Manual requirements are being fulfilled.

The office of Treasurer of The Mother Church is ably supported by a competent staff and by two Committees named in the above By-Law, a Committee on Finance and the Committee on Business. Manual requirements call for audits by "an honest, competent accountant." In recent years this has been the firm Ernst and Whinney (now Ernst and Young).

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