This is an adapted version of an editorial which appeared in Compass last year. Fr. Barry Brundell, parish priest at Erskineville and editor of Compass, reflects on the how the changing role of priest and the declining number of priests has brought ‘collaborative ministry’, often with parish co-ordinators, to the fore. He believes that collaborative ministry is challenging, requires a great deal of teamwork, is built on somewhat shaky foundations as it relies on a declining number of religious women, and increasingly will rely on lay parish leaders. However, he argues that collaborative ministry may be the only way forward – not simply to fill holes as the present shortage of priests bites deeper, but to be true to the vision of the church articulated by Vatican II.
Collaborative
ministry is a topic that touches me closely since I spent my first three years
as a parish priest in a parish where we have a
religious sister who was entrusted with the co-ordination of the parish.
We did not refer to her as ‘Pastoral Associate’ but as ‘Parish
Co-ordinator’. (As with many things in this model of parish administration, we
are still searching for the right language.)
The
role of parish pastoral associate as identified in the Catholic Church Life
Survey (Nov 1996) report is new: it has been gradually emerging in the Church in
Australia over the last twenty-five years or so. Technically pastoral associates
are described as non-ordained parish ministers with some type of formal
appointment to engage in parish work; as such they are pioneers in new ways of
ministering to the life and mission of the Church.
The
primary reason — but usually not the primary motive — for developing this
kind of ministry is the fact that it should never have been missing from church
life in the first place. This is one of many forms of ministry that are called
for by reason of our baptismal vocation to participate in the mission of the
church.
The
second reason — and the stimulus that is hastening the development at the
present time — is the shortage of ordained priests and the concern to ensure
that the spiritual and sacramental needs of the people will continue to be
provided for.
Some
experience difficulty in accepting that a non-ordained person can and should be
doing what has for so long been seen as ‘priests’ work’. Parish associates
themselves often find that they are leaders of communities without having
conferred upon them the spiritual power and authority they need to carry out
their duties.
But
the greatest challenge is surely that of collaborative ministry more generally.
There are many hurdles that have to be negotiated before truly collaborative
ministry occurs. New skills are needed; old habits have to die — habits that
have come from long training in the wider Catholic community and, in the case of
priests, reinforced in our seminary training and early apprenticeship in
priestly ministry.
We
are being asked to abandon a system in which the priest was the man of
God and dispenser of truth, the one divinely appointed to evangelise and
endowed with the necessary powers to build up the church. There was an
exclusivity in his ministry that was only partially broken by the boost to the
lay apostolate given by Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis Christi (1943). The
priest was seen as the person entrusted with the task of evangelisation, while
the people helped Father if Father so wished. It was the priest who did
everything connected with the sacraments and their administration, who
catechised (or enlisted religious sisters and brothers to catechise), visited
the sick, was responsible for finances and all aspects of parish administration.
This
clericalist style of local church administration has been called ‘the
Gregorian model’ because, it is claimed, its origins are found in the style of
church that has become entrenched in Western Christianity from the time of Pope
Gregory VII (+ 1085). The parish priest held the primacy in the parish as
the pope held primacy in the church universal in the high Middle Ages. The
local priest was a pope medieval-style in his own jurisdiction. (Cf.
Ghislain Lafont, Imaginer l’Eglise Catholique, Paris
1996.)
Now
we are moving into models of church revived by Vatican II. The whole
responsibility for spreading the Gospel and for the education and sanctification
of the faithful is shared by the whole community and does not rest on the
priest’s shoulders alone. Acceptance of this fundamental truth requires a
change of mentality on the part of priests and people alike.
After
my three years as Parish Priest working with a Parish Co-ordinator, and now that
I am into my first year as Parish Priest without a Parish Co-ordinator — prior
to these experiences I spent many years in full-time theological education — I
have come to a few obvious conclusions.
Collaborative
ministry is challenging. It is difficult enough within one parish community for
a variety of reasons. And when efforts are made to collaborate not just within
one parish but across parish boundaries, as we have been trying to do for the
last eighteen months in the four parishes presently entrusted to the MSC in
Sydney, the challenges multiply at a despairing rate.
Collaborative
ministry means that parish priest and pastoral associate must work as a team,
must leave room for each other to minister effectively. No longer is the priest
the sole responsible person; the pastoral associate is not the assistant. It is
a model that allows a complementarity in ministry which is a great enrichment:
there are things that men are good at and things that women (women account for
94% of pastoral associates) are good at.
I
believe I had an edge in this challenge to leave space for the Parish
Co-ordinator, as I was so new to this ministry. But I feel for those priests who
have been parish priests all their lives in the Gregorian model. And I feel for
any parish associate who accepts the challenge of working with them.
A
further conclusion is that even the present model, because it is so dependent on
religious women to take on the role of parish associate, has very shaky
foundations. The CCLS report tells the story: the religious women available for
this ministry, like the priests, are getting older and fewer. The role of parish
associate is increasingly being entrusted to the laity, and that trend will only
increase. Employing lay parish pastoral workers raises many new issues related
to training requirements and conditions of employment. A number of dioceses in
Australia have already established guidelines, and the Catholic Commission for
Employment Relations (CCER), through a standing committee, the Parish and
Diocesan Employment Relations Committee (PDERC), has been working on the many
issues involved. They have just produced an Interim Document, Guidelines for
the Employment of Parish Pastoral Workers (October 2000) to assist Catholic
employers in NSW/ACT, especially parish priests, in making appointments.
Finally,
there is urgent need to form and educate not only parish associates and parish
priests, but the whole parish and church community throughout the nation. This
model of collaborative ministry
must not be thrust upon people as a second-best solution to the priest shortage.
The present crisis needs to be seen as a moment of opportunity to move to a
better, richer and more authentic way of being church.
To
meet that need we must have suitable programs for parish development and
training of parish leaders. In my opinion, if they are to work effectively on a
large scale these programs must be readily available to and user-friendly for
small groups within parishes.
The
conviction is spreading that collaborative ministry is the only way forward,
that it is not an option. The reason is
not simply the obvious need to fill holes as the present shortage of priests
bites deeper, but the realization that collaborative ministry is the obvious way
to go if we are to be true to the ecclesiological vision of Vatican II.
— Barry Brundell MSC, Editor, Compass
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