From Church to Mosque: A Community-Based Financial Model Rooted in Places of Worship

The case of alleged embezzlement of tens of billions of rupiah from a Catholic church in North Sumatra by a state-owned bank employee leaves a profound irony. On one hand, the public is shocked by the scale of funds managed by religious institutions. On the other, this incident reveals that places of worship are actually key nodes of immense economic strength for their communities. Behind weekly collections, annual offerings, and various forms of social donations lies an accumulation of social and financial capital that grows from the trust of the faithful. This case opens space for reflection on how places of worship can be developed into centres for community economic empowerment. One of the main strengths of the Church, particularly the Catholic Church, lies in its orderly and hierarchical institutional governance. Funds gathered from the faithful do not only come from weekly collections but also from the management of extensive assets through schools, universities, hospitals, social foundations, credit cooperatives, and even financial institutions like rural banks in some areas. All of this management is supported by a clear institutional structure, from parishes and dioceses to central authority in the Vatican. This model creates discipline in fund collection, budget use, internal oversight, multi-layered audits, and institutional accountability. It is this strong governance architecture that allows the faithful’s funds to continue growing. In the perspective of modern economics, this model represents a form of trust-based institutional finance. The church fund embezzlement case actually reinforces the importance of such governance. When large funds are managed through formal institutions, the risk of breaches of trust can still occur if external oversight systems do not function optimally. This serves as a reminder that the trust economy must always be supported by the governance economy. Interestingly, attention to value- and ethics-based financial models is not only developing in the Islamic world. In 2015, the then Chairman of the OJK Board of Commissioners attended a seminar at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Vatican City.