September 2002 Call to Action News
Wisdom Exchange: Top-down church leadership led to the crisis. Time to reform it!
CTA's Next Generation (ages 18-42) is committed to fostering intergenerational dialogue between themselves and the Wisdom Generation - older CTA members who had personal experience of Vatican II. This time the e-mail dialogue was in the context of the current clergy sex abuse crisis. What is dysfunctional about current church leadership styles, and how should they change? Portions of that conversation appear below.
Michelle Scheidt, 34, has a masters in pastoral studies, spent 10 years in ministry in a Hispanic parish, and now supervises programs in a large social service agency in Chicago. She is a lesbian and lives with her partner of 15 years, Barb Crock. Both are active in CTA.
Jack Rubino, 53, and his wife live in Columbus, Ind., near Bloomington, where Jack is a corporate lawyer. A lifelong Catholic who attended a junior seminary, he flew B-52s in the Air Force, married Donna, a fellow officer, and later went to law school. Their daughter Annie is pursuing an acting career in Chicago.
Jack: I've lived with the current church leadership model for over 50 years. But I've also experienced two other styles of leadership: the military and the corporate. As an Air Force pilot, I accepted military leadership: someone had to be in charge, so we'd support them with the best information available. Then we'd trust the leaders.
The corporate model is essentially selfish - favoring shareholders over others - but fortunately every corporate decision must pass "the red face test" - it must be able to face public scrutiny.
Our church leadership is essentially top-down and hierarchical, non-responsive to anything other than itself, strongly sexist, careerist and self-preserving.. In my experience, it is worse than either military or corporate leadership. Vatican II tried to change it, but this pope has caused great retrenchment in the Vatican II "We Are Church" model.
Michelle: I've experienced "top-down" leadership at the parish level. My pastor asked me to take a position as a pastoral associate. He used a shared model of leadership, and I was given significant levels of responsibility, including management of the parish budget. For several months, I experienced a truly collaborative working style. But suddenly the pastor had to leave the parish. A new pastor was appointed. Collaboration ceased, and he became the decisionmaker. Within six months, I made the decision to move on, after nearly 10 years as a church employee.
What was I really expecting? The Catholic structure is inherently hierarchical, with the celibate male clergy in the decisionmaking role. Although some individuals share leadership, this is not what the system promotes. One individual (pastor, bishop) is given complete control over decisions - whether to put a new roof on the rectory or to report criminal behavior to the authorities. The system allows dysfunction and scandals such as clergy sex abuse to grow unchecked.
Jack: I experienced that on the parish council. One pastor involves the parish council in decisions and the next guy disbands parishioner participation. Because pastors are typically rotated every six years, it is difficult for professional parish staff, such as you, to get comfortable and to add long term value to the parish.
Michelle: There's another dysfunctional aspect. When a pastor moves on, the parish community is left wondering who will be appointed. We wait and hold our breath, hoping for good leadership, collaboration, liturgical skills, inspiring preaching. Despite the vast experience of the community, no one ever asks for the opinions of those who know the community best. Appointing a pastor without consulting the wealth of wisdom already present in the parish community stifles the church, cutting off any budding leadership that has emerged. Then the new pastor comes in and has to re-plant, while the community and its leaders are left feeling uprooted and unappreciated.
Jack: Also, a new pastor has no right to make changes to how Mass is said, what training programs are run, and how the parish is governed. These are issues that the parish faithful own, not a single new minister.
Matters of doctrine cannot be up for change at the parish level. But the national church has a responsibility to discern major shifts in how the nation's faithful choose to practice their faith, and to communicate and advocate these changes in Rome. Rome shouldn't have any input into an American translation of the Lectionary, especially when the American bishops had worked hard to get to a consensus document.
Yet the American bishops deferred when Rome spoke. Too many bishops are careerists. They have advanced because they don't make waves, don't question or debate, and carry out orders. Without exchange of ideas, an institution cannot grow. Also, many bishops don't have pastoral skills. They are administrators. They can't step out of their role as bosses and engage the faithful.
A parish community should not be inhibited from above. If a careerist pastor prevents a parish council from, say, adopting a foreign sister parish, for fear of interfering with the archbishop's appeal, that inhibits desired growth in the parish. Or take recognition of stable, long term homosexual relationships. If the faithful want the faith to grow in that direction, the leadership should not be able to stop it.
Michelle: Likewise, married priests and women priests. There are thousands of women and men in our church who are eagerly awaiting a call to leadership. Because they are not all male and celibate, the current structure has no place for them. Last weekend at the CTA Next Generation retreat (click here for a report), I met so many people my age who are strong in their faith, committed to the church, theologically educated and passionate about justice. They celebrate the fact that we are the church.
Do you think the current sex abuse scandal might be a catalyst for change?
Jack: I think so. One of the major reasons why we have the sex abuse crisis now is the lack of checks and balances that democracy provides. If bishops had been exposed to the "red face test" in transferring abusive priests from one parish to another, they would never have done it. If their decisions had been exposed to a board of lay persons, they would never have made them.
Michelle: Personally, I find the snail's pace of church reform maddening. Vatican II happened before I was born, and we still aren't there yet. Will I see change in my lifetime? What is my own role in promoting that change? What supports do I need to remain committed?