Style and Structure
By Thomas J. Reese, S.J. From Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) Hero, Nero, and Zero. The archbishop of New York is foolishly expected to
have an opinion on every subject in the world. Whenever a new archbishop is to be appointed, the priests
and laity of the archdiocese are asked to describe the type of person they would like to
have as archbishop. Jesus Christ would have a hard time fulfilling the expectations that
people have for their archbishop. The ideal archbishop is a pastorally sensitive
administrative genius who can prophetically preach the gospel in a nonthreatening way and
provide extensive social services and educational programs at low cost with few
bureaucrats. He must govern in a way that is widely consultative, decisive, innovative,
collegial, orthodox, and that keeps everyone happy. He must be prophetic in his concern
for the poor and raise money from the rich. He must convince his priests that they are the
most important people in the archdiocese without alienating religious and laity by being
excessively clerical. He should provide national and international leadership in
the church without leaving the archdiocese more than two days a year. He must be a holy
priest who understands the real world of budgets and finances. He must be loyal to the
Holy Father, but he should not be pushed around by the Vatican. He must give every priest
the parish he wants and every parish the priest it wants. And he should be ecumenical but
stress his Catholic identity. While this may be the ideal, what in fact are the men like
who become archbishops? Archbishops, like other bishops, mostly come from working-class
backgrounds that are similar to the backgrounds of their priests.\1 Half of their fathers never graduated from high
school, only 12 percent graduated from college, and an additional 36 percent graduated
from high school. The average archbishop is fifty-three years of age when he is appointed.\2 He can therefore look forward to twenty-two years in
office until he reaches retirement age (seventy-five). Appointing older men, such as
archbishops John O'Connor to New York and Anthony Bevilacqua to Philadelphia (both were in
midsixties when appointed), means that they will be in office fewer years. Ninety percent of the archbishops were already bishops and
61 percent were diocesan bishops (the head of a diocese) when they were promoted. They had
served about six years as a bishop before becoming an archbishop. Being a diocesan bishop
or even an auxiliary gives a man some of the experience and skills he would need as
archbishop. Before becoming a bishop, about half of the archbishops
had held a top chancery position (vicar general, chancellor, secretary to the bishop). In
these positions they would learn much about church administration. But some archbishops
(William Borders of Baltimore, John Dearden of Detroit, Patrick Flores of San Antonio,
Peter Gerety of Newark, Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, Francis Hurley of Anchorage, Thomas
Kelly of Louisville, Daniel Kucera of Dubuque, William Levada of Portland (OR), John May
of St. Louis, Eugene Marino of Atlanta, John O'Connor of New York, Edward O'Meara of
Indianapolis, John Roach of St. Paul, Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, John Whealon of
Hartford) had never worked in a chancery before becoming a bishop. Thirty-five percent of the archbishops (Borders, James
Byrne of Dubuque, John Carberry of St. Louis, Dearden, Thomas Donnellan of Atlanta,
Flores, James Hickey of Washington (DC), Hunthausen, John Krol of Philadelphia, Kucera,
Levada, Marino, Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, John Quinn of San Francisco, Roach,
Charles Salatka of Oklahoma City, and Whealon) as priests had worked in a seminary, often
as rectors. Working as seminary rector provides some administrative experience, especially
in working with priests before they are ordained. Since an essential part of a bishop's
job is working with priests, this is quite useful. Finally, the archbishops are better educated than most
priests but not much better educated than other bishops. About 30 percent have either a
S.T.D. (the highest ecclesiastical degree in theology) or a J.C.D. (the highest degree in
canon law). Most of these degrees are from Roman institutions or the Catholic University
of America in Washington, DC. Half the archbishops studied in Rome. Half also studied at
Catholic University. In so far as their views parallel those of other bishops, they are
more "conservative" on religious attitudes and sexual morality than their
priests and more "liberal" on ecumenism and social action.\3 No one has all the qualities necessary for being a perfect
archbishop. As a result, each archbishop tends to emphasize certain aspects of the job.
The personality and preferences of the archbishop play an important part in determining
how he spends his time and how he organizes the archdiocese. This chapter will examine a
typical day in the life of an archbishop, his style of governance, and how an
archdiocese's organization and structure is influenced by the personality and style of the
archbishop. Most American archbishops are workaholics who try to do
everything in the job description for an ideal archbishop. Even those in their seventies
at the time of my interviews (Borders, Philip Hannan of New Orleans, Krol, and Timothy
Manning of Los Angeles) would run into the ground a younger man trying to keep up with
their schedules. A few have been slowed down by ill health. Before or
during the period of my study, archbishops with serious health problems included: James
Casey of Denver and Donnellan (who died in office); Borders, Gerety, Hunthausen, Edward
McCarthy of Miami, Daniel Sheehan of Omaha, and Edmund Szoka of Detroit (who had heart
problems); Flores (who had an operation on his inner ear); Krol (who had an operation on
his throat); Quinn (who took a six-month sabbatical because of stress); and Whealon
(cancer). Most archbishops would consider an eight-hour day a rare
luxury. A typical day in the life of an archbishop will begin around 6:30 in the morning
after turning in at 11:30 the previous evening. Most days will be spent in the office
dealing with mail, appointments, and meetings. Many evenings and weekends are given over
to parish, archdiocesan, and civic functions. Sometimes these functions and meetings of
committees and boards will also take the archbishop out of the office during the day. Most archbishops find it difficult to describe a typical
day in their lives. Archbishop Roach gives it a try: I am not sure there is one. I will give you about as
typical a day as I would have. I get up at 6:30 in the morning and get on an exercycle for
twenty minutes. I try to spend a half hour or thereabouts in prayer. Then,
depending upon what my schedule is, I have Mass at home if I don't have Mass somewhere
else during the day. About three times during the week I have Mass somewhere else. Then I am in the office by 9:00 or a little bit before.
The first thing I try to do in the morning is go through the NC News Service, just to see
what's happened the day before. Then I try from 9:15 to 11:00, generally, although that
tends to get eroded very badly, I try to do office work, mail, that kind of stuff. Start appointments at 11:00 and go from 11:00 to 5:00,
pretty much with appointments or meetings. Then I try to get out of here at five o'clock. If I've got an evening commitment, which is rather
frequent, then I do that. About three nights a week I would have evening things. In the
spring, when confirmation schedule is heavy, it is a little more than that; I'm probably
out four nights a week. If I don't have an evening commitment, I do a variety of
things. I try to do a fair amount of reading. I try to do some recreational reading and
some professional kind of reading. I tend to do a lot of speaking. Last night I worked,
and that's not typical, until 10:30 here in the office getting ready for some talks that
I've got to give. Office work can take up a great amount of time. Many
letters the archbishop receives can simply be passed on to one of his subordinates. They
will answer the letter or draft an answer for the archbishop's signature. Some archbishops
have their secretaries distribute incoming correspondence, but most like to see all their
mail as a way of keeping in touch. Some letters, especially those from priests,
archdiocesan officials, bishops, civic and ecumenical leaders, will have to be answered by
the archbishop himself. Archbishop Gerety of Newark described the mail on his desk
the day I interviewed him: In the mail you will find all sorts of things. You will
find things that relate to parish life, permissions that are being requested, complaints
that are being made--somebody is mad because he didn't receive justice in the tribunal or
something like that. This morning, here are some examples. There is talk of a
merger of a couple of parishes. Well, of course you will have all sorts of complaints
about that. I get a lot of stuff like that. Here is a notification--I have to be at the Serra
International to celebrate Mass next week. Here is an inquiry from the Westside Presbyterian Church,
they are looking for retreat facilities. Here is a complaint about some land we have. It's a
landfill that has been smoking and the people are mad. Here is a complaint--a letter I received from Cardinal
Mayer [of the Congregation for Divine Worship] because somebody from here wrote in
complaining about the distribution of the precious blood in the archdiocese of Newark. Here Bishop Arias, who is vicar for Hispanics, sent me a
copy of a letter he wrote to the parishes because we're changing our schedule of Masses.
He wants to make sure that the Hispanic population gets a proper shake in the Mass
schedule. Here is another one from one of your Jesuit provincials,
asking for correspondence with regards to one of your priests. Here is another, a Benedictine who wants faculties for a
couple of fellows and approval for their assignments. Here is a request from the New Jersey Catholic Conference
to approve the appointment of an educational aide down there in Trenton. Here's another communication from the North American
College in Rome notifying me that they have accepted one of our priests for their next
course in the fall, and I have to see to it that he is released and all that business. Last year we had over ninety meetings with the sisters and
religious because of the Quinn Commission. We listened to them about how they felt abut
the "Essential Elements" [a document on religious life issued by the Vatican]
and how they felt about religious life. Here is the responses from the religious. That's a guy who wants to get laicized. Here is a complaint about the tribunal. I get a lot of crank letters. I've got two or three right
there complaining about this, that, or the other thing. Sometimes I don't reply because
they are absolutely nuts. But other times you got to at least pay attention, say,
"I'll take your ideas into consideration" or some blasted thing. It depends on
what it is. You don't want the people to feel that they can't approach you. I just got through a lot of other stuff, dictating to the
secretary in between appointments. Archbishop Gerety had a busy schedule of appointments that
day also: Today [June 24, 1985] is a typical day, it has certain
things happening today that don't happen every day, but in a sense it is a typical day. I frequently start in with a breakfast meeting because
some of the archdiocesan corporations are made up of laymen [who work during the day]. I
have already seen three priests for various reasons [before 11:00 A.M], and I have gone
through the mail, which on Monday morning can be rather heavy. After I finish with you,
for a few minutes I am going to see a seminarian who's going to Rome. We have a large number of corporations that are under the
archdiocese of Newark, so I've got to be interested in all that stuff. I am on all those
boards. We have an archdiocesan hospital corporation; that is an umbrella corporation that
has under it three of our Catholic hospitals that are directly the responsibility of the
archdiocese. I got a fairly lengthy report on their activities, finances and everything
else, from the fellow who runs the corporation. We have a lot of problems in that area. So
after I have a bite to eat, I am going to have a meeting about the health corporation with
the vicar general and our chancellor for administration, who is on the corporation board.
We got other things--cemeteries, we got womb to tomb. And at two o'clock, after that meeting, I am going to be
given a slide presentation [by city officials] of the changes that are going to take
place, or at least are proposed, for Jersey City. They are of concern to us because the
changes will affect the parishes. Then at 3:30 I am going to see an archbishop from India
who is here and wants to come in and shake my hand, I guess. Then at 4:30 I have a meeting with the Foundation for
Educational Alternatives, which is one of our corporations, which is a foundation to help
out poor kids; and they are going to stay for dinner. That's what I am doing today. Engagements outside the office, especially in parishes,
frequently take place in the evening and on weekends. In a geographically large
archdiocese this can mean late hours and much traveling. Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of
Mobile describes one of his worst weekends: I get home generally at ten or eleven o'clock at night, if
I have my wishes. If I don't, it is whenever it is that traveling brings me in, generally
very late. I was in Montgomery for a catechist day on Saturday
morning. All the catechists from that area came by, and we had a big Mass. I commissioned
them all as catechists. That afternoon we dedicated a new addition to the social service
center in Montgomery. The next morning [Sunday] I had Mass at a parish where I
had not been for some time since a new pastor was appointed. I dealt with some personnel
problems in the afternoon. Sunday night I went up [eighty-five miles] to Birmingham
and offered Mass the next morning for a lady whose husband had died, who I had known for
many years. In the middle of the day, I had something else. This was all preparatory to going on television with
Mother Angelica. So I finished television live with Mother Angelica at 9:00 P.M. and at
ten o'clock I left to drive [260 miles] to Mobile. I got home at three o'clock in the
morning, pretty well dead. Despite being workaholics, archbishops cannot do
everything. With a limited amount of time available to them, their personalities and the
needs of the archdiocese will make them concentrate on certain activities. How archbishops
use their time is one way of defining their episcopal styles. There are many ways that bishops can be categorized.\4 One archdiocese had a well loved archbishop who was
followed by a tyrant and then by a nonleader. The priests dubbed them, "Hero, Nero,
and Zero." As it turned out, when Zero retired, the priests were sorry to see him go
as they realized how many things he had permitted to happen. Catholic bishops are most frequently categorized in the
press as liberals or conservatives, two categories this book tries to avoid. More
sophisticated writers note that the bishops, in comparison with American society, tend to
be liberal on social issues and conservative on doctrine and morals. Within these
categories may be shades of differences, but they are slight compared to American society
as a whole. This is shown by the almost unanimous support given by the bishops to their
pastoral letters on peace and economic justice. Likewise on doctrine and morals, only a
couple of bishops have publicly disagreed with the pope on women's ordination, Humanae
Vitae, or any other major issue. In any case, this book does not attempt to fathom the
theological or social views of the bishops. Rather its emphasis is on what bishops do, how
they spend their time, how they make decisions. In Models of the Church,\5 Avery Dulles, S.J., describes the church as
institution, sacrament, communion, herald, and servant. As a result, bishops could be
examined in their functions as leaders in each of these aspects of the church. Canon law
refers to bishops as "teachers of doctrine, priests of sacred worship and ministers
of governance."\6 Some attention will be given
to the role of bishops as teachers (heralds) and priests of worship (sacrament and
communion). But this book primarily examines the bishop's role in governance, as a leader
in the church as an institution. While each archbishop is an individual with unique talents
and personality, it is possible to make some generalizations about governance styles of
archbishops. The most valuable resource an archbishop has is his time. Even the
workaholics are not able to do everything. How an archbishop uses his time is one way by
which they can be described as pastors, administrators, teachers, national leaders, or a
combination. Bishops are frequently classified as administrators or pastors, but this
dichotomy needs more nuance. The next section will attempt to describe episcopal types.
What will be described are archetypes, with examples of archbishops who epitomize these
categories. But archbishops perform all of these functions to varying degrees, although
they are usually more comfortable with some roles rather than others. In their local communities, archbishops are not only
church leaders, they are also major public figures. Their presence is desired at many
events because the archbishop can give them added credibility and visibility. For example,
when the first research conference on AIDS was scheduled in New York City, the sponsors
found that politicians were afraid to attend. Some politicians feared a negative reaction
from the New York archdiocese. When one of the sponsors informed Cardinal Terence Cooke of
this problem, he offered to give the invocation at the opening of the conference. While trying to avoid being used for political purposes,
archbishops are willing to give their presence to events that benefit the community. For
example, Archbishop Flores made spot announcements on San Antonio radio and television
urging people to register and vote. Many archbishops see this as part of being a good
citizen and as a way of showing the involvement of the church in the life of the local
community. In addition, it is useful for them to keep on good terms with civic officials
whose cooperation may be needed on zoning, local ordinances, or funding for Catholic
social services. Frequently archbishops are called upon to deal with civic
problems through their social services. Many archbishops have been approached by civic
leaders to run programs for the homeless and the poor. Sometimes they also get involved in
civic disputes directly. "Whenever there is any trouble, I am called upon to be a
go-between," explains Archbishop Hannan of New Orleans. "For instance, the black
militants would come and talk to me, but they won't talk to the black mayor. Then I am
supposed to go and talk to the mayor about what is worrying them." After a police
shooting in a black neighborhood, representatives of the black community, police, and
mayor secretly met at night in the archbishop's office trying to work out their
differences. But some archbishops profess not to want to be civic
leaders. "A recent newspaper article referred to me as one of the ten most powerful
people in San Francisco, but as one who underused his potential to have influence,"
reports Archbishop Quinn. "That rather pleases me. I do not want to have that kind of
influence. It is not my role. I want my religious role to be obvious and clear." On
the other hand, his view of his religious role led Archbishop Quinn to be in the forefront
in San Francisco on issues like sanctuary, AIDS and the nuclear freeze. As public figures, archbishops' support is also solicited
on various public issues. Some have spoken forcefully on controversial local issues
(capital punishment, public school integration, local gay rights ordinances, fluoridated
water, public school health clinics, state funding of abortions, and the location of race
tracks, low-income housing, shelters, and soup kitchens). They are concerned about what
happens in the civic community because it can impact on the church. They also feel a
responsibility to influence public policy in a direction that is moral and just. Their
positions on community issues often affect how these issues are resolved. But when
Catholics are a small minority in the community, it is less likely that the archbishop
will be a visible community leader. Increasingly, the archbishops attempt to coordinate their
public activities with other religious leaders in the community. In some cities, the
judicatory heads of major religious groups meet to discuss issues of common concern. These
ecumenical groups sometimes take united positions on public issues. Archbishop Weakland of
Milwaukee reports, My day has as many Protestants seeing me sometimes, as
Catholics. I see the Lutheran and the Anglican bishops a lot more than Catholic bishops,
except my auxiliaries. We do everything together. That's important in a city like ours. Some archbishops also encourage their parishes and
agencies to work with other church groups. Some archdioceses, like Louisville, have signed
covenants with other churches where they commit themselves to joint programs of prayer and
social services. Ecumenical efforts are especially strong with Jewish groups in Los
Angeles and New York and with mainline Protestant groups throughout the country. For the
most part, conservative fundamentalist groups are not interested in cooperation except in
the pro-life field. Some archbishops are not only leaders locally, but also
nationally and internationally. The cardinal archbishops are called on to do projects for
the national and international church. For example, Cardinal Krol was involved in
investigating Catholic Relief Service and the Vatican bank and in raising funds for Polish
farmers and the Vatican debt. Cardinal Bernardin is a member of the council for the synod.
Cardinal O'Connor is a member of the Congregation for Bishops. Cardinal Law is working on
the international catechism. On the national level, every three years, the bishops
elect a president and vice president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
(NCCB). Normally at the end of his three-year term, the vice president is elected
president. All the presidents of the NCCB (except Bishop James Malone) have been
archbishops: Dearden, Krol, Bernardin, Quinn, Roach, and May. Archbishop Pilarczyk,
elected vice president in 1986, will probably become president in November 1989. The NCCB elections are a good indication of which bishops
are respected by their peers. The inability of Cardinal Law and Archbishop Mahony to get
elected to any NCCB office in 1986 was noted by many commentators as an indication of
their weak standing among their fellow bishops. The next year, however, Archbishop Mahony
was elected chairman of the bishops committee on international issues. The president and vice president of the conference
frequently act as spokesmen for the American bishops on religious and public issues. They
have met with U.S. presidents and represented the American bishops at national and
international meetings. They also visit Rome a couple of times a year to express the views
of the American bishops to the Vatican. These jobs are in addition to bishops' work in
their dioceses. Being NCCB president, Archbishop Roach reports, took 30 percent of his
time. Being on a NCCB committee can also be time consuming,
especially for the chairman. Archbishop Weakland chaired the committee drafting the
bishops' economic pastoral, while Cardinal Bernardin chaired the committee for the peace
pastoral. Archbishop Quinn chaired the papal commission on religious life and, with
cardinals Bernardin and O'Connor, was on the committee that resolved the Seattle crisis.
But some archbishops avoid national work because they want to devote all their time to
their archdioceses. All archbishops consider themselves teachers, but some
take this role more seriously than others and are willing to take time from other duties
to read, prepare talks and write. About a third were teachers earlier in their careers,
usually in seminaries. "I like to teach," reports Archbishop Roach, a former
headmaster, "and very few people in the world have an opportunity to teach in the
same way that the bishop does. That is a terrible burden, but it is also a remarkable
opportunity, and I do like to teach." Of all the archbishops, only Archbishop Whealon of
Hartford currently teaches in a classroom. He teaches Scripture to seminarians and
candidates for the permanent diaconate. Few archbishops are qualified to be academic
theologians. Only five (archbishops Hickey, Levada, McCarthy, O'Meara, and Pilarczyk) of
the current thirty-one archbishops have S.T.D.'s, the highest ecclesiastical degree in
theology. Archbishop Lipscomb has a Ph.D. in church history, Archbishop Pilarczyk, in
classics; Cardinal O'Connor, in political science; Archbishop Kucera, in education; and
Archbishop Bevilacqua has a J.D. Only six archbishops (Bevilacqua, Hannan, Hickey, Kelly,
McCarthy, and Sheehan) have J.C.D.'s, the highest degree in canon law. (Donnellan, Krol,
and Power also have J.C.D.'s.) Some fulfill their teaching role by exercising vigilance
over the theologians at their seminaries and at local Catholic colleges and universities.
Cardinal Law shocked a graduation audience by expressing the hope that Jesuit-run Boston
College might become more Catholic, although he did not explain how it should do this. As
chancellor of the Catholic University of America, Cardinal Hickey has been the Vatican
point man in dealing with Rev. Charles Curran, the moral theologian whose views on certain
moral issues were questioned by church officials. He also opposed the appointment of a
dean of religious studies who, he felt, held an unorthodox position on sterilization. But most archbishops exercise their teaching role
primarily through their sermons at confirmations and other liturgies. Archbishop Kelly,
being of the Order of Preachers, takes each sermon very seriously. There is nothing more satisfying to me than to preach to a
church full of people and to keep their attention. I work hard at my preaching. It is very
important to get their attention and hold it and to talk to them about themselves and my
experience as their bishop. That is what the pope does. I admire him most for his
willingness to be present to the universal church in his preaching. And he does that
exceptionally well. Besides preaching, some bishops use confirmations as an
opportunity to meet with young people to answer their questions. Before their
confirmations, Archbishop Donnellan brought them to the Atlanta cathedral where they could
ask him questions on confirmation or anything else. It's fun, it takes a little time for them to loosen up and
ask questions, but then you might go for two hours in which they are just asking
questions. Also, since their parents are there with them, their parents ask questions.
Sometimes, that is a difficult experience, but it is a fun experience. Archbishop Hannan also opens himself up to questions from
high school seniors, whom he meets with every year. As he explains, I speak a very short time, maybe ten minutes at the most,
and then ask them to ask me any questions they want--to make sure that they know that the
church has an answer for everything and that we are approachable in every problem that
they have and that we want to help them. About half of the archbishops use a column in their
archdiocesan newspapers to carry their teachings beyond the sound of their voices. As
teachers they attempt to motivate and inspire their people./7 Archbishop Weakland explains, I write an article each week for the Catholic newspaper,
which is very important to me as a means of communicating with people on a spiritual
level. These are not informative articles as such. They usually are more of a spiritual
nature. A few archbishops have become nationally recognized as
teaching bishops through articles, pastoral letters, and addresses. None has published in Theological
Studies, the most prestigious American theological journal. Cardinals Bernardin, Krol,
and O'Connor and Archbishops Hurley, Lipscomb, May, Pilarczyk, Quinn, Stafford, Weakland
and Whealon have published in America, a Catholic periodical frequently read by the
bishops.\8 Another way of identifying teaching bishops is to see
which archbishops write speeches and pastoral letters that gain national attention. Some
archbishops use ghost writers for early drafts of these documents, but the final version
represents their views and implements their teaching role no matter who wrote it.
Episcopal statements that gain national attention are usually printed in Origins.
Archbishops Bernardin, Quinn, and Roach are cited more frequently in the author index of Origins
than any other archbishops.\9 This is partially due
to the fact that while presidents of the bishops' conference, their addresses and
statements were frequently printed in Origins. But even discounting these official
statements, Bernardin and Quinn have been quite prolific. Since becoming chairman of the
committee drafting the pastoral on the economy, Archbishop Weakland has been more
prominent in Origins, as have archbishops May and Pilarczyk since becoming
president and vice president of the conference. Other archbishops whose works have been
frequently reprinted in Origins include Mahony, Hickey, O'Connor, Stafford, Law,
Bevilacqua and Borders. But most archbishops do not make the time for the reading
and writing that the teaching role requires. Archbishop Quinn is an exception. It is not
unusual for him to take a whole afternoon off to read and to write articles and addresses.
He explains: I have a great feeling that when I get up to speak I
should say something of substance. I think my mission in the church is to be a bishop,
that means to me that my mission is to say something that has substance to it. So I try to
always say something of substance. I try to prepare what I have to say. So I work on these
things before I give them. One San Francisco chancery official said of Archbishop
Quinn, "He is more of a theologian than an administrator. He would be much better as
the head of the Vatican Congregation on Doctrine of the Faith." No archbishop in the United States has been as effective
communicating through electronic media as have Protestant TV evangelists. A few (cardinals
Cody and Szoka and Archbishop Hannan) have spent large sums developing archdiocesan
television centers, but the high cost has deterred most bishops from taking that route.
Cardinal Bernardin dismantled the Chicago television center built under Cardinal Cody.
Many archbishops are members of the Catholic Television Network of America (CTNA), but
unless the archdiocese can get local cable companies to carry the programs, they are
little used except as videos for classroom and parish discussions. A few archbishops, like Archbishop Weakland, use
television or radio Masses to reach more people in their archdioceses. The Milwaukee
archbishop explains: I consider my primary task that of a teacher, and I do
what I think is a lot of teaching. I tape a broadcast Mass every Sunday on the
radio--eight o'clock out of the cathedral--and I work hard on that homily. It's listened
to by about 70,000, so it's worth taking it as a serious chance to reach a lot of people.
I find from correspondence I get that it reaches a lot of non-Catholic people who listen
in regularly. Archbishops get little training on dealing with the media.
Officers of the NCCB, like archbishops Bernardin, Kelly, May, Pilarczyk, Roach, and Quinn,
learned how to handle a national press conference. Most archbishops have at least a
part-time press person. Archbishops tend to get good local press coverage when they first
arrive in their archdioceses, but they are retired to the back pages after a few weeks.
Archbishops in heavily Catholic areas tend to get more coverage than archbishops in
non-Catholic areas. No archbishop has captured media attention as much as
Cardinal O'Connor of New York. His predecessor, Cardinal Cooke, was a hands-on
administrator with an intimate knowledge of the archdiocese, but he preferred to work in
the background and not in front of the media. Being less knowledgeable of the archdiocese,
Cardinal O'Connor has delegated more responsibility to his staff, but he has known how to
capture the attention of the New York newspapers and television stations and turn them
into his bully pulpits. The director of Catholic Charities for New York remarked how this
made a difference in his life: Cardinal Cooke was very good on advocacy, but he tended to
low key his advocacy. Cardinal O'Connor is very strong in that. He is very far up front in
advocacy. A few years ago, we were pushing for a moratorium on the
[apartment] conversions, which was another way of getting rid of [poor] people and
gentrifying. Cardinal Cooke was behind us and he would meet with Mayor Beame, but he
wouldn't go public on it. I would be the one going public. Now the cardinal is the one
going public on the moratorium. On the other hand, the cardinal had to learn the hard way
that not all news coverage is good. Cardinal O'Connor explains: The archbishop of New York is foolishly expected to have
an opinion on every subject in the world. No matter what happens of significance, someone
from the media is going to ask me what do you think about it. I'm here now about two and
three-fourths years, but it's taken me most of the time to learn that I don't have an
opinion about everything. I have to laugh as I reflect on my earlier days. I would
come up with some kind of opinion. I would try to think it through and pray it through.
I'd try to be honest about it and say what I believe. That got me into considerable
trouble--saying what I really believe--because I think the media weren't accustomed to it.
They assumed there would be some dissembling. They assumed there would be a political
dimension to it. When I would see the way it would be distilled and
re-presented, I thought, "Why did you have an opinion about it in the first place?
You really didn't have anything to say, and you said what you didn't have to say, and now
you have to pay the price." Many people use pastoral to describe a style of
being bishop, but it is not always clear what they mean. "It is easier to describe
what is the opposite of a pastoral bishop," admits Archbishop Jadot, who is credited
with appointing pastoral bishops. "He is authoritarian, does not ask advice, does not
relate well to other people, a loner, does not like to meet other people, does not like to
hear confessions or preach." When priests use the term they often mean that the
bishop gets along well with his priests; he pastors them. The term also applies to bishops
who get out of the office and visit parishes. The pastoral archbishops enjoy meeting
people and celebrating the liturgy in parishes. Every archbishop considers himself pastoral. Most profess
that the part of their job they enjoy most is going to parishes, celebrating the Eucharist
and confirmation, and meeting the people. Their most frequent complaint is that they do
not have more time for this. Archbishop Lipscomb of Mobile says, The most satisfying times to me are sacramentally
oriented. I love confirmations, I love to be around giving the sacrament of confirmation,
and the aftermath, to be with parents. The opportunity for archbishops to give individual
attention to people is limited, especially in large archdioceses. But they still feel it
is important for the bishop to be seen by his people even if it is impossible for him to
be personally involved with each person. Cardinal Manning explained his approach in Los Angeles: A bishop cannot be a great financial man exclusively or a
great administrator or author or public relations man. But I think his presence is very
important, his presence among his people, and that's what I have striven for myself mostly
during my administration--to be present to as many people as I can. Last night I heard confessions for an hour and a half in
South Pasadena. I said Mass at a place we have for bag ladies on Tuesday. On Sunday I had
two Masses: one at St. Mark's in Venice and one at St. Martin of Tours for different
events. Saturday I had Mass at St. Andrew's in Pasadena, and so on. I am on the road night and day. I will be at the men's
jail Christmas Day and the women's jail on New Years Day. I will be saying Mass at various
rest homes during this coming week, such as, the Sisters of the Poor in Nazareth House. I
go to the detention camp, so that they will know who their shepherd is. American archbishops are primarily administrators, and
this has been true for most of the history of the American hierarchy. Early bishops were
builders of churches, schools, orphanages, hospitals, and other charitable institutions
that served a rapidly expanding immigrant church. They were often criticized for being
administrators rather than pastors. As early as 1878, George Conroy, Bishop of Ardagh,
Ireland, after making a visitation of the American church, reported to the Vatican: In the selection of bishops priority is given to
financial, rather than pastoral, abilities.... Whenever there is a deliberation to choose
a candidate for the episcopacy, the bishops of a province feel constrained to seek, at all
costs, a man skilled in financial administration. Indeed, it has too often happened that
the most valued gifts in a candidate proposed to the Holy See were properly those of a
banker, not of a Pastor of Souls.\10 Conroy failed to recognize that while the European church
was living off ecclesiastical infrastructures built up over centuries, the American church
had to start from scratch in a non-Catholic environment. In addition, some European
bishops had little to administer because the church lost much of its property, including
educational and charitable institutions, to the state in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. In other countries the church received financial subsidies from the
state so the bishops did not have to raise money. Today American bishops are
administrators of large operations built by their predecessors for which they are
financially responsible. In Europe, on the other hand, "as a rule the bishop, in
keeping with a concordat, has no specific financial competence. Finances are usually
attended to by boards of established (state-recognized) churches. In these cases the
financial administrator is the accountant responsible for the budget which he has to
justify before the state church board."/11 This has led church historian Msgr. John Tracy Ellis to
remark, I don't see any marked change in the type of bishops being
appointed since the beginning of the American hierarchy. George Conroy's report is still
accurate. The American bishops, unlike their European counterparts, were the holders of
vast properties. It was common sense that they therefore had to be good administrators. When looking for an archbishop, administrative skill is
still high on the list of qualifications. But archbishops do not learn administration by
going to school. None of them has an M.B.A., a master's degree in business administration.
A couple had courses in educational administration, but that would be the extent of their
formal training except for their courses in canon law. Archbishops, for the most part, learn administration by
doing it. Most archbishops (63 percent) get experience in governance by being the bishop
of a smaller diocese before being transferred to an archdiocese. Working closely with
another bishop as an auxiliary also is helpful. Prior to being made a bishop, almost half
the archbishops (Bernardin, Bevilacqua, Donnellan, Hannan, Hickey, Krol, Law, Lipscomb,
Mahony, McCarthy, Power, Quinn, Sanchez, Sheehan, Strecker, Szoka) also served as vicars
general, chancellors, or secretaries to bishops. Some (Borders, Donnellan, Hickey,
Hunthausen, Pilarczyk, Quinn, Roach, Whealon) gained administrative experience as seminary
administrators. Archbishops Mahony and Stafford were directors of Catholic Charities.
Archbishop Pilarczyk was vicar for education. Some archbishops have had administrative experience
outside of chanceries or seminaries. Archbishops Hunthausen and Kucera were presidents of
Catholic colleges. Cardinal Bernardin and Archbishop Kelly were general secretaries of the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archbishop May was president of the Catholic
Extension Society. Cardinal O'Connor was Chief of Navy Chaplains. Archbishop O'Meara was
director of the national office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Archbishop Weakland was abbot primate of the Benedictines. Archbishop Marino was vicar
general of the Josephites. Many archbishops enjoy the day-to-day work of
administration and the challenge of problem solving and decision making, but few like to
admit it. "I like to govern. I like the process of governing," confesses
Archbishop Roach of St. Paul. "I like to be able to work with people and to come to a
judgment about the appropriateness of an action. I like that very much." Although most archbishops enjoy administration, others
profess to actually hate it. They would prefer to spend all of their time on pastoral
work. It is difficult to know how seriously to take these complaints about the burdens of
administration. Their statements may reflect current theology of ministry, which is biased
against administration and portrays the priest as a pastor and teacher. Or their comments
may reflect the general clerical antipathy for bureaucracy and administration. Cardinal
Bernardin and archbishops Flores, Lipscomb, Sanchez, and Quinn, for example, profess a
dislike for administration. Archbishop Lipscomb acknowledges, The times that are most frustrating are the times which
you least sense as being connected with priesthood or the sacrament of orders, for me
anyway--desk work, administration, finance. I hate finance, who doesn't? Because administration is such an important part of an
archbishop's ministry, the simple distinction between pastoral and administrative bishops
is not sufficient. It is important to examine the various styles or models of
administration used by archbishops. Some archbishops have very specific ideas for innovative
programs for the archdiocese. Cardinal O'Connor of New York and Archbishop Hannan of New
Orleans, for example, are constantly pushing their ideas for new programs on their staffs.
Sometimes they publicly announce new initiatives that are complete surprises to their
staffs. Archbishops tend to be innovative at the beginning of their terms. Archbishop
Mahony, for example, initiated numerous programs and reorganizations his first year.
Normally, these initiatives will be focused on areas of interest to the archbishop. For
example, although Archbishop Hannan is full of initiatives for social services, he pretty
much leaves his pastors alone. Other archbishops, especially those who have been in
office for a while, are primarily concerned with maintaining the existing programs on a
sound and peaceful basis. Thus, Archbishop Strecker had many initiatives when he first
came to Kansas City, KS, but now he works at continuing these programs. Other archbishops,
like Manning, Whealon and Donnellan, came to office during the late 1960's when there was
much turbulence in the church. In response to a query about his major accomplishments,
Archbishop Donnellan of Atlanta responded "Keeping peace, with all of my flock and
all of my neighbors." Simply to survive that period was a great achievement. If
initiatives were to come, they would come from others. Many archbishops (Bernardin, Borders, Donnellan, Flores,
Gerety, Hunthausen, Hurley, Kelly, May, McCarthy, O'Meara, Pilarczyk, Power, Roach,
Salatka, Sheehan, Strecker and Whealon) are praised by their staffs not so much for their
ideas and initiatives as for their allowing others to take initiative and even make
mistakes. In their lifetimes, the archbishops have seen bishops oppose changes that later
became accepted practices in the church. They remember how divisive it was when bishops
attempted to suppress individual charisms. As a result, they are likely to permit
initiatives, even those they might not agree with. These laissez-faire archbishops believe
that if the initiative is good, it will succeed and help the church. If the initiative is
bad, it will fail on its own without their intervention. This "permissiveness"
is often misunderstood in Rome and by American Catholic conservatives. Some archbishops not only permit initiatives, but actively
support people with initiative. Sometimes the archbishop has a general sense of where he
wants the archdiocese to go but is unclear about the programmatic specifics. If his ideas
are to be realized, he must find creative people to flesh them out. These people must be
supported by the archbishop. For example, although very proud of Renew, a program of
spiritual renewal used in many dioceses, Archbishop Gerety of Newark refuses to take any
credit for it. "We got a couple of bright fellows here, that's how it started. It
certainly wasn't my fault." One of those "bright fellows," Rev. Thomas
Kleissler, recalls Archbishop Gerety's role more clearly: He wanted me to work developing parish councils. I had
done it for years as a volunteer. So I said to the bishop, "It is not going to work
unless you have several years of basic spiritual formation right across the diocese."
He said, "OK, do that." I told you he is smart, so he pulled the trap door. Thus began Renew. Archbishop Gerety also found and
supported creative people to deal with his financial problems and to run social services.
Finding such people and empowering them is one of the most important things an archbishop
does. Archbishop Weakland Milwaukee explains how he does it: I guess the secret is somehow sensing what needs are
there, and beginning to bring people together to look at them. And somebody seems to
surface who has the leadership quality that you need to move it. That happens over and
over again. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, practically every
archdiocesan office or agency (and sometimes the people within them) reported directly to
the archbishop. As an episcopal monarch in a stable environment with few diocesan
agencies, an archbishop could make practically all important decisions. He could be more
or less informed about everything that was going on in the archdiocese. The of diocesan programs after Vatican II made this style
more difficult./12 The monarchal approach can also
get bogged down in many unimportant details. For example, in 1977 during his first week in
San Francisco, a chancery official brought Archbishop Quinn the pink slip for an
automobile purchased by the archdiocese. His predecessor had always signed the slips.
Archbishop Quinn said, "I am here and I have a pen, so I will sign it. But don't ever
bring me one of these again." In some archdioceses, this monarchal model continued after
Vatican II. In a small archdiocese, the archbishop can be involved in supervising agencies
because they are small and demands on his time are less. Some archbishops even tried to be
monarchs in large archdioceses. Cardinal Cody, for example, signed all the checks for the
archdiocese of Chicago. In large archdioceses, trying to be a monarch eventually
causes serious problems. As archdiocesan structures multiplied and became more complex, it
became impossible for an archbishop to supervise all archdiocesan agencies.
"Theoretically a year ago, sixty-seven different offices and agency heads were on a
direct line of accountability with the archbishop," explained the moderator of the
curia in St. Paul. "The truth of the matter is that nobody was." Large archdioceses prove to be beyond the ability of any
one person to govern directly. What frequently happened was that many agencies operated
with little or no supervision. The agencies that received the attention of the archbishop
were those with financial problems, with personnel problems, or with programs that the
archbishop was personally interested in. In a small archdiocese, if an archbishop likes
administration, he can be very much involved in the day-to-day work of the chancery by
directly supervising agency heads. He can also get involved in the supervision of the
parishes. And in an archdiocese like Anchorage or Mobile, with few Catholics and a small
archdiocesan structure, the archbishop's administrative responsibilities do not get in the
way of his pastoral inclinations. In large archdioceses, with large agencies and
bureaucracies, there is the need to delegate or the archdiocesan apparatus will grind to a
halt. Also, if an archbishop does not like administration or has heavy commitments outside
the archdiocese, he must delegate his administrative work load or he will become very
frustrated, as was Boston Cardinal Medeiros who hated making decisions. The style and
preference of the archbishop will determine how much authority and responsibility he
delegates to other officials in the archdiocese. All archbishops claim that they delegate,
but some delegate more than others. Archbishop Donnellan of Atlanta said, "If you are
going to be an administrator in an archdiocese, it is necessary that you delegate a good
deal, that you trust the people who work with you and that you are not hesitant in
correcting mistakes." Donnellan was willing to let his subordinates make decisions in
their areas: You try to get competent people, you look for reports on
what is going on, you occasionally check. But by and large, the idea is to make sure you
have competent people and let them make their decisions and let them do their own
administration. For Donnellan and many archbishops, being kept informed is
the key to the process: I'm not enthusiastic about surprises. I like to be kept
informed, but I generally leave them to do things in their field. I like to be informed,
but I don't need to be consulted. They are free to make their decisions, but I like to
know what is going on. Some archbishops, on the other hand, talk of their
subordinates making decisions, but it often appears that their "decisions" are
whether or not to recommend something to the archbishop. Thus Cardinal Krol of
Philadelphia explains his administrative philosophy: I expressed my philosophy of administration in these terms
[pointing to a plaque]: "I would rather you do it yourself." That is the
responsibility of leadership, to train people to make responsible decisions. When I first came here, I got a lot of this,
"whatever you want." "It isn't what I want. You are in charge of that
department, tell me what is needed. I may have to say no thirteen times, but the
fourteenth time I might be in the position to say sure. But you tell me." That's the only way you can train responsible leadership
for the church is by giving them responsibility. And I tell them, "You have to make
the decisions and if you are wrong, I'll rap your knuckles, that's all, I'll fire you. Is
that acceptable?" "Yeah, sure." And they do. Differences in administrative style are most easily seen
when there is a change in archbishops. Cardinal Cooke, for example, was very much involved
in detailed decision making in New York, while Cardinal O'Connor has been much more of a
delegator. Cardinal Cooke was able to immerse himself in detail because he had spent
practically all his ministry in administration in the New York archdiocese. Cardinal
O'Connor, on the other hand, knew little about the archdiocese before he arrived. Archbishops who like to get involved in administrative
detail, according to their staffs, include cardinals Cooke, Krol, and Hickey and
archbishops Kucera, Salatka, and Whealon. Normally this style is only possible in small
archdioceses. And sometimes it is necessary because skilled administrators are simply not
available for the archbishop to delegate to. Archbishops who delegate, according to their
staffs, include Bernardin, Borders, Donnellan, Flores, Gerety, Hannan, Hurley, Kucera,
Lipscomb, May, McCarthy, O'Connor, O'Meara, Pilarczyk, Quinn, Roach, Szoka, and Weakland.
But even these archbishops involve themselves in details of matters they are interested
in. Most archbishops pay attention to problem areas and delegate areas that are stable and
noncontroversial. An archbishop needs governance structures that fit his
personal style and the needs of his archdiocese. An archbishop who wants to be involved in
administrative detail will need a different structure from one who prefers to delegate. In
a small diocese, an archbishop can have frequent personal contact with every agency
administrator and pastor. In a large archdiocese, this will be impossible. Structure is the internal differentiation and patterning
of relationships in an organization./13 Structure is
an attempt to achieve bounded rationality, which is especially important when facing
uncertainty and complexity. "By delimiting responsibilities, control over resources,
and other matters, organizations provide their participating members with boundaries
within which efficiency may be a realistic expectation."/14 Structure also facilitates coordinated action by
the interdependent elements of an organization. The structure of an archdiocese is influenced by its
mission, its ministries, and its environment as well as the desires of its leadership.
Many large and medium-sized dioceses have undergone reorganization recently.
Reorganization has been necessary because of expansion of the archdiocesan agencies with
new ministries responding to new demands since Vatican II. The archbishops want to lessen
their administrative load while at the same time improving supervision, coordination, and
accountability. Diocesan reorganization has also responded to desires for better lines of
communication for both vertical and horizontal communication./15 As an administrator, the archbishop is responsible for
supervising both archdiocesan parishes and agencies. If the archbishop does not like
administration or does not have the time for it, he must delegate some of his
administrative responsibilities. In large archdioceses, delegating responsibilities is
imperative. The larger the number of parishes, for example, the more difficult it is for
him to supervise and coordinate them. In populous archdioceses the trend has been to
establish regional vicariates under auxiliary bishops. Priests can also be episcopal
vicars, but bishops carry more weight. Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Dubuque, Los
Angeles, Newark, St. Paul, and Washington have regional vicariates under auxiliary
bishops. The vicariates are further divided into deaneries. Smaller archdioceses with less
than two auxiliaries are more likely to simply have deaneries under the archbishop. What kind of authority and responsibility these vicars and
deans have is up to the archbishop. For the most part, they represent the archbishop in
the parishes. At a minimum, they are the archbishop's eyes and ears, even if they cannot
always solve problems by speaking with the authority of his voice. Priests or parishioners
with complaints can see them. They can act as ombudsmen with the archbishop and the
chancery. They can also be sent by the archbishop to investigate complaints or problems.
Often they convene meetings of pastors and others in order to facilitate cooperation and
coordination among parishes in their area. More will be said about parishes in the next
chapter. Besides parishes, the archbishop must supervise and
coordinate archdiocesan agencies. The larger, the more numerous, and the more complex the
agencies, the more difficult this becomes. The growth in the number and complexity of
these agencies in large archdioceses has forced archbishops to group them in departments
supervised and coordinated by department heads who report to the archbishop. Thus, when
Joseph Bernardin became archbishop of Chicago, he reorganized the archdiocese and placed
archdiocesan agencies under six directors or secretaries (they can be vicars if they are
priests) for administrative services, community services, educational services, financial
services, pastoral services, and personnel services. This provided the model for
reorganizations in Boston and St. Paul, although they combined financial and
administrative services into one department. The earliest secretariat system was established by
Cardinal Francis Spellman in New York. Spellman needed such a structure because of the
size of the archdiocese and his many interests outside the archdiocese. After Vatican II,
secretariats were also established in Baltimore, Detroit,/16
Newark, and Washington. Under this secretariat model of governance, usually four
to seven administrators oversee different parts of the archdiocesan bureaucracy and report
to the archbishop (or to the vicar general). The three most common departments are for
finances (sometimes called administrative or central services), education, and social
services. Some archdioceses also have departments for pastoral services or ministries
(liturgy, marriage preparation programs, parishes, chaplains, Renew, lay organizations),
personnel (lay ministry, clergy personnel, vocations, seminary) and/or ethnic affairs. But
the existence of finance and personnel offices does not necessarily mean that all
financial and personnel matters go through these offices. In large archdioceses, sometimes
large agencies, like the schools office or Catholic Charities, have their own finance and
personnel staff./17 Some agencies are difficult to place in a department. Many
programs have pastoral, educational and financial components. RCIA (Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults), Renew, the diocesan newspaper, and youth ministry are pastoral and
educational. Should youth ministry go in education or pastoral affairs or, if it is aimed
at poor teenagers, in social services? Some programs, like family ministry, pro-life, have
both pastoral and social dimensions. It is especially the constituency-oriented offices
(youth, family, blacks, Hispanics) that are hard to place and yet are most in need of
coordination with other diocesan agencies./18 Thompson
argues that organizations group positions to minimize coordination costs./19 Units with the greatest interdependence are placed
in the same department. Placing units together in a central building is another means of
fostering coordination, but it can also distance agencies from their clients. Sometimes there is a "tupperware" department for
leftover agencies (public relations, newspaper, cemeteries, tribunal) that do not fit
neatly under other departments. Often an agency is placed in a department for political
reasons (who works well with whom) rather than out of any logical order. One archdiocesan
liturgy office, for example, is under the chancellor because the priest director would not
work with the woman who heads the department of ministries. All matters dealing with their agencies are first dealt
with by the department heads. They are responsible for supervising and coordinating the
agencies and settling conflicts within the department. They also attempt to coordinate
their work with other department heads and to settle conflicts through negotiations and
compromise. This process becomes cumbersome when departments only communicate through
their directors. More successful is coordination through informal interdepartmental
communications or lower-level task forces consisting of persons from a number of agencies
from different departments that are concerned with the same issue. What they cannot settle
goes to department heads who must resolve the dispute or take it to the archbishop. The
department heads are also responsible for implementing his decisions in their agencies. The secretariat or departmental structure makes a large
archdiocesan organization more manageable. For example, when Cardinal Law became
archbishop of Boston, he found fifty-four agencies reporting directly to him. This was too
many for him to supervise and coordinate effectively. After the reorganization, there were
only seven: social services, pastoral services, education, community relations, health
care services, ministerial personnel, and central services. Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee explains the advantages
and disadvantages in this kind of system: The idea is to give me a chance to be freed up a bit. I
know I couldn't cover all the bases without that [departmental] structure. The fear is
that a structure like that gets too bureaucratic, too impersonal, and too large. My job in
all of that is to provide direction, vision, and priorities. Some archbishops have been reluctant to adopt the
secretariat model because they are concerned about how the chancery bureaucracy is
perceived by the priests. Archbishops fear that the priests will see the secretaries as
simply another layer of bureaucracy. Pastors often complain that the secretariat system
creates a clique of highly paid bureaucrats who get between them and the archbishop. In
addition, archbishops in smaller archdioceses do not feel so great a need for this kind of
structure. And in small and medium-sized archdioceses, a secretary often is also a pastor
or director of an archdiocesan agency. As a pastor, he often provides more liaison and
credibility with the priests than actual supervision of the department. Cardinal James Hickey, who set up a secretariat first in
Cleveland and then in Washington, is pleased with the way it works. But he notes some of
the systemic difficulties. I have to be sure of three things: first, that letters get
answered; second, that problems don't get lost in intersecretarial, sempiternal committee
work that never gets called up. Things can get lost going back and forth or sitting on
somebody's desk. There's only one name on the letter and that's mine. If something doesn't
happen, if the pastor doesn't get an answer, he doesn't blame the secretary for this or
for that. "Old Hickey, down there, he isn't doin' anything, he doesn't care about
us." The third problem that I find with this secretarial system
is a subtle tendency to let Daddy do it, to sort of pass it up without recommendation, or
to pass it up without prior consultation. I can get a recommendation from one secretary, and I'd
say, "Well, did you talk to so-and-so?" Well, then I end up referring it, and
that makes work for me instead of doing work for me. To use the famous Bishop [Albert]
Ottenweller [of Steubenville, OH] funnel metaphor, I can have eight funnels coming down
over my head: black concerns, Hispanic concerns, education, social concerns, parish life,
support services, secretary for the clergy, secretary for religious women--and they all
come down on top of me. At our staff meeting this year, organizationally, that was
the point I brought out most clearly. I said, "I don't want to make this sound crass,
but basically you're helping me do my work. If instead of your helping me do my work, you
are eight people creating more work for me, then the whole thing's in reverse."
There's a tendency to do that, to sort of dump things on my desk. And I don't like things
dumped on my desk. It should go to a pertinent person. But after delegating supervisory authority to geographical
vicars and to secretaries, the archbishop "must see to it that all matters which
concern the administration of the entire diocese are duly coordinated and
arranged...."/20 This coordination and
direction can be done either by the archbishop or by the vicar general acting as his alter
ego. The archbishop can also appoint a moderator of the curia, who is usually also a vicar
general, "to coordinate the exercise of administrative responsibilities and to see to
it that the other members of the curia duly fulfill the office entrusted to them."/21 In the past, this role was sometimes performed by
the chancellor or the bishop's secretary, as Cardinal Hickey explains when he was a
priest. My job as the bishop's secretary [in Saginaw, MI] was to
coordinate all these things and to get people to talk to one another, and to come to the
boss [Bishop Stephen Woznicki] with a reasonable consensus or at least a couple of
options, with recommendations, so that he could make a decision knowing the facts. Maybe
it wasn't always the right decision, but he knew the facts, and he wasn't blindsided by
someone coming in that he hadn't heard of. The power of these officials varies tremendously from
archdiocese to archdiocese. A vicar general "possesses that executive power in the
entire diocese which belongs to the diocesan bishop in law, that is, he possesses the
power to place all administrative acts with the exception of those the bishop has reserved
to himself or which in law require the special mandate of the bishop."/22 A powerful vicar general could make many decisions
and free the archbishop by taking on most of his administrative responsibilities. But if
the archbishop "reserves" to himself most of the power, the vicar general can be
a figurehead. If the vicar general is powerful, other officials in the
chancery report to him, he might chair cabinet meetings, and if something must go to the
archbishop, it goes through him. The vicar general is the one who coordinates and
supervises the department heads or secretaries. The vicars general play important roles in
many of the large archdioceses like Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles (under Cardinal
Manning), Newark (under Archbishop Gerety), New York (when Bishop O'Keefe was vicar
general), Philadelphia (in Cardinal Krol's last years), San Francisco, and Seattle. The motivation for having a powerful vicar general can be
that the archbishop wants more time for long-range planning, for pastoral work or for work
outside the archdiocese. Or it can simply be that the archbishop prefers being brought
solutions, not problems. He may dislike conflict and confusion and want matters clarified
before they reach him. A strong vicar general can also serve a sick or elderly archbishop. If an archbishop wants to spend most of his time in
pastoral work, he will need someone who takes care of the day-to-day administration. Both
Cardinal Manning and Archbishop Quinn found it necessary to have powerful vicars general
who would take care of most of their administrative duties. Cardinal Manning's vicar
general (Msgr. Hawkes) was technically only for finance, but since most things cost money,
he exercised sweeping powers in Los Angeles. Archbishop Quinn went through two
reorganizations of his San Francisco chancery until he found the structure and a vicar
general that suited his needs. In such a system, the vicar general acts as the chief
operating officer and supervises and coordinates the archdiocesan agencies under the
general policies set by the archbishop. Most archbishops' administrative styles are more like
Jimmy Carter's than Ronald Reagan's./23 Most
archbishops feel at home in administrative work and find it difficult to give up. In these
cases the vicar general or moderator of the curia plays a less prominent role than in the
case of an archbishop who does not like administration. For example, the quotations above
indicate that Cardinal Hickey as a priest exercised a coordinating role for his bishop,
but no one does that for the cardinal today. At the time of my visit to St. Paul, the chancery had been
recently reorganized and was still developing. The vicar general and moderator of the
curia explained: In fact, Archbishop Roach is still the chief operating
officer. It is a question whether he will give up that. He is so much an administrator. It
is in his bones, and he is so damn good at it. What I have done is take a whole lot of sweat off his
back, because I do meet regularly with each of the divisional directors and do monitor the
smooth coordination. And I settle fights, I am starting to ameliorate wars between
divisions. But Roach is still the chief operating officer. He runs
those cabinet meetings; I am not running those meetings. It is really clear.
Theoretically, he did say a year ago that eventually he wanted to be able to be out of
this office two or three days a week and concentrate more on the parish side, the pastoral
side. I will wait and see. Some archbishops have simply refused to have a moderator
of the curia. As Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee explains, "I don't have a moderator
of the curia. I just don't want anybody between myself and.... How many layers of
administration can you have? It just seems unnecessary to me. But I do have a kind of
cabinet." Once he has a staff in place, the archbishop has to figure
out how to coordinate and direct it. A number of archbishops (Bernardin, Borders, Hickey,
Hunthausen, Hurley, Law, McCarthy, O'Connor, Pilarczyk, Roach, Sheehan, and Stafford) meet
weekly or monthly with their staffs. Usually these meetings are with their cabinet,
consisting of the department heads (education, social services, finance, pastoral, etc.),
the vicar general, chancellor, moderator of the curia, and archbishop's secretary.
Sometimes included are the head of the tribunal and directors from offices of planning,
minority affairs, and public relations. Frequently an official wears more than one hat.
Archbishops who use cabinet meetings are frequently seen as collegial by their staffs.
Archbishop Roach, for example, has a regularly scheduled cabinet meeting each week and a
monthly meeting with the heads of all the archdiocesan agencies. Cardinal O'Connor has
weekly meetings with about thirty members of his staff. Harry Fagan, associate director of the National Pastoral
Life Center, explains that many people, especially priests, find long weekly staff
meetings an abomination. People on the outside of a chancery have a tendency to put
down bureaucracy. God knows, it is still the palace guard. But, if you're running the
archdiocese of Washington, roughly a $125 million-a-year corporation, it is impossible to
run a corporation with that kind of payroll without all kinds of meetings and all kinds of
paper and all kinds of reports. I don't think we like to see our church reduced to a
business, frankly, and it just drives us crazy when we hear an archbishop having a weekly
meeting of his secretariats that lasts all morning. But I think we should compare it to a
small business of a couple of hundred million dollars. With the proliferation of ministries and agencies and
offices these days, they almost have to do that. You don't know what the hell everybody is
doing unless you meet. Most of these guys have gone from a system of sixty to seventy
people reporting to them directly to having created some kind of middle management. That
middle management only works if you meet with them and say, "Yea, do that," or
"Don't do that," or something like that. But many archbishops prefer meeting individually or in
very small groups with those involved in a particular issue. This is the style, for
example, of archbishops Donnellan, Hannan, Kelly, Krol, Kucera, Lipscomb, Mahony, May,
O'Meara, Quinn, Strecker, Szoka, and Whealon, who do not have regular cabinet or staff
meetings. These archbishops believe that larger groups slow down decision making and
involve people who do not necessarily have any expertise in the issue being discussed.
Others, like the late Archbishop Casey of Denver, simply do not work well in groups./24 The pre-Vatican II church did not have not much need for
cabinet meetings or other types of committee meetings. Most decisions did not require the
pooling of knowledge or expertise, so they could be made in a hierarchical structure.
Coordination did not need to be fostered, it could be commanded. But today, what happens
in one archdiocesan agency can have an effect on another. Coordination is needed on
scheduling of events, drawing up budgets, planning joint projects, and developing common
policies and procedures. A program like Renew, or a program aimed at helping families,
needs the cooperation of all archdiocesan agencies (schools, parishes, liturgy office,
social services, newspaper, etc.) if it is to be successful. Archbishops, like most priests, have no training in
committee work. And only in recent times have they had experience in operating through
committees. Most do not like committee meetings, others hate them. "If I seem to have
an animus against meetings, I do," comments Archbishop Lipscomb of Mobile.
"There is one good thing about being a bishop. You can't control all of them, but
there are lots of times when you can say, `No, we do not need to meet.'" Even archbishops who take their cabinets seriously, like
Archbishop Roach in St. Paul, appear to have meetings more out of conviction that it is
the right way to operate than through a personal preference. Often the meetings are more
important as a means of communication than of decision making. And frequently the
archbishop learns nothing new at a meeting, but the meeting enables the members of the
chancery to find out what everyone else is doing. Meetings also contribute to chancery
morale by providing face-to-face encounters with the archbishop. Archbishops also use their cabinets as a consultative body
on issues not necessarily related to the work of the departments./25 In a large archdiocese, he would also meet with his
auxiliaries or regional vicars. Baltimore invented the acronym COVAS (Committee of Vicars
and Secretaries) for a joint meeting of the cabinet and regional vicars. Archbishops feel more comfortable consulting with these
groups than with other consultative bodies. They are smaller groups, which makes
consultation easier and more confidential. These officials are his appointees, they are
knowledgeable in their areas, and they have a greater than average knowledge of the whole
archdiocese. In addition, they are available on a regular basis, often working in the same
office building. Archbishops who meet monthly with their staffs include archbishops
Borders, Flores, McCarthy, O'Connor, Sheehan and Sanchez. Those meeting more frequently
are Archbishops Hickey, Hunthausen, Hurley, Law, Pilarczyk, Roach and Stafford Consultation with groups outside the chancery has become
an important part of church governance in the United States. Some archbishops are very
good at it and use it as a means of forging a consensus on an issue. Cardinal Bernardin's
style is very consultative. A few archbishops seem to enjoy the consultative process.
Archbishop Weakland reports, What takes up much of my time in administration are the
meetings with the archdiocesan pastoral council and the priests' council. I meet with both
executive boards as they prepare the meetings, and I meet with both councils when they
have their full meetings. I enjoy those two groups. They're different in character, they
have different interests, different approaches. But I think it's important to hear both.
And I enjoy going to those meetings. Since the Second Vatican Council there has been a
remarkable growth in consultative bodies in the Catholic church. Canon lawyers stress that
these bodies are consultative and not deliberative--they advise the decision maker, they
do not make decisions unless he specifically delegates this power to them. On the other
hand, one study found that "by law they behave like advisory groups, by inclination
like interest groups."/26 Diocesan consultative bodies required by canon law are the
priests' council, the college of consultors, and the finance council. In addition, most
American dioceses would also have a diocesan pastoral council, a board of education and a
priests' personnel board. Many bishops also have cabinets. The board of education, the
personnel board, and the finance council will be described in later chapters. Here we will
examine the role of the consultors, priests' council, and the archdiocesan pastoral
council. The college of consultors is the only diocesan
consultative group that predates the Second Vatican Council. The college is made up of six
to twelve priests appointed for five-year terms by the bishop./27 The new code of canon law requires that the
consultors be members of the priests' council. But the bishop can choose his consultors
from the elected, appointed, or ex officio membership of the council. When the 1983 code went into effect, a number of
archbishops simply appointed their existing consultors to the priests' council. Others, in
an attempt to integrate the two consultative bodies more closely, made the elected
executive committee of the priests' council their college of consultors. This made the
consultors a more representative body, and it also cut down on the number of groups the
archbishop had to consult by merging two consultative groups. The role of consultors today is confused because of the
creation of new consultative groups. Their unique role today is the selection of a
diocesan administrator who runs the diocese during the interregnum between the death of an
archbishop and his successor./28 In the past, some
bishops used the consultors as an informal priests' personnel board as is still done in
the archdiocese of Kansas City. According to canon law, the college must be consulted on
certain financial matters and acts of extraordinary administration (see chapter 5), but
the bishop must also consult the newly mandated finance council on the same matters./29 The college of consultors is an old institution in search
of a new purpose. Some archbishops consult them on confidential matters that they do not
want to bring to the full presbyteral council. But even here, an archbishop has other
sources of confidential advice: his auxiliaries (if he has any), the finance council, the
personnel board, the executive committee of the priests' council, and his cabinet. In a
number of archdioceses, the college rarely meets and for all practical purposes has become
nonfunctional. One study found that bishops have chosen not to use the title
"diocesan consultors" in 15 percent of the dioceses and have not convened the
consultors in at least an additional 25 percent./30 The Second Vatican Council told bishops they should listen
to their priests, "consult them and have discussions with them about those matters
which concern the necessities of pastoral work and the welfare of the diocese. In order to
put these ideals into effect, a group or senate of priests representing the presbytery
should be established."/31 These priests would
be "collaborators of the bishop in the government of the diocese."/32 Such consultation and collaboration was seen not
only as a source of good advice but also as a response to a feeling of powerlessness among
the clergy that had led to morale problems and protests./33 In the United States, prior to Vatican II, no such bodies
existed, but in March 1965, before the Council ended, a priests' senate was organized in
the diocese of Worcester. "By the end of 1966 some 45 senates were functioning, and a
year later 135."/34 The creation of these
senates was overwhelmingly supported by the priests./35
A few were organized and met without the bishop's approval. Most were recognized and more
or less encouraged by the local bishop, but he could ignore it if he wished. Vatican II provided no details on how these senates were
to be organized. Each diocese drew up its own set of statues, which were approved by its
bishop. The 1983 code of canon law established rules governing their membership and
authority and changed their name to presbyteral councils. The archbishops almost always
attend the meetings of the priests' council, whereas they did not always attend meetings
of priests' senates. All the members of the old priests' senates were usually
elected, but the new code says "about half" of the presbyteral council is to be
elected./36 The rest can be ex officio members
designated by the council's statues or members appointed by the archbishop. Most
archbishops have interpreted "about half" to allow the vast majority of the
membership to be elected. The elections are usually by geographic districts (e.g.,
deaneries), by ordination class among the priests, or by a combination of the two. There is some ambivalence about the representative
character of these elected council members. They are encouraged to meet with their
constituents to get their input and to communicate the results of council meetings.
Sometimes during council discussions the archbishop will ask whether their views reflect
those of the priests in the region. On the other hand, members are also told to look
beyond their constituencies to the good of the entire archdiocese. In some cases, where the elections are by deaneries,
archbishops have made the elected members deans to give them added status and power. As
such, they become not only channels of communication between the council and the priests,
but also between the bishop and the priests. They also can be leaders and coordinators in
their deanery on local issues. Some priests object that this overburdens the
representative with too many jobs. Theoretically, conflicts could also arise between a
priest's administrative responsibilities as a dean and his responsibilities as a
councilman. On the other hand, merging the positions gives more status to both and
eliminates duplication. Normally, auxiliary bishops, the vicar general, and the
chancellor are ex officio or appointed members of the council. Some bishops have appointed
the priest members of their cabinet to the council where they can provide information and
be forced to listen to the views of others. Other bishops have their cabinet attend the
council meetings as resource persons, not as members, which more clearly separates the
legislative and executive functions of governance. On the death of the bishop, the council
ceases to exist until it is reestablished by the new bishop. The presbyteral council has only a consultative voice, but
the archbishop "is to listen to it in matters of greater moment."/37 These matters would include, according to the Directory
on the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, the holiness of life, sacred science, and other needs of
the priests, or the sanctification and religious instruction of the faithful, or the
government of the diocese in general... It is the task of this council, among other
things, to seek out clear and distinctly defined aims of the manifold ministries in the
diocese, to propose matters that are more urgent, to indicate methods of acting, to assist
whatever the Spirit frequently stirs up through individuals or groups, to foster the
spiritual life, in order to attain the necessary unity more easily. They ought, finally,
to deal with equal distribution of funds for the support of clerics, and also with the
erection, suppression and restoration of parishes./38 The bishop must consult the presbyteral council on
several issues: the advisability of a synod (c. 461 §1); the modification
of parishes (cc. 515 §2; 813); offerings of the faithful on the occasion of parish
services (c. 531); norms for parish councils (c. 536); the construction of a church or the
conversion of a church to secular use (cc. 1215 §2, 1222 §2); and the imposition of a
diocesan tax (c. 1263)./39 The old priests' senates elected their own officers,
usually a president and vice president, and set their own agenda. According to canon law,
the bishop is the president of the presbyteral council and determines its agenda./40 Most archbishops allow an elected chairman to run
the meetings, which might occur eight to ten times a year. The agenda of the meetings is
usually drawn up and discussed at a meeting of the archbishop with the executive committee
or the officers of the council. Few archbishops will veto agenda items, although they will
discourage bringing up controversial items over which they have no control, e.g., priestly
celibacy or the cases of Charles Curran and Archbishop Hunthausen. When they first came into existence, priests' senates and
councils concentrated on priestly concerns: priests' morale, salaries, stipends, health
insurance, automobile expenses, automobile insurance, pensions, retirement, retreats, the
process for appointing pastors (personnel boards, tenure, etc.), continuing education, due
process for disputes with the bishop, rectory living conditions, and the relations between
pastors and associates. Most councils have a committee on priestly ministry that studies
and makes recommendations on such issues. Many of these issues made the councils look like labor
unions negotiating with management over pay and working conditions. In fact, what the
priests were seeking was not significantly more money but a more professional relationship
in what had been a very paternalistic system. For example, in the past the bishop or a
diocesan hospital would normally take care of a priest who was seriously ill, but there
were always horror stories about priests stuck with huge medical bills. Likewise, there
was a desire for greater equality between priests in rich and poor parishes, and between
pastors and associates. Once these issues were dealt with, many councils moved on
to social justice issues. Numerous resolutions were passed on abortion, racism, housing,
welfare reform, nuclear weapons, Vietnam, Central America, South Africa, boycotts, etc.,
most of which would be defined as politically "liberal" and were in keeping with
(or to the left of) the positions taken by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Some of these resolutions had specific relevancy to local conditions; others were in
response to national or international events. For the most part, these resolutions were
not very controversial in the council because they did not demand anything more than a
letter to a public official from the bishop or the priests' council. Priests might be
encouraged to preach on peace or justice on a particular Sunday, but such recommendations
were always optional. In some dioceses, the priests' senate or council was an
important initiator of pastoral programs following the Vatican Council, especially if the
bishop was a benign nonleader. In these cases, the natural leaders from the clergy could
take charge with the bishop's acquiescence. This is a time-consuming process that may burn
out these leaders who have other full-time jobs. Bishops have also asked their councils' advice on the
establishment of parish council guidelines, the implementation of RCIA, whether or not to
do Renew or some other parish renewal program, and the implementation of liturgical
reforms. Archdiocesan mission statements have also been prepared or critiqued by
presbyteral councils, as have proposals for reorganizing the archdiocesan administrative
structures. Some councils have also been involved in planning for the day when there are
fewer priests. With the switch from a priests' senate to a canonical
presbyteral council, some priests feared that they would lose control because of the
bishop's ability to appoint members and control the agenda. Some argue that it is no
longer a priests' council but the bishop's council. In some cases, it is said, the bishop
controls the agenda to repress controversial topics and maintain control. But other
archdiocesan observers believe that the councils are working better than the senates
because as canonical bodies the archbishops and priests take them more seriously. A 1974
study found that 29 percent of the council officers felt that it was a great problem that
the bishop had given no real decision-making power to the council, but an even larger
percent (52 percent) felt that getting grass-roots input was a great problem./41 In many archdioceses, turnouts for council
elections have exceeded previous turnouts for senate elections. This perceived improvement
may be due to the experience archbishops and priests gained while working in senates
rather than due to any change in structures. Most archbishops have also formed archdiocesan pastoral
councils in response to the Second Vatican Council's call for greater lay involvement in
the church: It is highly desirable that in each diocese a pastoral
council be established over which the diocesan bishop himself will preside and in which
specially chosen clergy, religious, and lay people will participate. The function of this
council will be to investigate and to weigh matters which bear on pastoral activity, and
to formulate practical conclusions regarding them./42 The first council was formed in Richmond in 1965. By 1983,
36 percent of the dioceses had councils./43 Although
the 1983 code of canon law says pastoral councils should be established "to the
extent that pastoral circumstances recommend it,"/44
the code gives few details on how these councils should be organized. As a result,
they vary in organization, size, procedures, and frequency of meetings. The median size of diocesan pastoral councils is 33, with
the largest being Omaha with 407 and the smallest Beaumount with 15 members. The councils,
especially the larger ones, make use of committees to do work and prepare reports for the
full council. Because of the existence of presbyteral councils, the emphasis in pastoral
councils has naturally been on lay input, although they are, in fact, composed of priests,
religious, and laity. The laity account for two-thirds of the members of each council: 32
percent are laywomen and 34 percent laymen./45 Often
a layperson chairs the meetings of the pastoral council, but sometimes the archbishop
chairs them to show that he takes it seriously. The membership of the councils is "to be so selected
that the entire portion of the people of God which constitutes the diocese is truly
reflected, with due regard for the diverse regions, social conditions and professions of
the diocese as well as the role which they have in the apostolate."/46 They can be appointed, but one study found that 70
percent are elected by deanery councils or similar representative bodies./47 The priest representatives are normally elected by
the presbyteral council and the religious representatives elected by the religious. Lay
representation tends to be on geographic regions with some special rules for special
constituencies like minorities and young people. In a small archdiocese, like Mobile, lay
representatives may be chosen from each parish. Experience has shown that better
communication with the parishes results if the representatives are the presidents (or at
least members) of the parish councils. In a large archdiocese, regional councils often
elect members to the pastoral council, but communication between the regional councils and
the pastoral council has been difficult. George Wilson, S.J., who has been a consultant for a
number of pastoral councils, prefers councils that are appointed after input from a broad
range of nominating mechanisms. He has found democratically elected councils difficult to
work with. Experience seems to be showing us that the method of
electing parish "reps," who then gather to elect deanery or regional
"reps," who then become the diocesan council, does not in fact produce members
competent or attitudinally suited to play the serious role of leadership in development of
a diocese, i.e., in determining its goals and policies./48 Others would agree that working with democratically
elected councils is difficult, but that they better reflect the real church as required by
canon law. All would stress the importance of council members seeing themselves as
concerned for the common good of the diocese and not simply as representatives of a
particular parish, region, or group: priests, religious, blacks, Hispanics, women, rural,
etc. "The pastoral council is meant to be representative of the whole people
of God without the members being considered necessarily representatives (deputees)
of a specific constituency."/49 Successful
councils usually have orientation programs for new members. The council's responsibility is "to investigate under
the authority of the bishop all those things which pertain to pastoral works, to ponder
them and to propose practical conclusions about them."/50 Most councils meet at least quarterly. Some of the
very large councils meet annually as assemblies with an executive committee meeting
monthly. The agenda of the pastoral council is usually set by the executive committee.
Often the archbishop will ask the pastoral council to discuss and react to documents from
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops or from Rome. For example, many archbishops
asked their councils for reactions to the early drafts of NCCB pastoral letters on peace,
on the economy, and on women. They also asked help in responding to material sent out
prior to the 1980 synod on the family, the 1985 extraordinary synod and the 1987 synod on
the laity. Such discussions are both educational for the council members and helpful to
the archbishop in preparing his response. Pastoral councils have dealt with internal church issues
(parish councils, financial policy, lay salaries, due process, religious education) and
issues of concern to the wider community (abortion, advocacy programs for minorities,
peace and justice). Pastoral councils have also been involved in preparing archdiocesan
mission statements. Sometimes these mission statements are preceded by archdiocese-wide
surveys and parish discussions. Archbishops hope that these mission statements will help
set priorities for the archdiocese, but usually these statements are so general and
mention so many topics that they are little help in setting priorities. On the other hand,
some archbishops refer back to these statements frequently in discussions about priorities
and budgets. Often the process and discussions in the pastoral council are more important
than the mission statement itself. Most archbishops admit that their pastoral councils do not
work well./51 Some complain that their councils get
involved in administrative issues rather than policy questions. Nor is the relationship of
the council to other consultative groups clear. Some have conflicts with school boards
over school policy. Communications between the pastoral council and other entities
(diocesan agencies, priests' council, school boards, regional councils, and parishes) has
been weak. Most are too large and act too slowly to be working groups. And they usually
meet only three to eight times a year. Their members are heterogeneous groups with varied
educations, backgrounds, and interests. They are unsophisticated theologically, and they
are uninformed on many of the topics they discuss. On the other hand, they do reflect the
church, which is not a homogeneous group of experts. Archbishops report that the pastoral council functions
best as a feedback mechanism. An archbishop hears most often from people who write
letters, people with complaints, people who want him to do something, or people who work
directly for the church. A council allows the archbishop to hear from a representative
group of people in the archdiocese. From the pastoral council, the archbishop gets
feedback on how well programs are serving the people. Council members can be especially
vocal about those parts of the church that touch their lives or the lives of their
children: what goes on in parishes and schools. They are also good at reacting to
proposals for new programs or policies. The council can give the archbishop a feel for how
people will react to the proposals. A consultative body dating from the fourth century is the
diocesan synod. A diocesan synod "is a group of selected priests and other Christian
faithful of a particular church which offers assistance to the diocesan bishop for the
good of the entire diocesan community."/52
Synods do not meet on a periodic basis but only when called by the bishop after consulting
with the presbyteral council. The 1917 code of canon law mandated a synod every ten years.
In fact, they were rarely called, and the 1983 code dropped the requirement. Ex officio members of a synod include auxiliary bishops,
vicars general, episcopal vicars, the judicial vicar, members of the presbyteral council,
the rector of the seminary, deans, a priest elected from each deanery, and some superiors
of religious communities. Lay and religious members are also chosen by the pastoral
council in a manner and number to be determined by the bishop./53 The members are not simply invited but
"obliged to participate" and may not send proxies or substitutes./54 The legislation enacted by the synod must be
approved by the bishop before it can take effect./55 Others, including non-Catholics may
be invited as observers. The Directory on the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops
suggests five ways a synod can assist the bishop for the good of the local church:
"(1) adapting laws and norms of the church universal to local conditions; (2) setting
policy and programs of apostolic works; (3) resolving problems of the apostolate and
administration; (4) giving impetus to projects and undertakings in the diocese; (5)
correcting errors in doctrine and morals, primarily by providing authentic teaching."/56 During the period of this study, some archdioceses were
having or planning synods (Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, St.
Paul). The New Orleans synod developed a manual of policies and procedures that
implemented the new code of canon law. But most synods have attempted to be more pastoral.
In St. Paul, the synod was seen as the culmination of a process that started with a
program of priests' renewal and Renew in parishes. In other places (New York and Los
Angeles), the synods were used by new archbishops to get grass-roots input and to set
goals and priorities. Often it was not clear why the work of the synod could not
be done by an ongoing archdiocesan pastoral council rather than by a one-shot synod.
Archbishops argue that the synods involve more people and are taken more seriously than
the pastoral councils. In addition, the preparation for synod meetings tends to be much
more extensive than for pastoral councils. Many synods are preceded by surveys, parish
discussions, and work by commissions and committees. But the results of a synod are often predictable. People
want good parish liturgy, they want affordable Catholic schools and they want programs
that will keep their children on the straight and narrow. They also want programs to take
care of the elderly and the poor. But the synods rarely bring together the expertise
needed to achieve these goals, nor do they solve the problem of limited resources. After
the statements are written, the people go home and the archbishop and his cabinet are left
with the problem of implementation. Another difficulty is the relationship of the synod to the
other consultative bodies. One expert recommends the following division of labor. 1.Diocesan synod: sets the vision or general direction,
expresses the spirit of the diocese by enacting basic policies. 2.Diocesan pastoral council: does pastoral planning to
implement the vision over a period of time. 3.Presbyteral council: advises the bishop on governance
questions in the diocese, implementing the pastoral plan in practice. 4.College of consultors and finance council: provide
advice and at times must consent for various financial transactions./57 Despite their limitations, consultative bodies are
important sources of advice and information for bishops. In order for a council or synod
to function well, certain prerequisites are needed. First, there must be a level of trust
between the council members and the archbishop so that free discussion can occur on any
item. Having an executive committee prepare the agenda and having someone other than the
archbishop chair the meetings protects the archbishop from giving the appearance of
manipulating the council. Some archbishops sit back and listen in order to encourage free
debate. Others prefer to join the discussions. A bishop's willingness to argue for one
position and then publicly change his position as a result of the discussions also builds
trust. In some instances, the fact that the bishop listens is the most important thing
that happens at synod and council meetings. If he projects a sympathetic concern, people
will be more accepting even if he cannot or does not do anything. Second, the archbishop has to bring important issues to
the councils. Councils that depend solely on agenda from the grass roots often get
sidetracked on peripheral issues. The grass roots are not always sufficiently informed so
that they can pick the most important issues for consideration. Third, councils need someone to do not, only their
secretarial work (minutes, correspondence, mailings, etc.), but also other staff work such
as research and planning. Good council members, both priests and laity, have full-time
jobs and other commitments. Normally, staff assistance will have to come from chancery
officials. Some archdioceses have a planning office or an office of councils that works
with consultative groups. These staffs also provide an important link between the various
consultative bodies. Fourth, if a council is going to discuss a topic like
education for which there is an archdiocesan office, the director of that office must be
present to listen and answer questions. The presence of the director speeds discussion and
improves communications. Council committees also need support and help from the
archdiocesan staff. Fifth, council members need a training and orientation
program so that they understand how the diocesan structure works and their role in it.
Confusion and misunderstandings can result when people think a consultative body is like a
secular legislature. Roberts' Rules of Order is not helpful for bodies desiring
consensus rather than confrontation. On the other hand, discernment models from religious
communities are not always helpful since they require a sense of community that takes more
time to create than is usually available. Finally, the councils need means of communicating with
their constituencies on the regional and parish level. Not all archbishops are alike. Their personalities and
preferences influence how they govern and what they do. Their leadership styles do have an
effect on their archdioceses. John Seidler, in studying conflicts between priests and
bishops, found "the one overriding determination of the diocesan climate is the
ordinary. His policies are reflected in a unified and buoyant clergy, or a splintered and
disgruntled one."/58 The clerical climate
improved when the bishop had a progressive attitude toward change and when he had a
humanitarian and egalitarian style of leadership. "By contrast, leadership that was
inward-looking, disciplinarian and edict-dominated has great likelihood of provoking
dissent, or bringing on disunity and grievances."/59
But in order to govern well, bishops must establish and
use structures that fit their personalities and styles. These structures must not only
respond to their styles but also to the characteristics and needs of their archdioceses,
as was explained in the preceding chapter. In the next four chapters we will examine how archbishops
govern some of the more important parts of their archdioceses. It is impossible to examine
every aspect of archdiocesan governance. Rather the focus will be parishes, finances,
personnel, schools, and social services. Throughout these chapters we will see how the
personality and preferences of an archbishop interface through archdiocesan structures
with the needs and characteristics of his archdiocese. Chapter 8 will examine the role of
the archbishop outside his archdiocese. 1. Andrew M. Greeley, The
Catholic Priest in the United States: Sociological Investigations (Washington, DC:
U.S. Catholic Conference, 1972), 27-28. Greeley found that bishops come from higher
socioeconomic families than do priests, as measured on the occupational scores of their
fathers, but that a smaller percentage of bishops' fathers graduated from high school.
This is quite different fro
Copyright © 1989 by Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
All rights reserved
For the previous chapter and table of contents, see Chapter 2
and Contents.
Description of three archbishops
Cardinal O'ConnorBackgrounds
A Typical Day for a Workaholic
Office Work
Episcopal Styles
Civic Leader
Ecumenical Leader
National and International Leader
Teaching Archbishop
Media Minister
Pastoral Archbishop
Archbishop as Administrator
Innovator vs. Maintainer Models
Tolerant or Supportive Styles
Hands-On Administrator or Monarch
Delegator
Structures
Regional Vicariate Model
Department or Secretariat Model
Vicar General/Moderator of Curia Model
Chief Executive Model
Individual vs. Cabinet Style
Consultative Bodies
The College of Consultors
Presbyteral Council
Pastoral Council
Archdiocesan Synods
Conclusion
Footnotes