Facing the future staffing needs of churches in an era of continuing priest shortages, church leaders from 18 western dioceses gathered at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton Sept. 21-23 to share and discuss new models of parish pastoral leadership.

The event, co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the National Pastoral Life Center based in New York City, drew 70 participants studying national trends and challenges in parish staffing.

During his welcoming remarks, Cardinal Roger Mahony urged the group not to be fearful as they considered new structural models for future pastoral leadership of churches. "It isn't about what we don't have, but rather what we do have and the new ways of being church with Jesus Christ walking forward with us," said the cardinal.

He noted that the early church functioned in "a very creative way" with few paid ministers. "Over the centuries, pastoral leadership has changed many, many times," said Cardinal Mahony. "There isn't one model of parish pastoral leadership that has all the answers. One of the things we need for the future is the ability to try a lot of things. I think it's a very exciting time."

Pastoral theology

Speaking on developments in pastoral theology and practice, Msgr. Brian Joyce, pastor of Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, Calif., said the creation of healthy, vibrant parishes is key to the life of the church.

Hampering healthy parish life, according to Msgr. Joyce, is the current polarization found in churches today. "From my early days as a priest and pastor, there is far more anger and mistrust than is at all healthy." This polarization, including tension between post-Vatican II conservatives and liberals, "colors parish life on every side," said Joyce.

Besides polarized churches, there is the ongoing priest shortage and the issue of aging clergy. Msgr. Joyce noted that the average congregation over the last 40 years has grown from 2,500 to 3,300 parishioners, reflecting the sizable 65.3 million Catholic population nationwide. Whereas, in the '60s, there was one priest per 775 Catholics, currently there is one priest per 1,427 Catholics and this figure increases to 2,200 Catholics for each priest ministering in a parish.

"This raises questions about staffing, about merging, about the role and place of non-ordained parish leaders," said Msgr. Joyce. Regarding pastors (including non-priest pastors such as deacons, religious and lay leaders who currently head 3 percent of all parishes in the U.S.), Msgr. Joyce said there has been a shift since before Vatican II in a pastor's five roles of spiritual leader, community builder, administrator, teacher and pastoral care provider. They include:

---Spiritual leader: shift from administering sacraments and promoting devotions to functioning as a leader of communal worship and promoter of a renewed spirituality.

---Builder of community: shift from care of individual faithful to formation of genuine community.

---Administrator: shift from straightforward and limited administrator to multiple and complex responsibilities.

---Teacher: shift from homily to adult dialogue, Vatican II documents, recruiting, training and supervising.

---Pastoral Care: shift from hands on exclusive ministry to recruiter, enabler and overseer.

According to Msgr. Joyce, these shifts have produced "huge positives" as well as questions, especially for priests who were not trained to delegate pastoral duties such as ministering to the sick. "The number one positive is the role and the place and the presence of the laity," he said. "There is no one model of how we solve parish leadership or how we staff parishes; there has to be many models."

Msgr. Joyce added that this multi-model era requires three constants: collaboration, compassion and competence. "What's important is ministry well done," Msgr. Joyce said. "We need orientation of new ministers, lay and ordained; we need standards, we need mentoring, we need skills for collaboration."

Pastoral reality

Three panel presenters --- Father Patrick Brennan from the Archdiocese of Portland, Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson and San Bernardino Bishop Gerald Barnes --- shared their respective staffing realities in the present age of priest shortages and population increases.

"We are continuing to grow, in every area of the diocese," said Bishop Barnes. In contrast to the 100 assignable diocesan priests serving 235,000 Catholics in the San Bernardino Diocese when it was established 26 years ago, today 59 priests serve 1.2 million parishioners, noted the bishop. Currently, the diocese has 12 non-priest parish leaders, called pastoral coordinators, administering churches.

In the Los Angeles Archdiocese, the largest in the nation with 4.5 million Catholics, there are already two non-priest pastoral leaders, called parish life directors, with more anticipated in the near future. "We don't have the number of priests we need to staff all of our parishes," said Bishop Wilkerson, who shepherds one million Catholics attending 54 parishes in the San Fernando Pastoral Region.

The Portland Archdiocese currently has four parishes with lay administrators. "It's worked fairly well because the people have the ability and the gifts to do it," according to Father Brennan, archdiocesan vicar for clergy. Next year, following another staffing model, one priest-pastor will oversee two neighboring parishes in Eugene.

Whatever a parish's size or staffing, said Dominican Sister Donna Ciangio, director of pastoral services for the National Pastoral Life Center, it must be a welcoming place where people are nurtured to live the "the mission and ministry of Jesus" by their leaders.