GAINESVILLE, Ga.—When Don Tauscher thinks about the years when he was wheeling and dealing in real estate and getting rich, all he remembers is his spiritual poverty.

“Greed: the next deal always had to be bigger,” said Tauscher, who made several million dollars during the first Disney-fueled land boom in Orlando, Fla., in the early 1970s. “Idolatry: I worshipped money. Pride: I wouldn't go for any help because I was the smartest guy in town.”

As fast as the money came in, it would leave even faster. He bought a bigger house than he and his wife needed. He placed expensive vacation trips on his credit card. He was always buying another piece of property.

“I thought I knew everything, and I went broke,” said Tauscher, the national Catholic director of Crown Financial Ministries, a nonprofit, interdenominational program that teaches people to apply financial principles from the Bible to their everyday lives. “I realized, after much consternation and blaming everybody, that I didn't have a financial problem; I had a spiritual problem.”

In the mid-1970s, after the land boom in the Orlando area went bust, Tauscher and his business partners began liquidating their assets because they owed several million dollars. Tauscher's own personal debt was more than $1 million.

‘I realized … I didn't have a financial problem; I had a spiritual problem.’

A Cursillo retreat he attended in 1973 helped him spiritually. “Christ went from my head to my heart,” he said about the retreat.

But his money problems remained.

Two books he later read—Your Finances in Changing Times by Larry Burkett and Your Money: Frustration or Freedom? by Howard Dayton—gave him the first inkling that Scripture could help him with money management. So did a Crown Ministries course he took in 1987.

The ministry was founded in 1985 by Dayton, who designed a 12-week, small-group Bible study course of what Scripture teaches about handling money, including earning an income, saving, investing, giving, getting out of debt and teaching children how to manage money.

(Crown Financial Ministries came about in 2000 when Dayton merged Crown Ministries with Burkett's financial ministry, which was called Christian Financial Concepts. Both men come from Protestant backgrounds. Burkett died in July.)

The cost for registration, a study manual and workbook is $45 for individuals and $55 for couples. There is homework, which consists of daily study, prayer, reflection and memorization of the Scriptures. The objectives of the course are to grow closer to Jesus; to submit to Jesus as Lord, as opposed to making money king; to build a sense of community among small-group participants; and to help people put their finances in order.

Once a layperson completes the course, he can lead a study group after attending a two-hour video training session.

Catholics Sign On

As the first Catholic to take the course in 1987, Tauscher thought his fellow parishioners should be benefiting from it, too, so he asked his pastor at St. Margaret Mary Church in Winter Park, Fla., if he could lead a course there. As interest in the program increased, he went to other churches, eventually becoming the full-time national Catholic director of the Gainesville, Ga.-based ministry in 1997.

Now 47 parishes in the Diocese of Orlando, Fla., have participated or are participating in the Crown program. And Bishop Norbert Dorsey of Orlando approved Crown as a private association of the faithful in 1991. Tauscher estimates 20 to 25 Catholic dioceses across the country are using Crown resources for education.

Dominican Sister Lucy Vazquez, chancellor of the Diocese of Orlando, said parishes have been “very, very favorably impressed” with the program.

“Our experience is that it takes hold very quickly,” she said, “and people are really assisted by the ministry, so it is extremely helpful to a lot of people.”

People who go through the Crown program say they notice a difference in their lives, both spiritually and financially.

“I have always liked money, so to find out what God has to say about money takes me to a different level,” said Margaret Schueler, 58, who went through a Crown program with her husband at her church, St. Thomas More in Houston, about a year and a half ago and now prays before making important financial decisions. “I'm freer with it. I'm much more willing to give it away now that [I know] it's not mine but God's.

“Here's what I've found: As I give it away, he keeps replenishing it and replenishing it, so it's like an unending source, which is a marvelous experience.”

More than 200 people from her church have gone through the Crown program; many of them spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament during perpetual adoration in the church's chapel.

One concern that comes up about the program is that it wasn't created by Catholics for Catholics.

“I think it's an excellent program with a strong scriptural base,” said Father Jeff McGowan, pastor of Queen of Peace Church in Gainesville, Fla. But without the Eucharistic component, it lacks a critical element.

“We want to bring in the sacrifices of Christ and the celebration of Mass and how the community gathers around the altar of sacrifice and how we bring our gifts to the altar,” he said. “To limit ourselves to something that doesn't bring the whole thing together misses the chance to really help people embrace a more Christ-centered way of living.”

Rather than offering Crown courses, his parish has a program for families that teaches them how to get out of debt and how to be good stewards of their money from a Catholic perspective.

But Father Desmond Daly, pastor of Christ the King Church in an affluent part of Tampa, Fla., decided to allow Crown in his church about a year ago. The spiritual change he has seen in many of the 150 people who have gone through the program has been “spectacular,” he said.

“What I have seen is people beginning to come to a place of peace and serenity within their homes and their families because they have learned the principles of management of money according to biblical precepts,” Father Daly said. “They are people who have consolidated their debts. Some of them were on the verge of divorce, the verge of losing their homes. They're going back to a saner, more balanced Christian way of life.”

Carlos Briceño is based in Seminole, Florida.