Personnel (cont.)
By Thomas J. Reese, S.J. From Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) The goal of practically every diocesan priest is to be the pastor of his own parish.
Once again, bishops and personnel directors attempt to match the desires of the priests
with the needs of the diocese. In the past, seniority was very important, as would be
expected in an organization with low pay where it is difficult to establish objective
merit criteria./28 Even today, all other things
being equal, consideration is given to seniority and to pastors whose terms are up or who
want to move. Archbishop Sheehan of Omaha explains, "With regard to appointments of first
pastorates, we pretty much go down the list. The priests know who is the next one eligible
for a pastorate. If we jump anybody, that creates a lot of discussion around the diocese.
So we follow the seniority list pretty well for first assignments." Sometimes a younger priest will get the position because no one else wants it. Thus, in
Chicago, priests have to wait 20 years to become a pastor in a suburban parish, but one
can become an inner-city pastor in only ten years. Being either black or Hispanic or
knowing the language of the parishioners can also push one ahead of one's seniors. But there is sympathy for the man who has been an associate for a long time. One
personnel chairman spoke of a classmate: He has lived under other people's direction, whim, fantasy, rule, under their table,
under their secretaries, under their cooks, for twenty-three years of priesthood. Now we
have to take that into consideration when we are appointing. He might not have snap in the
liturgy, but he has certain experience, and he has also personal need to get his own, to
be able to be his own boss at some point. When seniority is not followed, it can cause hurt feelings. "Some priests are
hurting very much because they are not pastors yet," acknowledged a personnel board
chairman. "And yet we have some younger guys, maybe seven years younger, who are loud
and pushing, and you tend to give the noisy wheel the oil. And these other priests are
demoralized and feel, `well, gee, I have had some tough assignments, and I haven't
complained, and here comes this Johnny-come-lately, and he is going to be given a parish.
Why?'" Other personnel directors disagree and stress the needs of the parish over
seniority. Survey data shows priests agree that promotion to a pastorate should be based
on ability rather than seniority,/29 but ability is
difficult to measure. How long he has to wait for a parish varies from diocese to diocese. In San Francisco,
Chicago, and Boston a priest can look forward to being an associate for twenty or more
years before becoming a pastor. In Washington, DC, it would be fifteen years; in
Baltimore, Miami, Omaha, and Milwaukee around twelve years. In Denver, Kansas City (KS),
and Louisville, it would be eight or nine years. But in Anchorage, Portland, Santa Fe, and
Seattle, it would be less than five years. As the number of priests declines, priests will
become pastors sooner. Most archdioceses, following the national norm, have adopted a six-year term for
pastors./30 The terms are often renewable, but
after twelve years the pastor must usually move to another parish unless he is close to
retirement. "It developed because pastors were assigned to a parish, and then they
were difficult to remove if things weren't going well," explains the Boston secretary
for ministerial personnel. Some archdioceses (like Denver and Kansas City) have shorter terms for rural parishes,
especially for young priests. "Many of the rural pastors were younger priests going
out on their first pastorate," explains a member of the personnel board in Kansas
City, KS. "The idea that they were going to be in this little rural parish for ten
years was a heavy thing for a lot of them." The Denver vicar for clergy agrees:
"Our country parishes are very isolated. It is fine for three years." The issue of terms for pastors is hotly debated. Under the old code of canon law,
pastors were irremovable without cause although some dioceses had an indult (exception)
from Rome to have set terms for pastors. Under the new code, national conferences can
permit terms of office for pastors. Traditionally it has been argued that leaving a pastor in a parish indefinitely enabled
him to develop close ties with his people. He knows his parishioners intimately, and they
have grown to trust and depend on him. He might baptize a person as an infant, give him
first communion, and then marry him as an adult. "The pastor is akin to a father of a
family," explains one priests' personnel director. "You build a family spirit, a
community spirit, and then you do violence to that by taking the head away. Others would
say, `Well, we all get stale and stagnant if we stay in something too long, therefore it
is good to move.' I suspect those arguments will continue to go on for a while." "A lot of guys don't like terms," explains the Seattle personnel director.
"They say, `If it is going well, why ruin it?' The other side of it is, `If you have
done such a good job here, the diocese may need you somewhere else.'" Critics of the old system argue that it takes two years for a priest to get to know his
people. The next six years he is very creative. After that he gets in a rut. "There
is no stimulation, and that applies to every program in the parish," says one
personnel director. "Some priests cannot handle certain programs in the parish, so
they are not done. The parish has a right to them. If you get a turnover, certain other
programs might fall by the wayside, but you also get these other programs that have been
denied." One bishop reports, some priests "come forward and say, `I would like a change.'
They go to a new parish, and they get a second spring, a new life, new problems to deal
with, not the same old nagging ones that have bothered them for ten years at the other
parish." Those who support a set term argue that the parishioners who don't like a
pastor will at least know that he won't be there forever. Personnel directors tend to
favor tenure. "It gives us predictability," explains one director. In addition,
it allows changes without the changes being considered negative judgments on the pastor. On the other hand, a bishop explains, "People don't like to see their priest
moved. They get at home with the priest, build up confidence, and they get comfortable.
There is a very personal relationship that develops between a priest and his people. If he
is going to be wrenched up every eight or ten years, people are not going to form that
tight relationship. However, in the mobile society that we live in, people will move from
one parish to another." Some of the consequences of limiting terms for pastors are only just beginning to
become apparent. In St. Louis, the chairman of the building commission notes that pastors
with limited terms tend to postpone construction or major maintenance programs (like a new
roof on the church). They prefer to leave the problems for their successors. For example,
in St. Louis a number of churches were built with the idea that they would become gyms
when a real church was built later. These buildings are now in need of renovations,
reports the director of the building commission. We have parishes that write in to be renovated. I suggest to the archbishop, the parish
can handle the debt, I think they should build a church and then make this present place a
gym as was originally intended. He will suggest that to the pastor. We have cases where the pastor pleaded no. And [the
archbishop] gave in to him. The pastor in time is transferred, a new man comes in, and he
is down here saying, "Why did they let him do this? Why didn't they make him build?
This is crazy." The guy is griping and complaining. We are running into that where men are figuring they are not going to be here too long.
You are not popular if you start asking [parishioners] for money, so why sweat it? Pretty
up the place, don't bother the people. Let the next guy worry about it. Limited terms for pastors also have consequences on parish staffs. With a change in
pastors, the staff can provide continuity in parish services. But a new pastor may find on
his arrival that the staff does not fit his needs or goals for the parish. If the staff
cannot adapt to his style and goals, he may have to replace them with other personnel. And
then his successor may not like the staff he assembled, and the process is repeated. If
the staff have contracts or due process procedures, replacing them may be difficult. In
any case, firing members of the parish staff is almost always traumatic for the parish
community. Rev. John Kinsella, an expert on priests' personnel issues, opposes set terms of office
for pastors. I don't think the rhythm of the needs of parish communities are always in sync with the
cycle. I would want more flexibility, if I was personnel director or bishop, to make
judgments based, not on calendar, but on needs. In some parish communities, there is a strong need for stability and longevity. In
other parish communities, you need someone to come in and do a short job and get out. Or
you may need someone to come in and spend a long period of time. Also the abilities of priests to perform are so different. We have long distance
runners, and we have some short distance runners. Some guys can go in and do a bang-up job
in two or three years, and then they are bored to tears for the next three years. Other guys start real slow. Nobody likes them for the first couple of years, they gain
credibility very slowly and strongly. The longer they are there, the better they get. That difference of personality and work patterns and the needs of communities ought to
be the factors that you make judgments about and not the administrative convenience of
putting people on a cycle. I think it has been used by bishops--like retirement was used--as a way of getting rid
of problems rather than making the more responsible decision that someone should be out of
an assignment. Whatever the merits of the debate, a term of office for pastors clearly increases the
power of a bishop over his priests and his parishes. It increases the number of personnel
decisions that have to be made. It also enables the bishop to move an incompetent pastor
who under a nontenured system could be in a parish for decades. A system that moves
everyone makes it possible to move the problem pastors. Parishes share the good as well as
the bad pastors. Most archbishops favor terms for pastors, but few are willing to push the idea on their
pastors without the support of the priests' council. Support for limited terms has usually
come from younger priests who see it as a way of quickening their advancement. "The
fact that a man stayed forever in a parish discouraged the younger priests,"
explained Archbishop Donnellan of Atlanta. Personnel directors favor it because it
provides time frames for planning. They can look ahead and know when vacancies are coming
up. Finding the right man for the right parish is the goal of the personnel board and the
bishop. Not all parishes are the same. They can be large or small, urban, suburban, or
rural. The ethnic, social, and economic characteristics of the parishioners vary. For
example, some would require the knowledge of Spanish or another language. Some have
liberal and active congregations; others are more conservative. Some parishes have
programs with numerous people involved; others don't. Some have schools or large lay and
religious staffs; others don't. Some have financial problems. Some have young families;
others might have nursing homes or retirement communities in the parish. The Louisville priests' personnel director explains how the social backgrounds of the
parishioners can affect the kind of pastor they would want. If they are middle-management type folks who want a strong say in what is going on in
that place, he is going to have to have some skills in dealing with the parish council. Or
if lower-income, blue-collar workers, they might be content with him leading the show. Or
sometimes the upper-middle-class parishes are more content with a pastor who will make the
decisions and lead the way, because they are used to telling other people what to do and
being told what to do. A lot can also depend on the style of the recent pastor. A radical change in pastors
could be upsetting to a parish that had grown to expect a certain style. The secretary for
ministerial personnel in Boston describes different types of parishes in the archdiocese: In some parishes the laity are very much involved in the activities of the parish.
Where the pastor has been a strong leader, there could have been minimal lay involvement
or a lot of lay involvement. [In] other parishes, the pastor has been not only collaborative with the laity but has
taken on a level of collaboration where his role is not that dominant or strong. Parishes
where there have been problems need a priest to come in who has a capacity to heal. Some
parishes call for a very warm type of priest. Other parishes don't call for that. You can
be reserved, more Puritan in your approach. The personnel director often gathers data for a file on the parish under consideration.
Financial data can be gotten from the finance office. Demographic and sacramental
statistics are also usually available. In addition, a written report on the parish can be
prepared by the parish council, the retiring pastor, and/or the regional vicar. For example, in Cincinnati, the parish council is given four questions. According to
the priests' personnel director, "they are asked to name the three most important
things they think happened in their parish; the three things they are happiest about; the
three things they consider the greatest needs; and a couple of qualities they are looking
for in their pastor. They discuss this, summarize it, and write up a response. It helps
them to assess themselves as a parish." These can be examined both by the personnel
board and by the priests who are thinking about applying for the position. In some archdioceses (Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, Milwaukee,
Washington) the parish will be visited so that the parish council, staff, and parishioners
can be interviewed by the personnel director or someone from the board to find out what
kind of pastor is desired and needed. In Hartford, this is done by the archbishop himself.
Archbishop Whealon reports: I and the vicar for priests talk to representative laity of the parish with no priests
present. We go over the statistics with them and ask them if the statistics are reliable.
We go over the condition of the church and the parish with them and talk about the needs
of the future and what they would like to see in the priest appointed there. That
interview with the laity is always most interesting and educational. In large archdioceses, the deans or regional vicars might be involved in these
visitations. Some personnel directors feel that these parish visits are a waste of time. "It
sounds good, but I have done six of them, and they all sound the same," reports the
personnel director in Washington. But he admits, "It does also bring to light things
that we had no idea about, maybe divisions in the parish that the previous pastor had been
able to keep away from us but suddenly will crop up at a public meeting like that." One thing that the personnel directors try to avoid is turning the visit into an
evaluation of the current pastor. Parishioners are also discouraged from proposing
specific names for their new pastor. But that can be difficult in a small archdiocese like
Anchorage where there are only twenty-two parishes. "It is hard for a parish to sit
down and say what kind of person they need without naming priests," reports the
Anchorage vicar general. When people are asked what kind of pastor they would like, the results are not always
helpful. "The job description was always the same," explains the Denver vicar
for clergy. "`He has to be a man of prayer, a good administrator, a good liturgist, a
good communicator, a good preacher, has to work with the parish council, he cannot be
threatened by us, has to love people, has to mingle with the people.' Jesus Christ
couldn't fulfill the job description, but it was always the same. So we felt it was a
waste of time." In Chicago one parishioner said the parish needed a cross between Lee
Iaococca and St. Francis of Assisi. In Seattle, the parish is asked about its needs and goals. "We didn't want a
pastor profile because it ends up looking like Christ with an MBA," explains the
Seattle personnel director. "We have a few of those, but not very many." But
even here "it is hard to keep the people's expectations down. Once you let them talk
about their needs, they want to give you names of people who they know would be excellent.
And you go back to the board, and you already have him stuck in a big parish." Some who have visited parishes still think it is worthwhile. "When I first took
this job," says the personnel director in Portland, "I was not convinced that
people really cared, as long as somebody came and there was Mass. This is not true. People
are passionate about their clergy. Passionate about their parish. There is a face on these
statistics. When you come back, the personnel board and the bishop need to know
that." In a few cases "high expectations led to disappointment when the man
arrived," explains the executive secretary of the personnel board in Chicago.
"But for the most part, people feel that they are heard and are part of the process.
They can laugh at themselves at the end of the meeting and say, `God, are we
unrealistic.'" On the other hand, he also found parishioners who believe the
consultation is a sham. "It is real hard for people to believe that we don't already
have the guy picked out. `He is probably packing while the meeting is going on,' people
say to us. `We know you already know who it is.'" The priests' personnel director in Louisville has found visiting the parishes useful.
He and a member of the board interview the pastor, the staff, and the parish council. He
explains, "We have a set agenda: the strengths and weaknesses of the parish, goals,
what leadership qualities would be needed in a pastor, where they are liturgically, how
they function as a staff if it is a big place. Is it a shared responsibility model or is
it a team model or is it `do what the pastor tells you'?" In Portland the personnel director turns the tables on the parish and asks them,
"Why would a priest want to come here?" "The tendency today is for the
parish council to express themselves very forcefully about the priest they want,"
says the Cincinnati priests' personnel director. "I say, `That is a two-sided coin.'
They don't think of that too much. You can get a climate where priests just don't want to
go. They consider it an unhealthy, adversarial climate. Who wants to go into that?" The personnel directors who are most pleased with visiting the parishes have multiple
goals. They are attempting to get a feel for the attitudes of the parishioners as well as
gather factual information about the parish. Asking the parishioners about what are the
good things happening in the parish, what are the improvements they would like to see, and
what type of pastor they want--these are not simply questions of fact but get at the
emotional spirit of the community. Some personnel directors also see this as an opportunity to educate the parish.
"They are not just an isolated group of folks but part of a larger church that also
has needs," says the priests' personnel director in Portland. "We may not have
the right person; we may not be able to find a pastor. The common perception is that there
is this huge pool and that all we have to do when one is gone is to arrange to have the
next guy who will be perfect." In Seattle the director spoke of "walking the line between our tradition, which
puts all the weight on the bishop assigning and sending and nothing on the folk, and the
Protestant tradition of the folk having the power. We are trying to find that line that
keeps the best of both." In fact, there is little support among priests for the
Protestant model. Only 23 percent of the priests believe that parishes should be able to
"choose their own priest from among the available ordained priests."/31 A larger percentage (40 percent) of the priests
thought that parishes should be allowed to "help choose the priests who come to serve
them." The laity liked the idea, with 55 percent in favor and 22 percent opposed./32 In the past, after being an associate for a number of years, a priest would be made a
pastor of a small parish. Then, as he proved himself, he would gradually move up to larger
parishes, until he finally attained the ideal--a large city parish with a school, three
assistants, and convent. "This was retirement," jokes one bishop, "because
the first assistant would run the whole place, and the pastor would come down like the
deity and bow and smile at the people at Christmas." Today that ideal is desired by few priests. A pastorate is no longer a benefice; it is
a heavy responsibility. The larger the parish, the more difficult it is to administer.
Large parishes have large staffs that have to be supervised and coordinated. Many people
and organizations compete for the pastor's time and attention. Smaller parishes are now
preferred to larger ones. Every personnel director interviewed indicated that many priests also have second
thoughts about taking a parish with a school. "There are a lot of guys who don't want
a parish with a school," reports a board chairman. "What I keep hearing is `I
don't want a parish with a school,'" says the Louisville priests' personnel director.
"`I had a parish with a big school. I don't want another one. I have paid my dues.'
Not everyone. There are still people who want it. But many are afraid of places that are
big, complex, that require a lot of coordination. Some feel that they don't have the
skills to do that, and most of us don't." Father Greeley found that 20 percent of the
priests believed that the elimination of the Catholic school system would be a helpful
change./33 Schools increase the administrative burden on a pastor who has to deal with a school
board, principal, teachers, and parents. Schools also require him to raise money to cover
the deficit of the school. One director explains, "An urban parish with financial
limitations trying to support a school that has had a history of internal conflict--that
type of parish would be difficult to fill." One personnel director describes the ideal parish as "500 to 700 families, lots of
organizations, a parish council that knows what it is doing and isn't going to pick at me
too much, and money in the bank." Another personnel director jokingly says, "The
ideal assignment is no debt, no school, no associate, no nuns and no work." On the
other hand, the Cincinnati priests' personnel director argues that there is no ideal
parish today. "It depends on the individual priest," he says. "What he
perceives to be the ideal parish, [what is] his energy level, his theology of church,
etc." One problem with open listing is that sometimes no one will apply for a parish or those
who do apply are not considered fit by the personnel board. In these cases, the personnel
director will have to talk someone into considering the parish. "We may call in a
couple of guys who have skills for the kind of parish that is open," says the
Portland personnel director. "When you call them, they usually say no. The priest may
feel that I am just trying to get my slate filled." The personnel director invites
them to his office to talk it over and explain why they should not be the one. Eventually
he may tell them, "Well, you had better get your arguments lined up, because I am
going to recommend you to the board. Do you want to come in and put your case
forward?" But if they continue to be opposed, they will not be appointed. Even under an open listing system, personnel boards make clear that they will not limit
themselves to the people who apply. "About 13 percent of the time we will have to go
out and invite someone to take a particular parish," explains the personnel director
in Newark. "No one asked, or those who asked are just not even coming close." Recruiting is often necessary for inner-city black and Hispanic parishes. Even more
difficult are parishes whose neighborhoods are in transition. "In Washington, we are
facing changing parishes" reports the personnel director. A lot of preppies are moving back into the inner city and chasing good black folk
further out. They have to move beyond the beltway. Suddenly a suburban parish moves from
being totally white to totally black, or there is a mixture there. You have to have a man
who has had enough experience to balance those two groups of people, keep them both happy.
Once it becomes stable, either as a totally integrated parish or all black or all
white, you can turn it over to another pastor who doesn't want the headaches of the
transition. Another director mentioned the difficulty of finding priests to serve in parishes that
also serve large hospitals. Out of the way, small parishes can also be hard to fill. "A majority of our
parishes are out in the boondocks," explains the personnel director in Santa Fe.
"We have a parish in the country now that is empty for eight months. It is too small
(200 families) for a young, energetic priest, and it is too far out in the country for an
older priest who needs hospital and medical help." Sometimes geography plays a role also. Priests, like anyone, like to be near their
family and friends. In the Mobile archdiocese, the priests in Mobile don't want to go to
Montgomery, and the priests in Montgomery don't want to go to Mobile. After examining the parish and the available priests, the personnel board will make its
recommendation to the archbishop. Most boards operate by consensus and vote only as a last
resort. A few, usually ones that have a large number of appointments to process (like
Chicago, New York), vote in various ways. In New York, for example, if there are twelve
candidates, the board members cast weighted votes: one for their preferred candidate and
twelve for their least preferred candidate. The man with the least votes is at the top of
the list. The boards want to match up the right priest with the right parish. "You would
like to see every parish alive, in tune with Vatican II, where the priest is happy and
content to be there and the people are happy to have him," says the Cincinnati
priests' personnel director. "That is the ideal and what you are trying to work
toward. But in the imperfect world we live in, we don't have that always." The personnel director in Louisville attempts never to send a parish backward: Obviously you don't always have the people to send it as forward as you would like. But
you don't take a parish that has all kinds of lay ministries going and bring in someone
who wants to do it all himself. You can't jerk them around like that. We will avoid that
at all costs, even if it means bringing in someone who has not been pastor before. The chairman of the personnel board in Omaha agreed. "We made a mistake a few
years ago by going from a radical on one side to an ultraconservative on the other,"
he reports. "The poor people just got racked. This side lost and this side won and
the 80 percent in middle didn't know where they were." Gradualism rather than revolution in leadership is preferred. "You try to succeed
a fellow with someone who can bring in his own innovative ideas and build on what is
there," explains the chairman of the Omaha personnel board. "We have had
experience where you have a team that works well, and you have a pastor come in who
doesn't want any team. Then you come to a screeching halt. You try to avoid that. Try to
avoid a situation where you are making a radical change unless you have a person who is
prudent enough and wise enough to bring that along gradually." The choice when there are many applicants is not always easy. One director explains: A good percentage [of the candidates] get discounted right away because you hear what
the parish council is asking for and you see what they are moving toward. Right away, as
the guy gets interviewed, he doesn't seem to grasp that. It doesn't take much to have
certain people rise to the fore. When it gets down to how you [rank the candidates] one, two, three, it begins to get
like the Olympic skating championships. The one who has shown the least faults rises. You
can objectify all you want, but at the end there is a gut feeling. Something feels good
about this that goes along with all the data. Personnel people will say you should have objective things to look at, but we don't
evaluate our priests every year to see how they are doing in the parish. If you call their
friends in the parish to find out how they are doing, most of the time you get, "Oh,
terrific guy." Sometimes a man is not chosen because replacing him in his old parish would be
difficult. A board might also think that a man deserved a particular parish because of his
past assignments. The chairman of the personnel board in Mobile describes how these
factors influenced the decision of his board on an assignment: One of the considerations would be, what is this fellow doing right now? Will it be
easy to replace him where he is? In the last set of changes, one priest who wanted the parish was the one who had
seniority. But he is in a fine new parish which he has built up, and the question there
right now is whether they ought to get a school or not. There were things that were going
on there that would be set back until the new man got adjusted. And the board felt that
there was nobody to replace him there. The other man being considered had had a few tough assignments. The board felt that
this would be a break for him, something where he wouldn't have to struggle quite as much
as he had had to struggle for the previous twenty years. He wouldn't have any financial
worries, he could concentrate on his work. His tenure was up over a year already. He ended
up getting it, and I feel he deserved it. A lot of intangibles make us come to our conclusions, too. I am not saying that this is
the best process in the world or that it is as equitable as it could be. But most people
accept it, and we have fairly well matched the needs of the parishes with these people. If a parish has a school, that could affect the decision. "Sometimes the
difference between a fellow getting a place and not getting a place was the feeling that
he wouldn't want to keep the school going," explains a board chairman. The existence of a parish staff can also make a difference. "If a parish is
functioning well with a team ministry," explains the chairman of the Omaha personnel
board, "we try to be sure that we have a person who can continue that, work with the
team, pastoral assistant. If the parish is not doing anything, we try to turn that around
with some leadership." The choice of the new pastor can depend on what the board thinks is possible in the
parish. The Cincinnati priests' personnel director explains: Is it a parish that is still pre-Vatican II? Do you want it to become a Vatican II
parish, or are you willing to let it be what it is because you don't have a whole lot of
hope that the community is going to move from where they are? If you think it should become a Vatican II church, you wouldn't want to put someone in
there who would just run roughshod over the people making it a Vatican II church. You
might send someone in who will move it forward but not try to convert it over night. That
would be an example of matching. The personnel director in Louisville describes a mismatch in an upper-middle-income parish with 1,200 families and a staff of four or five people,
principal, director of religious education, youth minister, music director--all full-time,
paid people--and a parish council that is active and committees going and a large physical
plant that needs attention. The pastor is a good old boy who doesn't know a damn thing
about human resource management and preaches on a level that is very simple and not
sophisticated, not at the education level of those people. That is a mismatch; it won't work. It will get him in trouble. He will be unhappy, and
they will be unhappy. He might do fine at a lower- or middle-income blue-collar parish.
They might love him. In most archdioceses, the archbishop is given only one name for the parish. In some of
the larger archdioceses (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Newark, New York, San Francisco,
Washington), he is given more names, usually three. If more than one priest is
recommended, the board will rank them by their preference. One New York director favored
their system of submitting three names so the archbishop would be able to choose a
priest and not have to reject one of his priests. In many dioceses, however, the boards are finding it more and more difficult to come up
with three candidates they can realistically recommend for a position. There are just not
enough priests available. In many archdioceses the personnel board tries to make most of the appointments in the
spring of the year. Newly ordained priests begin their ministry in the spring. In
addition, the school year and fiscal year end in spring. Constructing a slate once a year
was the tradition because of the domino effect of every appointment. If pastor X dies, and
he is replaced by an associate from a large parish, then the associate must be replaced,
and so on until you run out of people. Or if pastor X is replaced by pastor Y, then a
pastor must be found for Y's parish. Constructing a slate is becoming more difficult. A participant in New York complained
of complications when planning a slate: You may get a terrific pastoral plan for an area: A is going to B, B is moving.... Then
this guy dies. All of a sudden all that work and planning goes out. The angel of death can
change the plan. One death affects what you had ready for five or six places. Very
frequently you are like an air traffic controller: Can you get them to come down in
different places at once? The slate approach also makes it difficult to open list all appointments. Sometimes a
priest will consider moving if the board makes him an offer he likes, but he does not want
his parish open listed until he has his new assignment. If he does get a new parish, it is
often impossible to open list his old parish if it is filled on the same slate. Some archdioceses have moved away from the slate approach to a rolling system where
each vacancy is treated separately as it occurs. First, the parishes are filled that have
become vacant because of retirements, deaths, or the expiration of the pastor's term.
Then, if pastors or associates have been moved to fill any of those vacancies, their
parishes are open listed and filled in the next round. The difficulty with this approach is that it can disrupt the plans of the parish from
which the man is pulled in the middle of the year. Parish councils and staffs want the
announcements as early as possible. As a result, boards and bishops like to announce most
appointments in the spring, to the extent that is compatible with open listing. However it is done, if the archbishop does not meet with the board, he will be given
the board's recommendation and usually some background information on their decision. He
will be informed of who applied for the position, what the board recommends, and what the
vicars recommend and why. Archbishop Quinn of San Francisco explains how he works with his personnel board: The personnel board has the authority to interview the priests, to speak to them, and
to discuss possible assignments. But no assignment is ever made until I am informed and
approve of it. And I don't always approve of what the personnel board proposes. Sometimes they give me a list of three names for a parish. I send it back and say,
"I don't think any of these are acceptable, and I want you to reconsider it."
That doesn't happen every time, but it does happen, because I know the priests, and I know
the parishes, too. I feel that it is ultimately my responsibility and a very important
one. Everyone agrees that the archbishop ultimately makes the appointments. But in most
archdioceses, he accepts 95 to 99 percent of the board's recommendations. Part of the
reason for this high percentage is that archbishops often involve themselves in the
appointment process before the board makes its final recommendation. In addition, boards
are usually reluctant to recommend someone they know the archbishop would not accept. But
sometimes he does not accept the recommendation because of confidential information that
he can not share with the board. The secretary for ministerial personnel explains how the system works in Boston: [Cardinal Law] usually accepts the list as the board presents it. It happens in one out
of four parishes you would see the list change around a bit or a person taken off or
added. If he doesn't accept the list as the board presents it, it could be for certain
reasons. One could be that he thinks someone on the list has seniority and therefore
probably should be considered before others. He might think that the person on the list is
really needed in his current position and that it would create much more difficulty for
the diocese to take him out of that position. Or he would know some personal reasons why
he should not be in this parish or not be a pastor, information that would not be known to
the personnel board. And most archbishops agree with Archbishop Sheehan of Omaha that "the toughest
thing about being a bishop is making the appointments." Canonically, a priest promises obedience to his bishop and must go where his bishop
sends him. But in fact, if a priest says no, the bishop will usually accept that. "It
could be his health, could be family, could be personal, could be spiritual, any number of
reasons why the guy might not want to," explains a personnel director. "He might
have been to Guest House [a rehabilitation program for alcoholic priests] and found
sobriety in his current parish." But even when the reason is not substantial, the archbishop will usually respect it.
"We found that if you move a pastor to a place that he has no desire to go, you have
nothing but trouble," reports the director of personnel in Portland. "The people
soon come to realize that this man does not want to be here. We have a problem. He is not
effective." In the open listing process, the archbishop is offering the position to someone who
sought it and, as a result, he does not have to worry about the person declining the post.
If the archdiocese does not have open listing or if the priest did not apply for a parish,
often the personnel director will sound him out before he is approached by the archbishop.
"You don't want the bishop to nominate him and have him go through the embarrassment
of saying no to his bishop," explains a director. But most priests will not say no to their bishop. Archbishop Lipscomb recalls when he
had to ask a member of the Mobile personnel board to leave a position he wanted for
another: I needed this priest in this particular spot. He was the logical one except he had
already been given an assignment to some place else. I prayed over it. I said, "I am just going to ask him to do this. If he says `no,'
then it is no." [At the meeting] we were going over these things and this slot wasn't exactly fitting.
I said, "I have prayed over this, and we all know you are the best person." "Bishop," he said, "I know the reason I am not in this slot is that you
all have already given me the other parish. But I know that I ought to be there.... If
that is what you think, I'll do it." So that's what we did. In one small archdiocese, the archbishop and the board put together a slate, but one
man balked at first. Although he had been talked to by the personnel director, the
archbishop says, He thought the only one being considered was his assistant and not himself. He was
running a good parish; people liked him. He was good on the participation, had the Renew
program, all of the qualities I needed desperately in another parish that had been so
terribly restricted that the place was ready to burst. He was really distraught. I went to see him myself and explained to him why. He put it
very well: "It is my problem, not your problem. I have to learn to cope with this
myself." Six months after he moved, he was very happy where he was. I moved him to
the same type of parish, same type of people. Because they were so pleased with having an
open priest, they rallied around like nobody's business, and he did some nice adjustments
there. But even if the priest can say no, the archbishop cannot always give a priest what he
wants because sometimes it is simply not available. Archbishop Salatka of Oklahoma City
relates: I don't have all that great a choice for what the priests can do. They would like to do
something different than what I have available, some of them. It is really a struggle. You
try to take into consideration their preferences, their abilities as the personnel
commission sees them, and also our needs. And invariably I have to wind up saying,
"Well, Father, I know what you want, but this is what I have." That's a hard
thing to do, probably the hardest decision I have to make in the course of the year. In Philadelphia, where another style prevails, saying no to the archbishop is not an
option. Cardinal Krol tells his priests, We can be guided by your preference, but the dominating factor is the need of the
people, not your pleasure. You were not ordained to be served, but to serve. And you have
to serve the whole diocese. But most archbishops have concluded that the more consideration given to the priest's
preferences, the more productive he will be as a minister. Friendly persuasion by the
personnel director and the archbishop, they believe, is more effective in the long run
than an executive fiat. If the people involved in personnel work do their jobs properly, the number of refusals
is usually low. The Detroit chairman of the personnel board reports: There were times when we got very bogged down by a few refusals. Other times it has
gone rather smoothly. This year most priests accepted. That is partly because the regional bishops have done
their work, the elected members of the assignment board have done their work. They made an
effort to know the priests. They talk to the priests. The exchange is pretty good. So when
you come to the meeting and we make these decisions, we have a pretty good sense of where
most priests would be, what they would be interested in. When a number of priests want a parish, only one can get it. Although the archbishop
makes the final decision, the board also shares the blame and complaints for decisions
that cannot please everyone. It is much easier on the bishop if the committee, rather than
the bishop, has to tell a man he is not capable of being a pastor. Some boards are even
willing to take the blame for decisions made by their archbishops. A board member reports: The most difficult part of this job is dealing with the dissatisfaction of the clergy
with our decisions. They think we pick the names out of a hat. They will say, "How
the hell did you come to that decision?" Sometimes it is because of confidential information that we cannot share. Sometimes it
was a decision of the archbishop that we did not recommend. There is no point in us
passing the blame on to him. We are many, so we can bear it better. The executive secretary of the Chicago personnel board agreed that informing the
candidates who did not get the parish is difficult. There is not a whole lot that you can say. We don't give real specific reasons about
why Fr. Smith was better than Fr. Jones. We just say that the process has been concluded,
the Cardinal has made his choice. If they ask why, it is "we felt that this
particular person was the one best suited for this parish." It really is gut wrenching. You have to call priests that you know really well. You
feel really bad for them. Sometimes this was the candidate that you wanted to get it. Some
guys are devastated because they were convinced that they were going to get it. They are
just stunned by it. Other priests who have applied for a number of parishes and been
rejected reach the point where they finally explode. They are really angry. Dealing with the applicants who do not get the position is the hardest part about the
open listing process. This is especially true of applicants who have been turned down
numerous times. The chairman of a personnel board explains: Let's say ten people apply for this parish. They are putting their priesthood on the
line. They are putting their reputation on the line, because obviously the people on the
board know who are applying and the word gets out. Only one gets the parish. So the morale problem. Let's say you wrote in for twelve
parishes in a row and got refused each time, where would that put you? There is a great reluctance to honestly tell priests why they are negatively perceived
by the board, the bishop, and others. In St. Paul, the personnel director explains how the
board would deal with a man who it didn't feel should be a pastor: I sit down with him, and the board meets with him to talk about his wishes. We talk
about whether he has done well so far and how realistic his wishes are. It is tough to say
to him, "You aren't fit to be a pastor, and you should look for another associate
position." He will then get discouraged and talk to the archbishop, who comes to me and says,
"Can't you find him a parish?" Then I will have to tell the archbishop,
"The board doesn't see him as pastor material." In San Francisco the difficulty of dealing with rejected candidates led to the dropping
of the open listing system. "There were too many hurt feelings when a man would apply
for every one and get turned down," explains the San Francisco personnel director. But most personnel directors believe that priests should be honestly told how they are
perceived by the board, especially if they will never get a pastorate. "I think they
should be told. They should be given reasons," says one lay personnel director.
"I find that they [priests' personnel board] play games, and I can't stand
that." Another director agreed, "If we sin in the whole system, it is that we
are not honest with people. One of the ways we frequently sin is in not being honest and
candid in our evaluations, whether they are formal evaluations, informal evaluations,
estimates, popular judgments about persons." Many archbishops do not like this approach. Archbishop Whealon of Hartford explains, I don't think that it is good to tell a man that he will never become pastor. I like to
keep hope alive if there is any, however slight, possibility of hope there. It is a competitive situation that we have. If a priest has really not updated himself,
if he cannot relate well to the people, he has a difficulty now in being assigned. It is
an occasion to tell him that he needs to do some updating of himself. Or it is an occasion
to tell him that he did well on the interview but don't give up. It is just that someone
with greater seniority or someone with a better aptitude for this place was chosen. Sometimes, it is a discouraging experience but still, I think, better than the old
system that would assign any priest to a parish whether he was qualified or not. Father Kinsella, and expert on personnel issues, says, "If I could send personnel
directors or bishops to school, I would send them to school to learn how to speak
candidly, gently, and caringly in a supportive, pastoral way, but honestly, about the way
people are judged." Everyone agrees that the weakest part of the priests' personnel system is the lack of
any systematic evaluation of a priest's work in his parish. In most archdioceses there is
no real evaluation of a priest's work. Even those who favor evaluating priests disagree on
how it should be done and who should receive the results. When priests' councils vote in
favor of evaluation, it is usually voluntary and offered as a means of personal growth.
Often, as in Newark, they feel the results should be given only to the priest himself and
not to those dealing with assignments. In Milwaukee, it is up to the priest whether the
information is given to the personnel board. A few archdioceses (for example, Newark and Milwaukee) have developed extensive
evaluation instruments that include interviews with the priest and surveys of his
parishioners. These would examine his ability to work with various groups in the parish
(young, old, parish staff and organizations, ethnic groups) as well as his skills in
administration, liturgy, preaching, counseling, outreach, etc. In Milwaukee the evaluation takes place every five years and all but fourteen priests
have gone through it at least once. It begins with a questionnaire by which the priest
evaluates himself and his performance. The same basic questionnaire goes to twenty
parishioners and ten priests chosen by the priest. "Most of them praise the priest to
the sky, a few are very critical," explains Auxiliary Bishop Brust. The bishop
believes that the self-evaluation of the priest is the most helpful. "There is more
in there than in all the stuff that thirty people put together. He has insights about
himself that those others don't have." The results are tabulated and summarized in the personnel office. A specially trained
priest meets with the priest. "He interviews the priest," reports Bishop Brust.
"He says what he read in all these interviews without revealing any names. The upshot
is the priest is asked to make a couple of resolutions for the future. Better care of his
health, a little shaping up spiritually, more regular prayer life, especially reading and
continuing education." The interviewer then writes up a summary of their discussion that is reviewed by the
priest who can add his own comments. They both sign the document, which goes to the
archbishop, but it can only go to the personnel board with the approval of the priest. So
far all the priests have authorized giving it to the personnel board. "It came out of the perceived experience that priests need a chance to hear that
they are doing well," explains Auxiliary Bishop Sklba of Milwaukee. "They need
an opportunity to hear one or two areas of suggested change. They need a structured way to
hear it that is growth oriented rather than just negative." As part of the assignment process, sometimes the candidates are interviewed by the
priests' personnel director or a member of the board. As a person involved in the process
in Newark explains, "We have about five areas that we concentrate on for pastors:
pastoral experience, administrative ability, leadership in terms of being able to share
responsibilities, liturgy, and outreach to people. We have an outline we follow so that
the interview is structured." In the process of making assignments, personnel boards must make judgments about
priests. One complaint about personnel boards is that sometimes priests are judged by
their peers in terms of their past rather than their present. "I see a difficulty of people knowing how a man is doing today as opposed to how
he was in the seminary," explains one director. "A lot of superstars in the
closed life of the seminary, do not function well in parishes. And nonfunctioners in the
seminary, when given a chance in ministry, have really grown wings. We remember a lot of
people from how they were seminarians, and that is not a true picture now." "Sometimes they don't see each other afterwards," explains Bishop Sklba of
Milwaukee. "They remember those associations and don't allow each other to grow. I
would never like to be judged by the things I did twenty years ago." This is not, however, a problem limited to members of the personnel board. Archbishop
Lipscomb of Mobile admits, "I came out of this presbyterate, and I feel I know them
fairly well. The danger is that I stereotype them, not giving scope for their growth or
changes in their needs even. And that has been to my grief." Sometimes a priest
returns a changed man from a sabbatical. "They still remember the last time when he
was difficult to communicate with," explains one vicar for clergy. "I will say,
`Hey, wait a minute, when was the last time you talked to him. Don't make him hostage to
an earlier situation.'" The problem is accentuated in dioceses that do not have any formal evaluation process.
Sometimes the members of the board have little data to go on. One personnel director
admitted, There is a kind of seduction built into the system, when you have a group of priests
together and say, "You have to give us your best advice about Charlie." If they don't know a whole lot about Charlie, they will repeat what the common estimate
of Charlie is. It may be accurate. I have seen sometimes when it is incredibly accurate. I
have seen other times when it is an incredible injustice to people. But again, this is not a problem endemic to personnel boards. It was also true before
there were boards, when the bishop would consult with his chancery staff about
appointments. Without formal evaluations, a pastor's reputation can sometimes be based on
rumor, hearsay, and the presence or absence of complaint letters to the bishop. But even once the evaluation is completed, there are few ways of rewarding good
priests. They do not receive merit pay increases, and even symbolic rewards like being
promoted to monsignor are few and far between. In Detroit each year an outstanding priest
is chosen by the priests' council and rewarded with a sabbatical. But the best most good
priests can hope for is a word of thanks from their bishop and congregation. Sometimes being a good priest can simply produce more work. One Chicago priest told the
executive secretary of the personnel board that "the way you get rewarded in this
diocese is, if you have done a good job, you get a bigger pile of shit to deal with."
The secretary agreed, "If you are in a parish and deal with all these problems, then
the board will look at you and say, `Hey, this guy really handles problems well. We will
give him more problems to handle.' [On the other hand,] if you are on the verge of falling
apart, everybody is moving in on you saying, `How can we help?'" This is a problem
with a system based more on charity than merit. Most of this chapter deals with clergy personnel issues for the simple reason that
these are much more likely to reach the archbishop than personnel issues dealing with lay
or religious employees. For lay and religious personnel, the archbishop gets involved in
determining personnel policy (salaries, benefits, grievance procedures, etc.) but not
assignments except for high-level administrators. The directors of the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators (NACPA)
believe that the ideal is to have a comprehensive approach to church personnel systems./34 They urge the church to adopt personnel policies
that ordinarily will apply to all persons in the same work environment. "What we are
advocating is that dioceses have comprehensive policies so that the policies apply to
everyone," explains Sister Christine Matthews, O.P., director of NACPA. "There
are not different policies for religious than there are for clergy, than there are for lay
employees." To have such a system would probably require a cabinet level personnel department to
oversee all personnel issues in the archdiocese. "What we advocate is that the
diocese have a comprehensive personnel office," says Sister Matthews. This office
would help establish policies and procedures that would apply to all agencies, including
schools, Catholic Charities, and parishes. Such a comprehensive personnel department would
deal not only with lay employees but also with priests and religious. This is the case to
some extent with the personnel departments in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Newark, and
St. Paul. Only recently have some archbishops begun to develop comprehensive personnel policies
for their archdioceses. In the past, lay personnel were treated separately and differently
than religious and priests. In addition, lay personnel policies and procedures have been
for the most part decentralized. Each parish, school, or diocesan agency could have its
own personnel program. Typically, the church agencies with the most employees, the school office and Catholic
Charities, have been the first to develop sophisticated personnel policies for lay
employees. Because of the size and complexity of schools and social service agencies,
personnel policies and procedures had to be developed in order to maintain order and
morale. Developing personnel programs here was easier because these agencies have secular
counterparts on which the church could model its personnel procedures and policies. In
addition, church employees in these agencies were aware of how their counterparts in the
public sector were treated, and they would lobby for similar benefits. Since personnel decisions were decentralized, different personnel policies usually
developed in different parts of an archdiocese. The policies in the schools would be
different from the policies in Catholic Charities. This led to unhappiness when employees
doing the same type of work (for example, secretaries) found that they were being treated
differently depending on which agency employed them. At the same time, the administrators of some small diocesan agencies (including
parishes) got into trouble for not observing simple personnel requirements like contracts,
withholding taxes, or liability insurance. This could lead to problems with the government
or employees that end up in court. All these problems, plus the rapid growth in the number of lay employees, bring
personnel issues to the attention of the archbishop. In many cases, he and the archdiocese
are legally responsible for what is done in an agency. As a result, some archbishops are
establishing personnel offices or departments to coordinate and supervise personnel issues
in the whole archdiocese. An archdiocesan personnel office usually begins in the finance office, where it
initially deals with salaries and benefits (medical, retirement, etc.) of lay persons in
the central agencies. Depending on the expertise of the personnel director and the desires
of the archbishop, it can grow into a more comprehensive office that would screen job
applicants, help develop job descriptions and evaluation procedures, establish salary
guidelines and grievance procedures, run workshops and training institutes, and provide
advice on personnel issues to department heads. A number of things become clear in examining the role of archbishops in personnel
decisions in their archdioceses. First, the size of the archdiocese affects the degree to
which the archbishop is involved in personnel issues. Normally, the smaller the
archdiocese, the more actively he is involved. For the most part, the personnel issues that reach him are those that deal with
diocesan priests. He hires and fires relatively few lay or religious employees in the
archdiocese, but he is directly involved in the assignments of every diocesan priest. He
gets involved in lay and religious personnel issues when systemic problems are brought to
his attention by his top administrators or by complaints from lay and religious employees. In reaction to the arbitrary exercise of authority in the past, bishops are now more
conscious of the need to consider a priest's needs and desires prior to an appointment.
Although a priest does not always get the assignment he wants, practically all personnel
directors admit that a priest can refuse an assignment if he wants to. This is especially
true of pastors, but even an associate will not normally be sent to a parish against his
will. Since everyone agrees that personnel issues are the most difficult and controversial
questions that reach an archbishop, it is not surprising that attempts are made to make
these decisions easier and fairer. Archdioceses all across the country are experimenting
with new policies and procedures, trying to find the magic formula that will get the right
priest in the right parish and keep everybody happy. Personnel offices, personnel boards, tenure policies, open listing, and other
procedures have been tried with varying success. These have arisen not only to make the
process fairer and more responsive to the priests but also to make a difficult job easier.
Some priests complain that they are simply bureaucratic procedures that get between them
and their bishop. Some places have had a bureaucratic tendency to set up procedures that
will make the work of the personnel director, board, and bishop easier. As Father Kinsella notes: Policies and standards and systems guarantee a certain amount of justice and equity and
consistent treatment, and that is why they are valuable--not because they make life
easier, but because they guarantee consistency and some equity. Balancing that off in
terms of personal response, personal care, genuine response to people in need--that is an
art form, not a science. You just make decisions in those kinds of situations that are on
the level of art, sizing up a situation and trying to make the best decision. It is also clear that some of the best priests in the archdiocese are placed in clergy
personnel work. But most archbishops are reluctant to staff their personnel offices
adequately. These priests tend to be overworked and as subject to burnout as any priest
they are trying to help. 28. Robert W. Peterson and Richard A. Schoenherr,
"Organizational Status Attainment of Religious Professionals," Social Forces
56 (March 1978): 805-807, 818. 29. Fichter, Forgotten Priests, 144-46. 30. At the time of this study, Baltimore, Indianapolis, New
Orleans, Omaha, San Francisco, and Washington did not have limited terms. Chicago had
terms but was not enforcing them. For canonical issues, see J. Stanley Teixeira,
"Clergy Personnel: Policy and Canonical Issues," Jurist 45 (1986):
502-20; Daniel F. Hoye, "The Implementation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law on the
National Level: Progress and Problems," CLSA Proceedings 46 (1984): 7-9. 31. Hoge, Shields and Verdieck, "Attitudes of American
Priests," table 2, p. 2. 32. Hoge, Future of Catholic Leadership, 235. Gallup
and Castelli, American Catholic People, 57. 33. Greeley, Catholic Priest, 146. 34. Barbara Garland, SC, Personnel Policy Manuals
(Cincinnati, OH: National Association of Church Personnel Administrators, 1986), 5.
Copyright © 1989 by Thomas J. Reese, S.J.
All rights reserved
For the beginning of this chapter, see Chapter 6. For the
previous chapter and table of contents, see Chapter 5 and Contents.
Appointment of Pastors
Seniority
Limited Terms
The Needs of the Parish
Desires of the Priests
Recommendation
Archbishop Appoints
Saying No to the Bishop
The Bad News
Evaluations
Comprehensive Personnel Office
Conclusion
Footnotes
See also: