By Gretchen Keiser

Michael McNamara

Joseph Estafen, who has been the head of the archdiocesan finance office since 1976, has left that position effective October 16. Michael McNamara, the former assistant director of finance, has been appointed chief financial officer.

Estafen will continue to be a full-time consultant to the finance office through December 31 and a part-time consultant beginning in January. He hopes to start a private housing venture in Gwinnett County for the elderly in a partnership with his wife, Madeline, a realtor, and a third partner, a builder. The Estafens are members of St. John Neumann parish in Lilburn.

Since he came to work for the archdiocese, the finance office has grown from a one-person staff to a staff of eight, including the nucleus of a development office to emphasize financial planning and the need for gifts to the Church from Catholics and outside sources.

Significant events that have taken place under his direction include the computerization and increased centralization of archdiocesan financial records and accounts; the development of an internal bank that loans money from one parish’s savings to another parish’s building fund avoiding commercial loan rates; the $7.2 million Capital Funds Drive in 1983 to fund four major archdiocesan projects; and the upgrading of benefits for clergy and for lay employees of the archdiocese.

He was also involved in the planning and development of St. John Neumann Regional School, the first new Catholic school built in the archdiocese in 25 years.

“When you go through pain and joy, it creates bonds with people and projects that you just cannot put on a shelf,” he said in an interview. “The things we’ve done will be part of me. The people of this diocese will be part of me.”

Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, called him a “very generous, very high-minded, idealistic man” and said, “I’m genuinely sorry to see him go. He’ll continue church work in a different form.”

The new financial officer is a certified public accountant who has been working for the archdiocese full-time since January.

Prior to that, McNamara, who is 50 years old, was a partner in the national accounting firm of Pannell Kerr Forster, where he worked for over 25 years.

His non-profit clients included the archdiocese of Atlanta, the diocese of Savannah, Marist School and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home. He left Pannell Kerr Forster in January 1988 and worked as a consultant for a year.

McNamara has been a member for 12 years of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s accounting practices committee, made up of representatives of dioceses, religious communities, the USCC and accounting professionals, which looks at how new accounting practices impact the Church and its agencies. The committee produced a manual on accounting principles for the Church and its organizations.

A graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., and a native of the Bronx, McNamara has lived in Atlanta since 1963 and he and his wife, Alice, have three grown children. They belong to St. Andrew’s parish in Roswell.

Among the concerns that he would like to address are providing education in accounting procedures and payroll taxes for parish staff, including first-time pastors, and assisting parishes to update and standardize their accounting systems and budgeting procedures.

The chancery and finances offices of the archdiocese will also be restructured under the overall direction of the curia, Father Edward Dillon.

As chief financial officer, McNamara will supervise a director of development and a director of operations. The position of director of development has been vacant since the death of John Aisthorpe.

The new position of director of operations will be filled by Anno Hardage, who has been a vice president of Service America, and who holds a master’s degree in business administration from Georgia State University.

Mrs. Hardage said her responsibilities at Service America, a franchiser, included organizational planning and development, budgeting, and the creation of a human resources department to oversee hiring, training of new staff, organizational manuals and procedure, performance appraisal and other tasks. She and her husband, Fred, are parishioners of Holy Spirit in Atlanta.,

She will supervise the finance and chancery staff who provide insurance services, auditing services, data processing and property maintenance.

In an interview, the archbishop reemphasized that the restructuring of the administrative offices, including appointment of Father Dillon as moderator of the curia, was intended to provide a model that would permit him to carry out more pastoral duties and still be in regular contact with the administration. He also said he hopes the restructured administration will provide a good foundation for the kind of expansion that will come as the Catholic population continues to grown in the archdiocese.