wfn.org | Konrad Raiser Given Authority to Overhaul WCC in Coming Year

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3-October-1996 
 
 
96385       Konrad Raiser Given Authority to Overhaul 
                        WCC in Coming Year 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--Putting aside concerns that it was handing its general secretary 
Konrad Raiser a "blank check," the World Council of Churches' central 
committee has given him sweeping authority to overhaul the work of the WCC 
in the next year. 
 
     The WCC is facing a severe financial crisis and has already cut the 
number of full-time equivalent staff positions from 276 to 237 this year, 
with a further cutback likely, reducing staff to 190 full-time equivalents 
in 1997. 
 
     The committee, meeting here Sept. 12-20, instructed Raiser to "give 
immediate attention to developing an overall alternate programme and 
management structure for the whole work of the Council" and to bring plans 
for the new structure to next year's meeting of the central committee. 
 
     Tongue-in-cheek, Raiser told the central committee that he didn't 
"intend to assume any more authority than I already have under the WCC 
constitution, which is that of an absolute monarch." 
 
     According to the central committee, the overhaul of the WCC's work 
should take place in the light of a wide-ranging review process to draw up 
a new "common understanding and vision" (CUV) for the WCC, which is likely 
to be adopted at its eighth assembly in Harare in 1998. The process is 
intended to result in a renewed vision for the life and work of the WCC 
into the 21st century. 
 
     The central committee gave Raiser his mandate after the defeat of an 
amendment to limit the proposed overhaul to the WCC's management structure, 
thus leaving intact the WCC's many programmes and activities. 
 
     Elizabeth Welch, of the United Reformed Church in the United Kingdom, 
who proposed the amendment, said she welcomed immediate moves to 
restructure the management of the WCC. But she added that giving Raiser the 
authority to overhaul the programmatic work was premature in view of the 
fact that the CUV process was intended to result in a new structure for the 
WCC's work.  
 
     "Vision should precede structure," she argued. "The CUV process 
addresses fundamental questions which will be undercut by an immediate 
restructuring." 
 
     Bishop Paulo Ayres Mattos, of the Methodist Church in Brazil, said of 
the proposal to ask Raiser to draw up a new WCC structure: "This is a very 
difficult blank check." 
 
     But Peter Lodberg, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, 
defended the total overhaul.  "The whole structure -- management and 
program -- is linked," he said. "We are not in a position to separate 
program and finances." 
 
     The central committee's moderator, Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian 
Apostolic Church, said he understood Welch's point, "but at the same time 
we cannot afford to wait." 
 
     At a subsequent press conference, Raiser pointed out that he has been 
a prime mover behind the CUV process.  "I have no intention of allowing the 
necessary restructuring to interfere with CUV." He said the central 
committee "expects a responsible [restructuring] proposal" for its meeting 
in September 1997. 
 
     Raiser also said that he had not asked for the authority to 
restructure the WCC, and that the central committee had approved it in his 
absence.  
 
           The WCC will have to make further staff cuts following the 
adoption this week of a 
          "balanced" budget for 1997 by the central committee. The number 
of full-time 
          equivalents will fall from 237 in 1996 to a maximum of 190 in 
1997. Both income and 
          expenditure are budgeted at 87 million Swiss Francs (about US$70 
million), apart from 
          an outstanding amount of 235,000 Swiss Francs to cover the costs 
of compensation to 
          staff will lose their jobs.  
 
     The central committee also ordered that a balanced budget for 1998 be 
submitted to its meeting next year - a preliminary draft for 1998 submitted 
to the finance committee showed a deficit of 2.5 million Swiss Francs. 

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