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Pastoral Leadership and Staffing - 2005

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Pastoral Leadership and Staffing - 2005 Archdiocese of Louisville PASTORAL LEADERSHIP AND STAFFING - 2005 INTRODUCTION Late in 2004 the Archdiocese 20 to 30% of the population is financial pressures have increased, of Louisville released a demo- in poverty or at risk for poverty and external shifts have occurred graphic report. This study analyzed in most of the counties of the that have affected the viability of the make-up of the Catholic Archdiocese. The highest lev- traditional ministries, such as population as well as general els of poverty are concentrated Catholic schools. At the same time, population trends; existing parish in the most rural and most ur- the Church has experienced and school structures; the number ban areas. growth in lay ministry and an of priests; and external challenges expansion of ministry services. and opportunities (aging popu- Since the report was released, lation, poverty) facing the parishes, both individually and in One of the basic challenges Archdiocese. regions, have been discussing its facing the Church is to provide implications for planning. In order parish ministers that are adequate The study identified several to assist parishes with planning, in number and quality. The specific major trends: we are presenting a companion challenge for the Archdiocese is to There is a major redistribution staffing study that examines the recruit, train, and nurture and growth of the Catholic current reality as well as models professional ministers and to population in Jefferson County that can be considered for the encourage effective stewardship of from the urban core to subur- future. the resources that have been ban and surrounding counties. entrusted to our care. These Parishes exist to carry out the challenges require reflection and There is growth in multicultural mission of the Church and to populations in several areas of action in the areas of structural provide pastoral care to their change (opening, closing, and the Archdiocese, especially the members. Parish planning allows Hispanic population. merging parishes, schools, and parishes to create the most effective other ministries) and human The Archdiocese contains a system of programs, ministries, and resources (recruitment, retention, larger percentage of smaller services to meet these dual and new leadership models.) parishes than is present nation- obligations. During the last fifteen ally. years, parishes have increasingly There is a decline in the num- looked beyond their parish ber of priests available to serve boundaries to work with other the Catholic population. parishes to more effectively and There are declining numbers efficiently carry out their mission. of school-aged children and This process of regional projections of a dramatic planning and collaboration has growth in the senior popula- taken on added urgency as the tion. number of priests has declined, 1 PASTORAL MODEL 1: INDIVIDUAL MODEL 3: PASTORAL LEADERSHIP PARISH WITH PRIEST ADMINISTRATOR PASTOR The declining number of This model involves sepa- ordained priests has made the In this model each indi- rate parishes with a pastoral primary leadership position in the vidual parish is a separate administrator as leader. A parish the subject of sustained community and has its own pastoral administrator is a discussion. The reality is, however, pastor. Fifty-five (45%) of our deacon, religious, or lay man that there are three basic 122 parishes operate under or woman appointed by the approaches to the challenge of this model. Archbishop to provide pastoral pastoral leadership for a parish: care and administrative oversight to a parish. Pastoral 1) Continue to assign the same administrators are assisted by amount (and in some cases sacramental moderators who growing amount of) work to provide sacramental ministry decreasing numbers of priests. to the parish and are monitored Priests may take more than one MODEL 2: FORMAL by presbyteral moderators who parish (e.g. cluster), or only one COORDINATED MINISTRY have canonical powers and priest may serve large parishes. faculties for the parish. Sacra- In this model, individual mental moderators and presby- 2) Give some of the work to parishes decide to work with teral moderators may be the persons other than priests, such as one or more other parishes to same priest or different priests. pastoral administrators. Pastoral provide services and avoid This model also can be struc- administrators can be deacons, duplication of ministries. For tured with a pastoral admini- religious women, or lay persons. example, parishes in a region strator assisted by a priest as Parishes also may decide to expand may decide to come together presbyteral and sacramental professional staff to take on and coordinate their Mass moderator who also serves as delegated responsibilities from the schedules so that there is not a a pastor at another parish. pastor. duplication of weekend litur- Generally the pastoral admini- 3) Attempt to reduce the gies. Parishes also may work strator assumes all of the amount of work for priests or others together to discern needs and operational responsibility for by closing or merging parishes. offer services or to share staff the parish, including planning, or co-sponsor programs. Our formation, parish life, finances, In this Archdiocese, we have Archdiocese has the majority etc., except for the celebration employed versions of all three of its experience with this of the sacraments. We have approaches to meet these chal- model in school planning. The eight parishes (6%) operating lenges. Throughout the United recent development of re- under this model right now. States, other versions of these gional schools being spon- Five of these parishes are led approaches have been used. The sored by 3 or more parishes is by deacons, 1 by a lay woman, following list summarizes models an example of formal coordi- and 2 by religious women. that are being used to address nated ministry. parish leadership and staffing challenges: 2 ODEL LUSTER ODEL LUSTER M 4: C M 5: C MODEL 6: MULTIPLE TEAM A cluster involves two or WORSHIP SITES more parishes that remain Though not in use in this This approach involves a separate but have one leader. Archdiocese, some dioceses single parish using more than The leader can be either a priest are experimenting with one worship site for Mass and or pastoral administrator. This groups of parishes being other celebrations. The par- model requires a limited served by a team of priests ish may use multiple amount of organizational appointed to serve in soli- churches, such as when a change, but can be a challenge dum (Canon 517.1) or by a parish has an oratory or a for the priest pastor depending team of priests and other pro- chapel, or it may use a facility upon the organizational fessional staff members. This other than a church when a complexity of the parishes leaves individual parishes in- space is needed for large gath- involved. tact, but assigns pastoral re- erings. sponsibility for two or more This model offers the parishes to a team that can be opportunity to foster interparish made up of priests or a com- collaboration. Some pastors bination of priests, deacons, use this opportunity to and lay staff. Each parish encourage more collaboration maintains its own identity and among the parishes to be has its own parish council, MODEL 7: MERGER clustered by sharing staff and but all of the team members resources, coordinating Mass serve all of the parishes. By When population shifts, times, etc. Others maintain very necessity this approach fos- finances, or other factors in- distinct parish organizations at ters interparish collaboration dicate a need to reduce the each of the clustered parishes. and joint ministry efforts, es- number of parishes in a given Both the geographic proximity pecially in formation and ser- area, two or more parishes and the leadership style of the vice programs. In some forms may be merged into one new pastor affect these decisions. of this model, parishes may parish. When a merger oc- We have 59 parishes (48%) form “clusters” where there is curs, the parish communities operating under this model as much joint effort as pos- and staff are combined, a now. sible, including joint parish single pastor is appointed, and finance councils, joint and one worship site and fa- committees, coordinated cility is usually established on worship and prayer services, the site of one of the merging joint schools, and other col- parishes. We have merged a laborative ministries and pro- number of parishes over the gramming. years. 3 VOCATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD MODEL 8: CLOSING PARISHES Some propose that the chal- day there are 2,642 Catholics lenges of declining numbers of or- for every priest worldwide, and Parishes have opened dained priests can be addressed this ratio is greater in many and closed throughout the through our approach to the re- parts of the world. (See Per- nearly 200-year history of the cruitment of priests or through sons Per Priest Chart on page Archdiocese. This occurs changes in Church law about who 5.) Foreign-born priests must when demographic, finan- is ordained. Several solutions are overcome considerable cultural cial, or other factors deter- typically presented: and language barriers to serve mine that pastoral care can Vocation Recruitment: Encour- effectively. In addition, in 1998 best be provided by another aging vocations has always and again more recently, the parish. been a priority in this Archdio- Vatican has asked the wealthier nations of the world not to re- Closing and merging par- cese. The Vocations Office has recently restructured its efforts cruit priests from poorer coun- ishes are very difficult and tries. disruptive processes. How- to develop a team approach to ever, in some cases, our ex- the invitation and formation of Who is ordained? In any dis- perience shows that parish- men for the priesthood. Re- cussion of the shortage of ioners are eventually happier cruitment efforts include voca- priests, the inevitable question when they move to new par- tion awareness programs in of who is ordained will be ishes, especially if the parish parishes, elementary and sec- raised.
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