Stewardship Services Inc.(SSI) is an organization established in 1974 by the CMSM initially as a conduit for financial aid to the LaSalette fathers of Attleboro, Massachusetts, upon the collapse of a fund in which they had invested large sums of money. SSI was set up as a non profit organization through which other religious orders could donate or loan funds to provide the LaSalettes with the backing they needed to pay off their bonds and other commitments. Paul Boyle served as the SSI president from 1974-1976. During this period, dedicated religious and lay men and women recognizing the need to improve the quality of church financial management and financial consulting office for religious communities and institutions. SSI opened its financial consulting office in Washington DC in January of 1976.
The material in this series dates from 1974-1981. The records primarily relate to the LaSalette financial situation (boxes 23-29) with the remainder (boxes 30-33) holding mostly financial papers of the SSI organization itself.
The Religious Communities Trust (RCT, or the "Trust") was formed on March 22, 1976 and began operations November 8, 1976. Paul Boyle founded RCT, after several years of planning, to help Catholic Religious organizations toward investing short term funds more safely and profitably. There were 13 religious communities participating as charter members with the expectation of many more joining. The sole purpose of the Trust is to permit member religious organizations of the Catholic Church in the U.S. to pool certain funds in an attempt to invest more productively and efficiently in money market securities. Investments in the Trust fund are restricted to a defined list of fixed income securities approved by the board of trustees. To achieve the income objective the trustees engage a qualified professional investment advisor to manage the Trust portfolio on a full time basis. The initial trustees were Fr. Paul Boyle, Sr. Carol Marie Keller, CSJ, and Br. Louis DeThomasis, FSC.
The series of Canon Law materials holds the majority of the records in this collection. This series breaks into four subseries including: educational material; canon law meetings; subject files; and religious life. The educational materials include lecture notes and student papers from Boyle's years as a professor of canon law from 1965-1968. Prior to this, from 1964-1965, Boyle served as the president of the Canon Law Society of America, and he continued to be active in various canon law meetings throughout the scope of these papers. The material in this subseries is primarily correspondence, reports, and information from various canon law society meetings. The subject files include an alphabetical run of topics affected by revisions in the canon laws. This material consists primarily of correspondence discussing how revision in the law affects various aspects of religious life. These files lead logically into a subseries of Religious life and governance which is broken down alphabetically by the names of religious communities, male and female. These files contain correspondence discussing constitutional changes needed to conform to revisions in the law and how these changes affect religious life and governance in the various communities. The Canon Law series is located in boxes 34-91.
Correspondence has been filed by type of correspondent. The first files are labeled with either an individual's name or by their relation to Paul Boyle, such as friends, business associates, or other religious (sisters, priests etc.) There is also a run of general correspndence files arranged alphabetically by correspondent, which is followed by correspondence with Bishops. The general correspondence files contain letters from individuals who might fit into more specific categories, but were simply filed in the general run; therefore it would be wise to check several areas within this series if looking for a specific individual's correspondence. The correspondence series is contained in boxes 98-101.