Ideal up against reality in lay ministry career

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 17, 2004 by Thomas Lucking

While studying for my master of divinity degree at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, I was presented with a church leadership scenario of lay and clerical collaboration. A vision was proposed that included lay empowerment, shared responsibilities with clergy/staff equality and ministerial ownership.

Then I graduated and started working in the real world. My first ministry assignment after graduation led me to realize that the academic vision and the reality were far apart. Other parish lay ministers have confirmed this disconnect between the academic and the real ministerial situation. My hope is that someday reality will catch up with the academic vision of equality and collaboration--but we have a long way to go.

Ministry in the church is my second career. My first was working as a software engineer and business owner in the computer field. I have had extensive experience with companies such as Texas Instruments and Microsoft. While the politics are real and the competition sometimes fierce in the corporate environment, never have I run into a leadership structure that supports and allows dysfunction as much as in the Catholic church.

I resigned from my first parish ministry position after a year and started wondering if my experience of ineffective and even abusive leadership was unique and random. Is there something about the church that fosters this type of environment? An initial reflection on my business career versus my church work led me to realize that parishes do not have the same level of accountability that exists in businesses. Leadership is much less motivated to be efficient, collaborative and nurturing.

For example, I was put in charge of the annual youth music festival as part of my pastoral associate responsibilities. My first task was to create admission tickets. Having computer science as my first career, I applied my problem-solving skills to make this task quick and efficient. Immediately, I was reprimanded for deviating from last year's ticket creation methods. This verbal assault came as a shock. Where was the big-picture, results-oriented management approach that I had found so effective in the past?

After putting so much time, effort, and money into my master's degree, I felt quite concerned about the viability of my newly acquired education. Possibly the thousands of lay ministers in training would be interested in the questions I was pondering. In fact at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, lay students will outnumber Jesuits in training for the first time in the academic year beginning fall 2004. The need for lay ministers exists and many seem to want to fill that need, but how many lay students are choosing parish ministry and how many have a real understanding of the current working environment?

As a result I ask the fundamental question: Given the current power structure in the church, is parish lay ministry a feasible career choice?

My fellow graduates, when I asked them about their parish lay ministry positions, voiced concerns about leadership problems in the church. They expressed distress about not being fulfilled in their work. Even though many felt empowered and worked collaboratively with clergy, they admitted an inability to reach people. Because they were not clergy and could not provide the sacraments, they were seen as secondary to those ordained.

When sacramental leadership is combined with administrative power, what is left for an energetic, competent lay person seeking to serve in a parish? My fellow graduates were all looking to leave parish lay ministry shortly. I have encountered only a few people who have stayed in one parish lay position for more than three years. Later I learned that before my arrival as pastoral associate, the position was occupied by three people in three years.

We are a sacramental church. The seven sacraments ground our existence and form us as conduits of grace. Everything points to these deep grace-filled moments of church life. The Eucharist is the pinnacle of our existence as people of God. Not only do our theological understandings build on this sacramental foundation, but our institutional ones as well. The church's leadership structure is not driven by practical goals and objectives, but by theological idealism. Useful priorities such as efficiency, team building and visionary leadership do not hold a place of priority in how the church is run.

Because of this situation, we find competent theologians and pastoral ministers who happen to be ordained to the priesthood being given the power to run parishes and dioceses. The problem with this scenario is that pastoral excellence and administrative success tend to use different sides of the brain, right and left respectively. Asking people to do both can lead to ineffective performance in one or both of these areas. The main problem that has evolved as a result of this theology-based leadership system is clericalism.

The church's theology states that priests are transformed in a metaphysical way upon receiving the sacrament of ordination. This graced moment completes their formation and certifies them for leadership, pastorally and administratively. Most if not all of a priest's formation is theological and pastoral. An MBA is not required for leadership in the church. Nevertheless, priests assume management responsibilities that parallel positions in corporations that do require an MBA. Because of this misappropriated theology-based power we find priests in positions of responsibility who are not qualified to be there.