Ministries Creeping democracy in the U.S.
church
By JOSEPH HARRIS
An August 1997 Vatican document with the lengthy title
Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the
Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest stated that,
directing, coordinating, moderating or governing the parish ... are the
competencies of a priest alone. The Roman authors further proclaimed that
it is unlawful for the non-ordained faithful to assume titles such as
pastor, chaplain, coordinator,
moderator, or other such similar titles which can confuse their
role and that of the pastor, who is always a bishop or priest.
Ironically, the Dec. 5, 1999, issue of NCR that detailed the
Vatican document also carried a prominent advertisement from the human
relations office of the San Bernardino, Calif., diocese listing current
ministry employment opportunities with the apparently illegal titles of
pastoral coordinator, pastoral associate, and
parish business manager.
Granted, want ads hardly enjoy the ecclesial status of a Roman
document signed by eight congregations. Still, the fact that San Bernardino
parishes expressed a need for ministers without stating any preference for
canonical status stands in stark contrast to the Vatican pronouncement that
management competencies rest with clerics alone. Church leaders seem confused
on how best to describe workable parish management models.
Anyone employed in parish ministry needs to understand two notions
to follow the discussion on parish management practices. First, disputes over
the exercise of authority in the American church are not new. Clerics have been
jousting laity for control of the assets of the American Catholic church since
the days of John Carroll and the American Revolution. In fact, present
disagreements over suitable titles look tame when measured against the
statistic of 200 casualties suffered in a riot where supporters of the bishop
battled the parish council for possession of St. Marys Parish in
Philadelphia in 1822.
Second, current fiscal and personnel data suggest that the
managerial structure of the American Catholic church is changing from a
clerical culture to increasing numbers of lay managers at all levels, who
manage by objectives using budget spreadsheets and personnel manuals.
From lay trustees to lay employees
The lay trustee form of parish government happened in this country
after the American Revolution for a number of reasons. Politics certainly
played a part; American Catholics needed to define their relationship to a
foreign religion as strictly a spiritual tie. They showed their neighbors their
temporal independence by adopting the Protestant congregational model of
electing trustees from among the dues-paying members to mind the business
affairs of the parish.
Sheer necessity also gave shape to the management structure
adopted by Catholics; there were few priests to service parishes separated by
hundreds of miles of horseback travel. Parishioners could not rely on resident
pastors to oversee such mundane chores as patching the church roof or balancing
the parish budget. Circumstances dictated a system of shared authority and
responsibility in the young American church.
In many ways, similar factors are converging today to move
Catholicism toward a much less clerical model of leadership. A 1998 article in
The Wall Street Journal highlighted the trend.
The piece featured as a headline, But As Daughters of
Charity Build a $2 Billion Reserve, Some Question Its Goals. The article
detailed the complexities of managing a chain of 49 hospitals with an annual
revenue stream of $6 billion.
The existence of a $2 billion dollar cash reserve for a charitable
health care corporation struck the Journal editors as strange. The sisters
required the services of 25 outside investment managers to oversee individual
portfolio pieces. The fact, though, that the sisters named a lay chief
executive for the hospital chain in 1995 represents a more startling departure
from past patterns than enormous budgetary growth. At the present time, 250
sisters struggle to maintain a Catholic identity in a health care system that
employs 70,000 lay staff.
The story of the evolution of the management of the charitable
works of the Daughters of Charity may only model changes in the American church
at large. Parish and school budgets continue to grow and, at the same time,
slip swiftly under lay control. Church leaders manage finances in a much
different fashion from the informationally mysterious days when the pastor knew
best and the bishop consulted only with God. These circumstances suggest that
the American Catholic church may be returning to a congregational style of
management more common at the beginning of the 19th century.
In August 1996, the National Pastoral Life Center prepared a
document titled Called To Be Catholic, which listed 13 issues its authors felt
contributed to a situation in which it is widely admitted that the
Catholic church in the United States has entered a time of peril.
Concerns included governance, personnel, organizational and theological topics.
The document also listed dwindling financial support from
parishioners as a problem confronting Catholic church managers.
In 1997 a Catholic school planning project sponsored by the Lilly
Endowment and the Life Cycle Institute at Catholic University presented data
that indicated that church revenue is growing, not declining. A paper
summarizing one aspect of school management, A Plan to Pay for Catholic
Schools, included estimates of parish and school revenue. Revenue for 18,754
parishes and 8,293 elementary and secondary schools probably grew from $10.8
billion in 1990 to $13.1 billion in 1994.
Budget control shifts
The U.S. Catholic church may be in peril for other reasons, but
revenue to parishes and schools has generally grown -- by an average annual
rate of 5.3 percent between 1990 and 1994. Inflation for that same period
averaged 3.2 percent. Catholics provided increased program fiscal support well
beyond the requirement of merely maintaining buying power.
While the budget for schools has grown, school fiscal data show
that the practical center of budget control has shifted from the rectory to the
principals office and the public forum of monthly school board meetings.
The American church has become a minority stockholder in the Catholic school
business.
At one time pastors probably paid all school bills from the
proceeds of the Sunday collection. In 1950 religious filled nine out of 10
teaching positions in Catholic education programs. These teachers lived in
community and only needed the parish to pay the convent grocery bill and
provide a modest stipend to the motherhouse to support the training of
postulants who would one day fill the parish classrooms.
In 1969, when the National Catholic Educational Association first
surveyed school finances, parishes still paid 63 percent of the elementary
school costs. Since they relied largely on tuition, high schools served a
smaller proportion of the Catholic audience. By 1990 school boards raised 66
percent of the funds needed for the operation of a typical elementary school;
the proportion of the elementary budget raised by program leaders rose to 73
percent by 1994.
Catholic secondary schools presently raise 92 percent of their
budget from tuition and school-sponsored fundraising. The fact that parents and
school staff raise the funds to operate school programs inevitably leads to
involvement of elected community leaders in decision processes.
Another of the causes of rampant democracy at the parish level
comes from an unlikely source. The revised Code of Canon Law, Canon 537,
instructs every pastor to institute a financial advisory committee of
parishioners. Canon 1284 contains specific instructions on how parish finances
are to be managed. Finance councils should keep all records current, pay
obligations on time, keep well-ordered books of receipts and expenditures, and
draw up a report on their administration at the end of each year. The canon
further strongly recommends that parish managers prepare annual budgets of
receipts and expenditures.
This new law mandates the inclusion of parishioners in what was
once the pastors private preserve. As a result, parish finances can no
longer be conveniently conducted in secret. Committee structures normally serve
as a focus for public discussions.
There are approximately 19,000 parishes in the United States. If
an average parish involved five parishioners on a typical finance council,
about 95,000 American Catholics would be working to determine how to spend
parish money. Present fiscal circumstances suggest that de facto lay trustees
take care of Catholic money in an arrangement where thousands of advisers and
non-canonical employees shape budgets and sign checks.
Shared decision-making, more common in the structures of the early
American church, could result from the present operation of a committee-based
parish governance system.
A changing work ethic
In addition to a much different money management system, personnel
data point to the development of a historically unique workforce in the
American church. Much has changed since the halcyon days when seminaries and
motherhouses bulged with prospective employees for church programs. A drop in
the number of seminarians from 41,129 in 1960 to 4,578 for 1995 gives some
indication of the trend in ordinations for the foreseeable future.
For example, ordinations in the New York archdiocese averaged 11
per year between 1990 and 1997 while clergy deaths totaled 21 annually.
Likewise the number of active diocesan clergy in Los Angeles declined by about
12 priests per year between 1990 and 1997. Eight clergy deaths and an annual
average of 15 resignations more than doubled the Los Angeles annual ordination
rate of 12.
To cope with a shrinking supply of canonical workers, pastors and
parish councils currently replace the dwindling numbers of professed religious
and priests with lay employees. Parish congregations also frequently hire from
within their own membership rather than look to chanceries and motherhouses as
a source of pastoral employees.
A look at parish and school personnel data in The Official
Catholic Directory points to a complete change since 1950 in the church
staffing model. In 1950, ordained clerics and professed religious filled 93
percent of parish and school professional positions. Given a growth at that
time in the numbers of postulants and seminarians, pastors and religious
superiors likely considered the employment of 15,262 lay staff in schools in
1950 as a necessary temporary accommodation to the demands of a church growth
spurt called the Baby Boom.
The history of subsequent decades happened in a very unexpected
fashion. Lay employees constituted 17 percent of parish and school employees in
1960 and a startling 41 percent by 1980. The temporary staffing solution of the
50s had become the permanent fix of the 80s. More recent data from
The Official Catholic Directory in 1995 indicate that lay employees currently
constitute more than half the professional labor pool of the American Catholic
church (53 percent).
Recent research completed by the staff at the National Pastoral
Life Center in Manhattan, N.Y., revealed that parishes employed 20,402
full-time and 8,744 part-time lay parish ministers in 1997. Parishes have hired
1,364 additional lay ministers a year since 1990. In addition, a total of 304
more permanent deacons join the church workforce annually. These new employees
likely fill some of the teaching, pastoral and administrative positions once
performed by the shrinking pool of ordained clerics.
In past years, parish personnel arrived at new assignments at the
behest of a bishop or mother superior. In Going My Way, Bing
Crosby, portraying a young cleric at St. Mary Parish, announced that the bishop
had sent him to take care of the youth of the parish; present parish youth
ministers apply for positions where the pastoral responsibilities are described
in formal job descriptions.
In addition, new parish pastoral employees frequently come from
within the community. The Pastoral Life Center research revealed that most
pastors recruit prospective employees from within the group of their personal
acquaintances. Nearly half of the new workforce began their pastoral careers as
volunteers.
The initial volunteer involvement apparently leads, for some, to
paid employment and continuing education in pastoral ministry programs that
have sprouted on the campuses of most Catholic colleges. The present staffing
dynamic works in a non-hierarchical fashion.
Real world management
The 1997 Vatican pronouncement on parish management practices
stoutly maintained the juridical concept of complete clerical control. It
is for the parish priest to preside at parochial councils. They are to be
considered invalid, and hence null and void, any deliberations entered into,
(or decisions taken) by a parochial council which has not been presided over by
the parish priest or which has assembled contrary to his wishes.
In fact, harried pastors readily and sometimes happily concede de
facto direction of finances and programs to parish finance committees and
pastoral councils. The complex realities of running parish and school programs
that required the successful management of $13.1 billion in 1994 mean, in the
real world, that no one person, either lay or cleric, could possibly make all
the decisions.
Joseph Harris writes from Seattle.
National Catholic Reporter, January 21,
2000
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