Michael Castrilli and Dr. Charles Zech of Villanova University’s Center For Church Management won second place at the Catholic Press Association Awards for their book Parish Finance: Best Practices in Church Management. The book won in the “professional books” category of the competition, which features books on professional development with a Catholic context. These awards recognize the meaningful contributions of authors and publishers of Catholic work. 
“It is a true honor to be recognized by the Catholic Press Association,” said Castrilli, co-author of the book and Business Fellow of the CCM. “Our goal for this book is to offer a practical, user-friendly guide for priests, seminarians and parish managers to learn the essentials of church finance and we are excited to be recognized for delivering on this promise,” he continued.
The book was praised by the Catholic Press Association for being extremely well outlined and providing a helpful overview on how to develop, understand and implement a church budget. It was noted as being a valuable tool to those both familiar and unfamiliar with the development of parish financial budgets, according to the Catholic Press Association.
“The recognition given to this book by the Catholic Press Association provides further acknowledgment of the increasing awareness of good financial stewardship in parishes, and in fact at all levels of the church,” said Dr. Zech, co-author of the book. “We purposefully wrote it at a level of understanding for new pastors and seminarians which demonstrates that a priest need not be a trained accountant to understand parish finances in the process of carrying out his governance function.”
“The collaboration of Mike Castrilli and Dr. Zech will provide unprecedented guidance in the field of parish financing and VSB is thrilled that their work has been recognized with this prestigious award,” said Joyce E. A. Russell, PhD, the Helen and William O’Toole Dean of VSB.