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. While there are many they were attending did not ondary schools, and colleges points of view about church have sufficient resources (fi- and universities, as well as long- practice in this area, the issue nancial and human) to carry standing successful programs cannot be resolved by the Arch- out its mission effectively. such as the “Dinner with the diocese of Louisville. There- Archbishop.” fore parish and diocesan plan- Religious Orders: Religious or- ning must proceed within the ders of priests have a long his- current parameters of who is tory of service to the Archdio- called to priestly ordination. These models are not exhaus- cese of Louisville. However, tive. Certainly elements of them the number of religious order can be combined or changed to priests also is declining. In re- address the challenges of pastoral cent years, several parishes that leadership in the future. were staffed by religious orders are now staffed by diocesan priests. Thirteen parishes (11%) are staffed by religious orders. Foreign-born priests: Some propose recruiting priests from Africa and Asia, where the numbers of priests are assumed to be more plentiful. However, there are not many priests available from other countries. To-

4 VOCATIONS TO THE DIACONATE

The deacon is an ordained life including preaching, minister- What options do you see work- minister of the Church. The first ing to the sick and homebound, ing in your parish or region? deacon was ordained for this preparing couples for wedding and How would you describe the Archdiocese in 1976. As of this parents for baptism, and presiding most important responsibilities date, we have 109 deacons in the at baptisms, vigil prayer services of a priest pastor? What is dis- Archdiocese. Of those, 83 are and weddings. Usually deacons tinctive about his ministry? assigned to parishes and 11 are serve as volunteers, but some What responsibilities do you assigned to other ministries such as deacons also work in paid ministry think your pastor can responsi- prison ministry, hospital ministry, positions, such as business bly delegate to others? How etc. (The remaining deacons are managers, directors of religious will our image of priests change retired or on a leave of absence.) education, and so on. Other with the various models? deacons provide service to the Sixty-one (50%) of our parishes Reflect upon some of the con- Church through ministry in have one or more deacons. scious and unconscious expec- hospitals or prisons. Deacons must complete four tations that parishioners have years of formation before ordina- of their leadership. In today’s PASTORAL LEADERSHIP tion. The average age of ordained Church, which expectations deacons is 65, and the average age REFLECTION QUESTIONS: are realistic? Which are unreal- of deacons in formation is 50. What are some of the opportu- istic? What expectations would nities and challenges with each you be willing to change? Deacons’ ministry is primarily model? What are some effective ways the works of charity. Deacons who Which models have been used to prepare parishes and parish- assist pastors in providing service in your parish or region? What ioners for change, such as when to the parish community are has been the experience of a parish becomes clustered or involved in many aspects of parish parishioners? is led by a pastoral administrator rather than a priest?

Number of Persons Per Priest Africa Asia 8000 Europe Source: 2005 Catholic Almanac. North America Statistics as of January 2003 7138 Oceania 7000 South South America Worldwide America United States 6000

5000 4702

4000 Africa

3000 2907 2642 2407 North 1732 Worldwide 2000 Asia America 1374 1521 Oceania 1000 Europe United States 0 5 PARISH STAFFING

Over the past 40 years, a vari- 4. Ministry Development: In- Pastoral Associate: ety of professional ministry posi- cludes development of the laity’s tions have emerged in the Church sense of mission, participation and The pastoral associate is a in the United States. The develop- shared responsibility, parish plan- minister who is responsible for the ment of professional lay ministry ning, and fostering the formation daily care of the faithful. He or she and the demand for new ministry and coordination of lay ministry. shares in the responsibility of needs services have created many posi- (Canon 529.2) assessments, planning, and tions within parishes. A generation implementation of a variety of ago, almost all Catholic parish min- 5. Administration: Includes parish ministries and operations. isters were priests or sisters, and the legal representation of the parish Most often these ministers are primary ministry was the parish with responsibility for the adminis- engaged in adult formation, RCIA, elementary school. A generation tration of church finances and liturgical ministry, and pastoral care. later, most Catholic parishes have property. (Canons 531, 532, 535, We have approximately 31 pas- lay people or religious in paid pas- 536) toral associates serving parishes in toral staff positions. These persons the Archdiocese. In the Archdiocese of Louis- assist the pastor in carrying out the ville, there are a number of posi- five major ministry responsibilities Director of Religious Education tions that have been created to of the parish: or Director of Lifelong carry out the responsibilities for Formation and Education: 1. Ministry of the Word: In- these five areas of ministry. In cludes preaching, teaching, and some parishes, paid professional The Director of Religious encouraging the Gospel message women and men have been hired Education (DRE) is a parish and our Catholic tradition includ- to fill these positions, while other minister who has acquired ing catechetical formation, promo- parishes rely on the parish volun- specialized training in religious tion of social justice, and evangeli- teer coordinators for these minis- education, theology, and ministry. zation. (Canon 528.1) tries. Whether as paid staff mem- He or she provides leadership in bers or as volunteers, these minis- the design and implementation of 2. Liturgical Leadership: In- ters depend on the stewardship of programs for adults, youth, and cludes leading prayer, liturgy, sac- parishioners to serve along with children that nurture their lifelong ramental preparation and admin- them to meet particular parish faith formation. A DRE is respon- istration, and providing quality cel- needs. sible for directing all parish religious ebrations of initiation, Eucharist, education activities including reconciliation, and marriage. (Can- In recent years, standardization needs assessment, planning, ons 528.2 and 530) of titles, responsibilities, and salary execution, staffing, and evaluation ranges for paid personnel have of programs. We have approxi- 3. Pastoral Ministry: Includes brought greater clarity to these po- mately 54 Directors of Religious parish visitation; presence to sitions. The ministry positions in Education in the Archdiocese. people in times of grief and joy; the following listing indicate the counseling; care of the sick and number of full-time or part-time Director of Music Ministry: dying; advocacy for the poor, af- (minimum of 20 hours per week) flicted, lonely, and alienated; fam- paid personnel serving as of 2005. The music minister has special- ily ministry; and supporting spouses There are many others who work ized training and credentials in li- and parents. (Canon 529.1) in part-time positions of less than turgical music and a thorough un- 20 hours, have more than one job, derstanding of the Roman Catho- or serve more than one parish. The lic liturgy. This person is respon- major ministry positions include: sible for the effective design, facili- 6 tation, and implementation of the ter is a steward of the physical, organists, choir directors, and other parish liturgical music program. We financial, and personnel resources musicians to see that worship and have approximately 34 music min- of the parish. He or she is respon- music run smoothly and well. isters working in the Archdiocese. sible for budget development and parish finances, supervision of sup- Pastoral Staff: This includes a Director of Worship: port staff, supervision of mainte- wide variety of positions including nance and janitorial work, sched- parish nurses, volunteer coordi- The Director of Worship is a uling of parish activities, public re- nators, ministers to the elderly, or member of the parish staff with lations, coordination of the stew- parish counselors. specialized training and creden- ardship program, and in some in- Office Staff: Most parishes tials in liturgy and liturgical music. stances, parish fundraising efforts. employ secretaries or administra- This person is responsible for the We have approximately 47 busi- tive assistants. The number and preparation and coordination of ness managers serving the Arch- type of these positions vary greatly parish liturgical and sacramental diocese. celebrations in collaboration with depending upon the size of the parish and its ministries. the pastor, staff members, liturgy Bookkeeper: committee, and other parish Facilities Staff: Many parishes groups. We have approximately Parish bookkeepers are ad- employ janitors and cleaning staff, 16 directors of worship in the Arch- ministrators, though their respon- and some have workers to maintain diocese. sibilities are more limited than those parish campuses and cemeteries. of business managers. Most often, Coordinator of Youth Ministry: bookkeepers focus on administra- The availability of professional tive tasks such as record-keeping, and experienced ministers is one The person is responsible for accounts payable, and payroll, and of the many factors and resources meeting the personal and spiritual they have fewer management re- that must be evaluated as parishes needs of young people (junior high, sponsibilities. There are approxi- plan both individually and senior high, and young adult) and mately 50 bookkeepers in our collaboratively for the future. drawing youth into the life, mission, Archdiocese. and work of the Church. The youth minister reaches out to all youth in In addition to these positions, PARISH STAFFING REFLECTION the community, develops personal parishes employ a variety of other QUESTIONS relationships with youth, invites and staff in these categories: How have you witnessed pro- enables youth to serve others, fessional staff assisting at your Education: Parishes with coordinates adult volunteers, and parish? What gifts do these men schools employ principals, teaching develops close communication with and women bring to the par- staff, counselors, librarians, and and mutual support for the families ish? of youth. We have approximately possibly assistant principals and What responsibilities do bap- 22 youth ministers working in the other educational specialists. tized Catholics have to their Archdiocese. Parishes with childcare programs also employ directors and childcare parishes? Business Manager or Parish workers. These positions depend How can we more effectively Manager: upon the size and needs of the educate Catholics about their programs. baptismal call? The parish business manager Liturgical and music staff: How can we nurture more is a professional administrator in commitment and involvement Many parishes employ cantors, service to the Church. This minis- from parishioners? 7 CONCLUSION

There will be many changes as to the poor and oppressed will CONCLUSION REFLECTION a result of these demographic shifts, be more needed than ever. QUESTIONS: declining numbers of ordained The Church will need to care- Of the implications described clergy, and other societal chal- fully balance services and pres- above, which have you ob- lenges (and opportunities) for our ence in declining areas against served happening in your par- Church. These changes have many services and presence in grow- ish? implications: ing areas. What would you add to the list? Given the challenges and ten- There will be fewer celebra- sions in our complex society, tions of the Eucharist both on Our Archdiocese will be expe- the mission of parishes will be weekends and weekdays, and riencing the strong presence of ever more compelling, and the we will have to focus on ways multicultural populations and need for services will likely in- to maintain our Eucharistic an aging population. What crease. identity with fewer numbers of changes do parishes need to Given the challenges of pasto- ordained clergy. make to respond effectively to these trends? ral leadership for parishes, we Lay ministry will thrive. A con- will have fewer, and in some tinuing challenge will be the How do we retain our sense of cases, larger parishes with a need to attract, train, creden- mission and vision as we expe- variety of leadership and staff- tial, and maintain professional rience these changes in the ing models in place. ministry staff and to mentor, Church? We will have fewer and larger compensate, and support min- elementary schools. isters effectively. Our parishes will be more Effective pastoral planning will multicultural, and parishes will continue to grow in importance be served by a more diverse and will need to be seriously priesthood. In addition to Afri- undertaken across parish can American Catholics, who boundaries. Where good plan- have been present in this Arch- ning does not exist, parishes diocese since its beginning, can be forced into crisis-ori- parishes will see new immi- ented solutions that fail to meet grants from Africa, South and the needs of the community. Central America, the Carib- One of the challenges of parish bean, Asia, and the Middle East. planning will be planning for Many parishes that have a tra- parish leadership. Should plan- dition of services to children ning be driven by personnel will need to adapt to also meet (assigning priests) or by mis- the needs of older populations. sion and pastoral needs? Cer- In some areas of the diocese, tainly the two should not be parish structures and services seen as totally opposed to one may need to be reduced, and another, but the challenges can in other areas, they may need become acute when pressing to be expanded. needs are combined with limited resources, especially with As economic challenges in- the declining numbers of priests. crease, the Church’s ministry