A PROPHETIC STANCE OF THE HEART:
COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY TODAY
SEATTLE, WA – PENTECOST, 2006

DEDICATED TO OUR PRESENT ARCHBISHOP AND TO TWO OF OUR FORMER ARCHBISHOPS.
WITH GRATITUDE TO ARCHBISHOP ALEX J. BRUNETT, FOR HIS GIFT OF LAY CATECHETICAL RENEWAL AND ETHNIC INCLUSIVITY, ARCHBISHOP THOMAS J. MURPHY, WHOSE UNSTINTING SERVICE OF OUR CHURCH MODELLED CHRIST’S OWN SELF-GIVING, AND ARCHBISHOP RAYMOND G. HUNTHAUSEN, WHO TAUGHT US BY DEED AND WORD THE MEANING OF PROPHETIC AND COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY.

Membership of the Task Force for this Statement: Peggy Alston, Damian Bastasini, Bobbie Beaudreau,
John Baumann, A. J. Boyd, Sue Ford, Pat Ibach, Roger O’Brien

Copyright 2006, Concerned Catholic Ministers, P. O. Box 3054, Lynnwood, WA 98046.  Permission is given to reproduce no more than three copies of this statement.  Additional copies require permission.

CONTENTS

Introduction
I. Meaning
II. Key Aspects
III. Practical Issues
IV. Recommendations
V. Conclusion
Appendix I: Some Models
Appendix II: Some Resources
Notes

INTRODUCTION

This reflection describes many aspects of collaborative pastoral ministry which, simply stated, is the phenomenon of laity and clergy working together to further the mission of the Church.

Since the first days of the Church collaboration of all members has been at the heart of ministry. In the earliest Church writings Paul talks about how he expects collaboration and support among the communities he evangelizes. In fact to illustrate how much we are interconnected he uses the image of the body—and ultimately the body of Christ. For centuries monks and priests collaborated in ministry. Vowed religious worked in collaboration with each other. The roots of contemporary collaborative pastoral ministry are found in the New Testament, Vatican II documents, and other recent writings of the Church.

What is Collaborative Pastoral Ministry?

In 1995, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said that ultimately “what matters is that we live communion in the Church, drawing life from each other in and through our relationships. If the Church is a communion of love, we will be better able to build a civilization of love, communicating to our work, through what we are, the deepest truths about persons and society.”¹

One of the deepest truths about pastoral ministry is that it is meant to be collaborative service. We who name ourselves Concerned Catholic Ministers affirm what Cardinal Suenens said at the time of the Vatican Council: “Today’s pastoral effort will be a team effort, or it will be neither pastoral nor successful.”² Suenen’s vision expressed at the Council emboldens us. In the face of opposition from those who did not wish change at the Council, the great Belgian cardinal responded: “Caution is everywhere. Courage is nowhere. And soon we shall die of prudence!” With courage and hope, we wish to live, honor, and advocate for collaborative ministry in our church.

Fr. John Heagle expresses our conviction: “Most of us who listened to our baptismal call and chose a life of ministry in the church did so out of deep commitment and a spirit of generosity. We committed ourselves to a journey of discipleship and collaborative service. These are prophetic stances of the heart.”³

Value of Collaborative Ministry

Many of us Concerned Catholic Ministers have experienced healthy forms of partnership in our varied ministries: partnerships where every person had a voice in influencing the outcome of decisions that affected the entire community. All of us are convinced of the value of such ministry. It is deeply rooted in the early practices of the Church as well as in the renewed ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church said, in part: “There remains a true equality between all with regard to the dignity and activity which is common to all the faithful in the building up of the Body of Christ.”⁴

We consider collaborative ministry vital as committed lay ecclesial ministers, religious, deacons and presbyters. We are committed to encouraging its practice with the support of recent Church teachings:

• The late Pope John Paul II urged the bishops of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, on the occasion of their 2004 ad limina visit, to let their service “be inspired only by and modeled on the self-sacrificing love of the Lord who came among us as a servant and, after stooping to wash the feet of the disciples, commanded them to do as he had done.”⁵ The Synod of Bishops, he noted, acknowledged the need for each bishop to develop a pastoral style “ever open to collaboration with all…”⁶

• The Holy Father, quoting the Synod, pointed out that Ecclesial Communion “presupposes the participation of every category of the faithful, in as much as they share responsibility for the good of a particular Church”.⁷ He advised that “a commitment to creating better structures of participation, consultation, and shared responsibility should not be understood as a concession to a secular ‘democratic’ model of governance, but as an intrinsic requirement of the exercise of episcopal authority and a necessary means of strengthening that authority.”⁸

• Our U.S. Conference of Bishops, at their fall meeting in 2005, said: “We reaffirm our statement in Called and Gifted for the Third Millennium that ‘the Church’s pastoral ministry can be more effective if we become true collaborators.’ Aware of the challenges involved, we call both lay and ordained ministers to learn the skills of collaboration, to value the benefits it brings to Church life and ministry, and to commit themselves to practice it in their places of ministry.”⁹

• Here in our own local church, Archbishop Brunett’s 2004 statement, A Future Full of Hope, affirms the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council’s belief that “the vision of shared responsibility is one of the most important values for the continued vitality of the archdiocesan community,”¹⁰ and encourages models of parish staffing “that are… collaborative in vision”¹¹ This statement commends “the rich history of consultative bodies, organizational structures, and commitment to collaboration” operative in our local church,¹² and underscores the collaboration of the laity in the mission of our church.

Challenge of Collaborative Ministry

While we value collaborative ministry, we acknowledge it poses a challenge for some in our church today. Catholic University’s Dean Hoge, in a June 2005 talk at Boston College, outlined a sociologist’s perspective on some of the tensions in collaborative ministry. He commented as follows:

Surveys of American priests have found two shifts in priestly self-understanding from the 1960’s until today. During and after Vatican Council II, American priests shifted from an earlier ‘cultic model’ of priesthood to a new model which has been called the ‘servant leader model’.

The cultic model, which had prevailed for a long time, saw the priest as mainly an administrator of the sacraments and teacher of the faith. In this view, the priest needs to be celibate and set apart from other Catholics; his life is a witness to higher holiness…. Priests alone can serve as mediator between God and humanity. By contrast, the servant leader model emphasizes that the priest is the spiritual and social leader of the Catholic community. As such, he must interact closely with the laity and collaborate with them in leading parish life. The distinctness of the priest over against the laity is de-emphasized, symbolized by the preference of many priests after the l960s to minimize the wearing of the clerical cassock and collar. Also the priests living the servant model invest themselves more in community leadership beyond the parish, attempting to have a beneficial effect on the larger society.

The predominant self-understanding of American priests shifted from the cultic model to the servant leader model during the 1960s and then it began shifting back in the middle of the l980s. According to research in 2001, the second transition was already well advanced, and the young priests were quite a distance from their elder brothers in their understanding of what a priest is. Specifically, they differed from their elder brothers in whether ordination confers on a priest a new ontological status making him essentially different from laity, whether a priest is a ‘man set apart’, whether celibacy should become a matter of choice for priests (the young men were more opposed)…. The younger priests have been more conservative not only in the theology of priesthood but in ecclesiology and liturgy. Numerous observers have noted that they follow the letter of the law much more rigidly on matters of liturgy, morals, and priestly life. They find it more important to be seen in priestly attire.¹³

Hoge states that young priests have held ardently to the cultic model of priesthood, and that priests holding the opposite viewpoints were in the 55-65 year old age cohort. “I have heard reports,” he writes, “of American presbyterates which are divided and which exist in a state of uneasy tension.”¹⁴

He also observes that the argument against the cultic model comes partly from laity and lay ministers, “who assert that tomorrow’s parishes must be led by collaborators of priests and lay ministers, and since priests holding the cultic model are less open to lay ministers, the cultic model will lead to tensions and conficts.”¹⁵

He notes, further, that a survey of professional ministers in 2004 found that “older lay ministers in fact find cultic-model priests to undervalue lay ministers and to be difficult to work with. Older lay ministers prefer to work with priests of the servant leader model.”¹⁶

We, Concerned Catholic Ministers, have experienced some of the tensions between cultic and servant models of priesthood as well as other models. However, our own hopes and expectations for collaborative ministry are rooted in the New Testament, Vatican II documents, and our own pastoral experience. We have been energized to participate fully in the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ when we have been involved in collaborative pastoral ministry.

Why This Statement?

We offer this perspective, A Prophetic Stance of the Heart: Collaborative Ministry Today, as a resource to help the reader think more in depth and with imagination about the current theology and practice of collaborative ministry. We offer it in support of our church’s mission to transform our world in the communion of love disclosed to us in Christ Jesus.

This statement presents reflections into the meaning, the key aspects, and practical issues involved in collaborative ministry. It offers some recommendations and a concluding reflection, as well as two appendices, one outlining some models of collaborative ministry in the Archdiocese of Seattle and one listing printed resources.

I. MEANING

This chapter describes collaborative ministry by offering reflections on convictions that shape it.

The defining convictions include these:

• Central to collaboration is partnership.
• Basic to partnership is the belief that such ministry is rooted in Christian Initiation.
• Roles of laity and presbyters call for mutuality.
• Authentic collaborative ministry is committed to mission.
• Collaborative ministry begins in the heart and ends in action.

The description which best reflects what we Concerned Catholic Ministers affirm is this: “Collaborative ministry is a way of relating and working together in the life of the Church which expresses the communion which the Church is given and to which it is called.”¹

Partnership: Central to Collaborative Ministry

Partnership is central to collaborative ministry. Partnership means ministering in service of communion. It calls for interdependence. It stands for the conviction that “we need each other.”

Ultimately, this way of ministering indicates every person has a voice in influencing the outcome of decisions that affect the entire community. It does not mean that one person gets to determine an outcome which affects everyone without serious consultation. Partnership implies that all voices count, all opinions are respected, and that all are seriously considered in the decision making process.

Partnership in ministry respects the quality of relationships. They are valued as
significant in relationship to the task being done. The importance of relationships extends to every member of the parish, across age, race, and gender. Partnership in ministry goes beyond parish staff to include all parish leaders and commissions.

Ministry of partnership assumes and builds trust. It requires and engenders shared responsibility among those involved in parish staffs, parish governance, pastoral councils, parish commissions, the archdiocesan pastoral council, the archdiocesan curia, and archdiocesan governance.

Rooted in Christian Initiation

Collaborative ministry is grounded in the centrality of baptism and of the Church as communion. The beginning point, in Lumen Gentium is ‘communion’, which is the dominant theme of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

Baptism and Collaboration. All those initiated as Christians, share through baptism the unity of God the Father, Son, and Spirit, Lumen Gentium states. It quotes St. Cyprian: the Church is “a people united in and of the very unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”²

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church also indicates that this communion is hierarchically organized – a principle underlying the dynamic of collegiality: communion between bishops and pope, between the presbyterate and bishop, between parishioners and parish priest.

Baptism and Communion. By baptism, laity are charged with the mission of evangelizing and sanctifying the world, a genuinely priestly, prophetic, and royal ministry since, by Christian initiation they share in the priesthood of Christ.

The two chapters in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church on holiness and religious life are rooted in the union with God that comes in baptism. Holiness is not in works, but in what God shares with us and how we live that in our lives. Vowed religious life is based not on separation, but on a more intense union with God, with members of the community, and with the church and all the human family.

The final two chapters of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church remind us, on the one hand, of bonds of solidarity linking the church on earth with the church in heaven, and, on the other hand, of Mary’s role as mother of the Lord and mother of the church (Marian devotion is meant to draw people to union with Christ and one another).

Co-Responsibility. All this underscores the radical mystery of church as communion, and by implication, ministerial service within this mystery of communion in terms of collaboration, co-responsibility and collegiality. Jesus Christ did not minister alone. His followers both men and women ministered with him. He spent much of his public life helping his followers to understand what it meant to “put on the mind and heart of God.” Paul picked up the same theme when he said “put on the mind of Christ”. He used the image of the body of Christ to show the interdependence of all in the community.

If the church in its innermost mystery is communion, then those who minister in it are called to minister collaboratively. Co-responsibility is at the heart of the church because it is at the heart of the church’s mission.

This has important implications for our understanding of baptism, of ministry, of the role of the laity, and of the service of presbyters and bishops in our Church.

Mutuality of Roles: Laity and Presbyters in particular

One of the most striking emphases in what the Council said about the church is the recovery of laypeople’s full share in the life, holiness, and mission of the church.³ To appreciate the relation of laity and presbyters in sharing the fullness of holiness, it is important to be aware of the following roles.

The Laity. Lay people advance the church’s mission by living their baptismal call to spread the Good News of the Gospel. They are called to work for the transformation of the secular world. While most do this by working at jobs in the world, some do it by focusing on building ecclesial communion, whose ultimate purpose is the transformation of the world.

Cardinal Mahony wrote a pastoral letter on ministry,⁴ in which he noted that following the Vatican Council there was a rediscovery of the prominence of ministry in the Catholic theology of baptism. Baptism is seen as the foundational sacrament for all ministry. Through baptism all share in the priesthood of Christ.

Lay Ministry. Lay ministry involves consultation and decision making. Along with their witness in the world, lay people, according to policy in our Archdiocese, need to “be involved in decision making through processes of consultation,”⁵ especially at the parish level. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that lay people can be called to cooperate with their pastors in service of the church for the sake of its growth and life. “This can be done through the exercise of different ministries according to the grace and charisms which the Lord has been pleased to bestow on them”⁶

The Vatican Council recognized the call of the lay person,⁷ saw it as deriving from his or her “very vocation as a Christian,”⁸ and acknowledged that where priests are scarce it is hard to see how the Church “could make her presence and action felt without the help of the laity.”⁹

Lay ministry in the church according to Cardinal Mahony is not a stop-gap measure, but is rooted “in the priesthood of the baptized.” He notes that even if seminaries were once again filled to overflowing and convents were packed with sisters, “there would still remain the need to cultivate and sustain the full flourishing of ministries that we have witnessed in the Church since the Second Vatican Council.”¹⁰

Lay Ecclesial Ministers. Lay ecclesial ministers, including vowed religious, exercise a stable, public, and recognized ministry as professionally trained or otherwise properly qualified women and men. Lay ecclesial ministers have a vocation different from the vocation of all the baptized, whose call is to advance God’s reign through their commitment to marriage and family, in the workplace and in the broader society. They serve in a different way than other lay ministers.

The 2005 statement of the United States Bishops, Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry, recognizes the vital role played today by more than 30,000 laywomen and laymen who dedicate their gifts and talents to serve the Church in roles of significant pastoral ministry.¹¹ We are blessed, the bishops said, “to have such gifted and generous co-workers in the vineyard…”¹². They echoed the Constitution on the Church’s vision of these ministers joining with all the laity and presbyters in serving the whole church, whose priestly
ministry is done with a priestly people.¹³

Pastors. Pastors, as much of our Church teaching underscores, have the critical role of “empowering the laity in their vital role of shared responsibility.”¹⁴ They “know that they themselves were not established by Christ to undertake alone the whole salvific mission of the Church to the world,”¹⁵ but that it is their office to recognize the laity’s contributions and charisms for the task they share in common. They are urged to be dedicated “to sharing responsibility for carrying out the mission of the church and to a collaborative means of decision-making.”¹⁶

Priests. A priest’s pastoral and sacramental roles remain vital. Yet, if his primary task is to enable communion to grow, the relationships he develops will be central to his ministry. He needs, as Pope John Paul II said, to let go of some responsibilities and to trust others with aspects of parish life and mission. For a priest, the late Holy Father wrote, the “fundamentally relational dimension” of ministry is definitive.¹⁷ As a servant of communion, he “builds up the unity of the Church community in the harmony of diverse vocations, charisms, and services.”¹⁸

All Ministers, All the Baptized. Pastoral ministers – ordained, lay ecclesial ministers, non-paid ministers, and indeed all the baptized – are charged, in light of Vatican II’s call to co-responsibility, to minister not in an isolated, individualistic fashion, but in a genuinely collaborative way. Cardinal Mahony reminded us: “…All of the baptized are given a share in Christ’s priestly ministry, and … one and all are necessary for the fulfillment of the Church’s mission.”¹⁹

Collaborative ministry brings together in partnership people who, through Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, have different vocations and gifts, but who work together to express the communion which the church is given and to which it is called. In such work, the identity of each vocation is “seen and expressed more fully.”²⁰

Commitment to Mission

Collaborative ministry is committed to mission. Those who minister collaboratively know and appreciate that their concern is not merely, or mainly, the internal life of the church. They recognize that their collaboration is in service to the transformation of the world as a place of communion, love, and unity. Their ministry models for the world “the possibility of transformation, of community, and of unity within diversity.”²¹

Christifideles Laici reminds us that communion and mission “impenetrate and mutually enrich each other.”²² When people of faith learn values of communion, solidarity and mutual cooperation, they carry these values into their daily lives in the family, at work and in the wider society. These values stand in stark contrast to the prevailing social, economic, cultural, and at times ecclesial ways of acting. They proclaim to the world that no one is an island, that all are called to be one in love, and that everyone is responsible for others.

The context for collaborative ministry is a church in mission and such ministry is in service of mission.

First, in the Heart

Finally, partnership in ministry is a stance of the heart, before it is a way of acting. It springs in the heart from the desire for servant leadership, not for dominative power. It recognizes that such leadership thrives not in patriarchal relationships but in relationships of sharing, welcoming, and hospitality rooted in discipleship. The heart learns, first of all, to model service on Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve, who taught his followers to let go of power, who pronounced the last first and the first last, and whose table-companionship was as inclusive as God’s mercy.

This partnership recognizes as the Galatian church did, that there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but that all are one in Christ. This understanding of ministry does not ignore differences in roles and responsibilities, but insists that there will not be distinctions in ministry based on those differences. It knows that collaborative ministry operates from this perspective: no one can claim they have all the resources they need to build the reign of God and to transform our world in the love of Christ. If we are faithful to our tradition, ministry is a community enterprise. Before it is ever expressed in action, collaborative ministry is born in the heart.

What We Mean by Collaborative Ministry

Collaborative ministry, for us Concerned Catholic Ministers, is a way of relating and working together in the life of the Church that expresses the communion our Church is given and to which by baptism we are all called. It commits us to partnership in ministry rooted in Christian Initiation. It honors the mutuality of the roles of priests and lay persons, invites all to mission, and exists first of all as a stance of the heart. The next chapter points out that collaborative ministry values mutual trust and relational skills, views authority as service not as domination, and seeks to empower the
laity to live their baptismal call.

II. KEY ASPECTS

One could describe many aspects of collaborative ministry. The following elements are significant when ministers choose to relate and work together in a way that expresses the communion given us as members of the church:

• Collaborative ministry evolves gradually.

• It requires mutual trust and relational skills.

• It takes differing shapes and styles.

• Partnership in ministry recognizes the difference between authority and
  authoritarianism.

• It is committed to empower people to realize their baptismal call.

• It is enhanced by the discernment of gifts for leadership.

• Finally, there are real challenges to growth in collaborative ministry.

Evolves Gradually

Collaborative ministry involves a gradual, mutual evolution of new patterns of communicating and ministering. Working collaboratively doesn’t happen automatically. Its pace is influenced by resources for formation, personnel, and a parish’s history and culture. Partnership in ministry grows slowly and sometimes painfully, and even when established “remains open to further change.”¹ Newness is a constant element in the working of God’s Spirit.

Mutual Trust and Relational Skills

“People who want to work collaboratively need a strong sense of their own identity and a desire for mutual trust and commitment.”² Shared vision implies a sense of mutual accountability within the team and parish. Collaborative teams also honor personal development such as relational skills, evaluation, self-appraisal, listening, consulting, and consensus decision-making, as well as ongoing team formation. Collaboration grows when conflict is dealt with openly and honestly. “The courage to face and work through conflict, negotiating until a compromise is found and even seeking help in order to resolve it, are not weaknesses but signs of maturity and commitment. Collaborative partners also agree to disagree, or to set aside areas where agreement or compromise cannot be found.”³

With regard to making decisions, some parishes opt for processes that are consultative in style. More challenging is the process of consensus decision-making, in which the whole group or community works towards a consensus that becomes the decision. Not all decisions need to be or should be made this way, but those involving policy or matters of critical importance to the community should be. Decision making is a significant issue in collaborative ministry. We strongly endorse the procedures for decision making discussed in the Archdiocese of Seattle’s guidelines for church
governance through consultative leadership. Emotional maturity is a prerequisite for effective collaboration, as are clear boundaries between personal and professional matters. A culture or climate of collaboration is created in parish settings through a discussion of beliefs and values,
sharing of faith, reflection on the Scriptures, sensitivity, inclusivity and collaborative language beginning with pastor and staff.

Differing Shapes and Styles

It’s important to recognize that there is no single model that defines collaborative ministry or says what this ministry looks like. Such ministry takes shape when a parish, school, hospital, nursing home, or other institution commits to working together. When all involved take broad ownership for the life and mission of their community, collaborative ministry happens..

Parishes and other institutions vary in our church today and cannot operate as one uniform community. Thus, collaborative ministry will be expressed differently in an inner city parish, in a rural parish, or in a suburban parish with five different cultural groups. Collaborative ministry cannot be forced. If people don’t want it, “directives or policy alone will not be sufficient for collaboration to work.”⁴ In such situations, conversion of heart needs to happen where people embrace the value of collaboration before they set out to be collaborative.

Difference between Authority and Authoritarianism

Authority differs greatly from authoritarianism. Unlike authoritarianism, authority is the “creative capacity to call forth the vision and gifts of people; it is inviting rather than controlling, nurturing rather than constrictive.”⁵ Collaborative ministry affirms leadership that exercises genuine authority in a context of shared responsibility, not the rejection of authority.

Cardinal Suenens recognized that “the exercise of authority demands dialogue and a certain measure of responsibility for everyone. The authority for the life of any society can only be strengthened as a result.” ⁶ He and others observed that the Church is a gift from God, and, while not a democracy, has democratic aspects compatible with and essential to the life of the Church. Aspects like accountability, leadership as service to people for the common good, and the value of listening to one another are common behaviors in collaborative relationships.

Genuine authority works only in a context of co-responsibility. Acknowledging this, Archbishop Weisgerber, of Winnepeg, calls the laity to confidence, born of baptism, to use their gifts responsibly in the life of the church. “Sitting on the fence,” he says, “shooting from the bushes, and cynical by-standing are not options for serious Christians. … Generous collaboration is called from all.”⁷

Empowerment of Parishioners

A major theme registered in nearly 700 comments at the 2004 Pacific Northwest Regional Symposium on Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership was the empowerment, formation, and realization of the baptismal call of the faithful. Participants clearly believed, as the symposium report states, “that the future of parishes and the Church as a whole will be strengthened by their commitment and ability to empower and enable people to realize their baptismal call to ministry.”⁸ Empowering, encouraging, welcoming, and listening were considered the most effective forms for building vibrant
faith communities.

Collaborative ministry is committed to these same values and strategies. Partnership in ministry becomes visible when parishioners participate widely in parish ministries. This happens when two conditions are in place: leadership invites such participation, and lay people grounded in their baptismal call choose such involvement.

Discernment of Gifts for Leadership

A critical aspect of effective collaboration is the discernment for leadership. In inviting a parishioner to a leadership role, a successful match requires the discernment of gifts the individual brings to that role. People often come to ministry with great good will, but they are unaware of the gifts that they bring. Sometimes people come to ministry based on their own needs rather than on the needs of the community. If a collaborative model of ministry is operative, a candidate for ministry also needs a genuine charism for vision and openness to work with others. Ministry is not for lone rangers. Ministry candidates also need a readiness to engage in communication which
enhances collaboration.

An ongoing challenge in supporting collaborative ministry is to begin with the needs of the community and the skills required to serve those needs, instead of the desire and good will of a minister who is available, but perhaps not adequately equipped for the ministry in question.

Discernment of gifts for collaborative leadership is a particular challenge for our contemporary church. This is so given the perception of a slow acceptance of Vatican II’s ecclesiology, the popular task-oriented approach to ministry in the church today, and a tension between clericalism and anti-clericalism found in some places.¹⁴

Challenges to Growth in Collaboration

Finally, we need to be realistic. Challenges to grow in collaborative ministry exist throughout the Church. Just as in secular organizations which are trying to move from a dominant leadership model to one of team building, conflicts, misunderstandings, and tensions exist and need to be resolved. Collaborative ministry challenges include the following:

• Fear among either lay people or priests that collaboration will undermine priests, devalue their ministry, or leave them with little to do.

• Financial pressures which may mean lay ministers receive low salaries or feel insecure about their own future, especially when there is a change in pastor.

• Lack of continuity in parishes or teams serving parishes.

• Stereotypes that trap people in unhealthy attitudes (i.e. reaffirmation of unequal attitudes by laypeople when a priest makes efforts to model collaboration).

• Rigid behavior or narrow attitudes among team members

• A spirit of competition among team members, working in isolation, or insensitivity to other team members’ role and boundaries

• Adversarial attitudes, resembling those common in political or legal processes, that assume the goal is winning rather than finding common ground

• Little use of training programs to sensitize parishes or team members in the practice of collaboration

A desire for partnership in ministry will remain only an interesting fascination unless all the basic elements mentioned in this chapter are recognized and dealt with as important stepping stones in moving along the pathway of collaborative ministry.

III. PRACTICAL ISSUES

Practical issues involved in collaborative ministry are as multiple as are teams that commit themselves to working together in service of the church. Each group has its own practical issues to sort out. There are, however, seven broad issues that any team may face at one time or another:

• Ministering as a discipleship of equals with different roles and gifts.

• Assuring inclusivity and equality of women in ministry.

• Recognizing ethnic and racial diversity in church life.

• Providing continuity in parish staffing.

• Ministering in support of the lay person’s basic vocation.

• Fostering parish worship born of collaboration and aimed at transforming the world.

• Celebrating commissioning rituals for lay ecclesial ministers

Discipleship of Equals

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church affirms that if the church, in its deepest mystery, is communion, then a radical and true equality exists among all those who share in that relationship.¹ This does not mean that everyone is the same or does the same work. But it does have implications for the way people work together and the ways in which varying roles and ministries are recognized and honored.

It is important that, in developing a culture of collaboration, a sense of being on equal terms and held in equal regard is enhanced. “Communion,” the bishops of England and Wales remind us, “means that unity can be found within diversity and that differences can be respected, and accepted as enriching and not divisive.”² Yet, differences also may be a source of tension or an “an issue” when one partner has more training, resources, or recognition than others; or when one is ordained and the rest are not; or when one is a man, and the other a woman; or when a pastoral lay minister is more professionally trained or even more experienced than an ordained minister.

“Although the theology of communion implies equal valuing based on personhood and gift, we live in a world that measures value in other ways, and we cannot be unaffected by it.”³ Tensions arise which invite priests and laypeople to look at what is behind the tensions and to search for deeper roots in collaboration.

Basic assumptions in this regard include these:

• Working as mutual partners does not take away from the essential ministry of the priest.

• Equality based on scriptural and theological principles share common ground with our secular understanding of being equal, but adds elements drawn from communion – especially as regards a harmony between what is given to individuals and the effects on the common life of the entire body of Christ.

• Equality in creating mutual valuing of service, while respecting differences (both personal and structural), is a not a question of financial or work-place justice which honors diversity, but rather a question of how to live communion.

Women in Ministry

Inclusion, particularly of women, in ministry is a challenging issue in our church today. It is thus an issue for collaborative ministry. We need to acknowledge, on the one hand, that our church’s discipline is very clear that the Catholic Church does not consider itself authorized to open the priesthood to women. On the other hand, we recognize that courageous voices continue to ask for a discussion of this question among church leaders.

We also acknowledge two other phenomena: first, there is an effort at present by official church leadership to ensure that non-ordained leadership is exercised by women. Second, 82% of all formal ministries in U.S. parishes are occupied by women. Collaborative ministry challenges us to open ministerial and leadership roles more widely to women, not just to strengthen our own communion, but to communicate the gospel more effectively in today’s world. Most of all, it challenges us to value women as respected colleagues in ministry.

Valuing women is a challenge, given a long patriarchal tradition within many cultures, and subsequently a built-in bias against the equality of women. Elizabeth Johnson, in an article entitled “Women’s Place,” has written about how Catholic women today are increasingly viewing the Church through the lens of gender, seeing where problems lie, and recognizing solutions.⁴ She describes how the patriarchal system, that developed historically in our Church, led to a pattern of relationships which predetermined the roles men and women played. A pattern of inequality is thus reflected historically in sacred texts, religious symbols, rituals, governance, and laws, with women
generally remaining silent and invisible.

Johnson traces ambiguity about women in our Christian heritage: biblical texts, early Christian writers and later theologians, monastic development and the Middle Ages. She notes how Vatican II made a dramatic shift in official church teaching with its general statements implying the equality of women and men in creation and redemption, a theme taken up by Pope John Paul II in his 1988 encyclical On the Dignity of Women. It is Johnson’s conviction that women are empowered at baptism by God’s Spirit, giver of life and source of both love and authority in the Church, to carry forward the word and presence of Christ in the world.

She affirms that official Church teaching has yet to posit equality in the social structures of Church life, even though women are involved in leadership at Catholic hospitals, schools and colleges, and social service agencies. She further notes that women’s scholarship is active in fields of biblical study, Church history, systematic and moral theology, spirituality, and teaching in seminaries. Johnson concludes: “The Church is the community of redeemed sinners called to serve the coming of the kingdom of God into this world. Again and again, it has failed and become a collaborator in domination, within and without. But the power of the Spirit, Holy Wisdom herself at work in the community, empowers the Church to rise ever again. What is new about this moment is that, for the first time in Christian history, masses of women in the Church are silent and invisible no longer.⁵ This, Johnson is convinced, is “the work of the Spirit of God. And she will not be quenched.”⁶

Recognizing and Including Ethnic and Racial Diversity

One of the greatest challenges we face in church life today is cultural diversity.  We are not a uniform church ethnically. We are a communion of races and cultures. Our local church in the Archdiocese of Seattle recognizes this. It provides special support for pastoral care and service of many growing cultural and ethnic communities: African American, Black, Asian Pacific American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American.

Each of these groups enriches the Church with their gifts. Four examples:

• Native Americans’ profound respect for mother earth and all life, their quiet, holistic prayer, and their deep, living faith are gifts to the Church.

• African American Catholics enrich us with their poetry, music, dance, and the recounting of family activities.

• Asian and Pacific Catholics help the Church shine as a sacrament of unity and of universality.

• Hispanic/Latino Catholics bring us a joyous sense of fiesta, the assurance of God’s solidarity with the poor, and a humble call to pursue justice-making.

Baptism calls all of us as members of diverse communities to collaboration in ministry. “The presence of so many people of so many different cultures,” our bishops remind us, “…has challenged us as a Church to a profound conversion so that we can become truly a sacrament of unity.”⁷ Collaboration for particular ethnic groups means working within their own communities to assure participation and inclusion, as well as openness to ways of ministering with a different prevailing culture with which they are affiliated. Collaboration means openness of a prevailing cultural community to the gifts brought by a particular ethnic group in its midst.

How this happens will always be worked out locally. But the ‘how’ cannot happen unless there is a mutual openness to inclusion and welcome. Sustained efforts by people of diverse cultures to appreciate their differences, work out conflicts, and build on commonalities is a very important component of coming to know and respect the diverse cultures that make up the Church.

In cross-cultural encounters, differences need to be informed by understanding the roots of people’s cultural attitudes and respecting their right to find their own way within the one gospel. The face of the Church is changing, our bishops have said, and “all are called to foster a vision that welcomes the many faces of the Church to the table where decisions are made.”⁸ Collaboration in ministry is incomplete until it bridges, however possible, ethnic and racial divisions, and assures inclusion of all cultures and races in church life and ministry. The communion that exists among us because of our sharing in God’s own life demands this.

Transitions in Parish Staffing

Transitions in parish staffing pose a great challenge for collaborative ministry. A parish that, over a number of years, has opted for collaboration and whose culture, history, and style of pastoral activity is rooted in servant leadership, can be decimated when a new pastor arrives holding a very different model of presbyteral service.

There is a need for our local church, through the Office of the Vicar for Clergy, to address this issue. Injustice is done both to the parish and to the newly arrived pastor, when a sharp dissonance of pastoral values and vision occurs.

The bishops of England and Wales spoke honestly about this issue: “One of the most painful experiences taking place in parishes and pastoral teams today is when progress is made, and then halted or reversed by a new priest arriving. There is an urgent need to look at how transition in parish staffing is arranged in order to respect what has been achieved in parishes and prepare the ground for good collaboration with a newly appointed priest.”⁹

This has wider implications in terms of meshing parish needs with the gifts of a new pastor. Another and distinct issue involves filling gaps so that priests are present in every parish. The question arises: is it better to have as a community’s leader a priest pastor whose gifts are other than pastoral leadership, or a skilled lay pastoral coordinator?

The Vocation of the Laity

Collaborative ministry invites lay persons to live their faith in secular life and activity. The Council outlined this as the principal ministry of the laity, essential for the life of the Church. Again, we assert that when the Church becomes more aware of the implications of living communion, links between collaborative ministry and mission emerge. A community that has opted to work collaboratively encourages its parishioners to be more than disciples of Jesus Christ. It encourages them to be apostles for the transformation of the world.

It is noteworthy that one of the three key assertions in the recent Mission Statement of St. Brendan Parish, Bothell, is that the community is called “to be formed as disciples and go forth as apostles.” An accompanying Vision Statement elaborates, with a picture of what it will look like when their parish mission is fully realized: “Parishioners see themselves as disciples and apostles; they minister through their gifts in their families, in their work, and in the wider world.”

This parish has also stated an objective for accomplishing this goal (and outlines who is responsible to accomplish it): to provide, starting in fall of 2005, descriptions of parish understanding of discipleship and apostleship in the bulletin, on the website, and in the narthex; to offer at least twice a year reflection sessions to the parish on the meaning of discipleship and apostleship; to promote quarterly participation in various prayer and faith-sharing groups; to foster annually Bible Study groups using the Little Rock and other series; and annually to offer a series on Catholic social teaching and daily life.

This is a parish committed to partnership in ministry and to inviting lay persons to live the implications of that as they fulfill their vocation.

Parish Worship which Leads to Transformation

Collaborative ministry needs to be made visible and celebrated in sacramental and liturgical life. This happens when full and inclusive use of all liturgical ministers takes place. It happens when, as a matter of course, congregational response (in sung as well as spoken prayer) is robust. It happens when there are occasional celebrations recognizing those who serve in parish ministries and lead activities. It happens when important events in the life of the parish and of the collaborative team are celebrated.

Meaningful liturgy is served by a commitment to collaboration both in preparation
and celebration. When music is enhanced and ritual moments celebrated with grandeur; when all ministers are trained and fully embrace their ministry; when objects for sacred worship are chosen for their beauty and quality as sacred signs; and when the assembly is formed, this is where true collaborative ministry leads to communion.

Robert Oldershaw comments that “collaboration is a style of performing ministry in a way that is completely based on identification, release, and union of all the gifts in the Christian community so that the mission of Jesus continues.”¹⁰ The assembly, he notes, has the responsibility to discover gifts that are unique to each person, developing those for the good of the whole church at worship. He adds that collaboration with other liturgical ministers, and with the parish staff, is crucial in making sound judgments on who ministers how, when, and where.

Collaborative worship planning will be, and often is, messy, for it requires listening and a willingness to negotiate. It is especially needed when a nondominant group (such as another language group) joins parish worship. Oldershaw makes an important point: “All of our working together as liturgical planners, art and environment committees, musicians, ministers of the word, of holy communion, of hospitality, service – all of this is for one purpose: to get out into the world, be it the workplace, the home, the school…anywhere to bring the Gospel into a world too often bruised and bloodstained. We come so that we may go….”¹¹

His point is that liturgy is a communal (collaborative) undertaking, requiring readiness to yield the floor to others, learning by heart the structures of worship, honoring the primacy of the assembly, recognizing the need for preparation, and embracing the urgency of concern for who sits at the Lord’s table. Oldershaw says that at his parish, St. Nicholas in Evanston, Illinois, collaborative ministry is “rooted in a common vision of church and liturgy and the people who are the church and do the church’s liturgy. … Above all, we strive for a common understanding of what it means to come so that we may go, to be Christ’s Body fulfilling our mission in the world.”¹²

Commissioning of Lay Ecclesial Ministers

A final issue we want to raise is the importance of commissioning lay ecclesial ministers. Today’s theology of lay ministry acknowledges the primacy of baptism as the foundation for this ministry, centered on the building up of the Body of Christ for the mission of the church, namely the transformation of the world and the service of God’s reign. This principle calls for the recognition of lay ecclesial ministries in church practice through a ritual celebration of installation or commissioning.

There is need for a structure of communion that fosters recognition of lay ecclesial ministry in our church today. The principle is clear; what is not clear is how our local church chooses to make the theory real through appropriate commissioning rituals. In the absence of such rituals, communities served by able lay ecclesial ministers are left to choose for themselves whether or not to honor such persons as important ministers in their midst, along with their presbyter.

This issue can be addressed in our local church. The basis for this is found in Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry.¹³ An extension of the principle behind such commissioning has seen other local churches (Fort Worth, Rochester, Oakland, Chicago) recognizing in a ‘diocesan ministerium’ all who exercise an official ecclesial ministry, whether they are ordained or not. Such a structure would provide welcome support and recognition in our own local church.

These seven broad ‘issues,’ as mentioned at the outset, impact us as we seek to work collaboratively in service of our local church – in whatever team or group we find ourselves. How we choose to address them impacts how we express the communion given us as church and how we live it in the vocation to which our baptism has called us.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS

We offer the following recommendations to support and enhance collaboration in our local church.

For the Archdiocese, that:

• The Archbishop’s office assure that commissioning rituals take place for two groups: pastoral coordinators as well as pastors (in installation rites at which the Archbishop or his delegate presides), and lay ecclesial ministers (in commissioning rites at which pastors or pastoral coordinators preside).

• The Office of the Vicar for Clergy review and evaluate transition in parish staffing, with, among other people, CCM members who have experienced that process, so as to create measures that respect what has been achieved in a parish and to prepare for effective collaboration with a newly appointed priest.

• The Archbishop express to pastors or pastoral coordinators written affirmation of, and support for, parishes that opt for a collaborative model of parish governance or staffing (such as the present model at Holy Family Parish, Kirkland).

• The appropriate Chancery department provide annual training programs to sensitize parish leadership and team members in the practice of collaboration, require that at least two of the fifteen CFUs clergy must take each year be in the area of formation for collaborative ministry, and provide reflection on collaborative ministry by resource persons like Archbishop Weisgerber, Zeni Fox, Eric Law, or Paul Lakeland at the Advent Ministry Day or Chrism Day gatherings.

• The Director of Christifideles and the Office of the Vicar for Clergy assure formation in collaborative ministry for: lay ministry candidates in Christifideles, seminarians, deacons, and recently arrived extern priests – by way of retreats, ongoing education, evaluation by clergy and lay people during internships, and placements in parishes modeling collaborative ministry.

• An office of Lay Ecclesial Ministry be inaugurated at the Chancery, with a designate to the Curia.

For parishes, that:

• Pastors, in collaboration with other parish ministers, invite lay persons to live fully their faith as apostles in secular life for the transformation of the world.

• Lay ecclesial ministers be provided the opportunity for speaking publicly about the faith out of which they minister, in liturgical and/or ministerial settings.

• Pastoral teams work to encourage empowerment of the laity, interface with them as partners in a discipleship of equals, and seek to value in parish ministry both lay men and women and parishioners of ethnic diversity.

• The leadership and the pastoral team seek training in, and resources for, serving the parish mission in a collaborative fashion.

• Pastors assure that their community have a functioning pastoral council, finance council, and other leadership groups or governance structures that encourage collaboration; and all involved in these leadership groups seek to work collaboratively to serve the parish.

• Those responsible for liturgy work collaboratively to assure worship that is well prepared, includes a full range of ministers, is filled with actions chosen not for efficiency but for their value as sacred signs, and is geared to empower participants in living Christ’s mission in the world.

V. CONCLUSION

Two concluding observations are in order: one, theological; the other, pastoral.

Theologically speaking, at least three questions hover on the edges of this reflection.

First, how do we institutionalize collaborative ministry? One fairly successful area of renewal has been the liturgy, because, in large measure, we had clear forms to implement. We also had pastors willing to carry this out. What has been missing in terms of ministry and governance have been institutional forms. Pastoral and presbyteral councils struggle with this, as do higher levels of church governance.

Second, how does lay ecclesial ministry entail more than the general ministry of the laity? Does it need a deeper grounding, theologically, than the general role of the laity? What institutional rights and responsibilities go with it?

Third, it is difficult to define lay ecclesial ministry in a vacuum. It needs to be defined in concert with the development of an understanding of the role of priest. If they are really to work together, should not their roles in the church be defined, to some extent, in light of one another? Part of our current challenge is that at least two different theologies of priesthood are operative, one cultic, the other service oriented.

These are questions for further reflection and for ongoing theological inquiry.

Pastorally speaking, one can say that collaborative ministry can be situated on a spectrum. Some in our church, presbyters and laypersons, view collaborative ministry as necessary, indeed, as an integral part of what the Church is. Some might even consider it a revolutionary reformulation of everything the Church is and stands for. Others may choose to view working collaboratively as an option. For still others, it may be viewed as a slow and gentle evolution of the way Church ministry takes place.

This statement is rooted in the perspective that collaborative ministry is an integral way of being Church, and is at work in all the stages of parish pastoral planning. We hope that parishioners and those who serve them, ordained or not (especially any who feel uncomfortable with collaboration), might make use of training resources for developing collaborative ministry. Appendix II offers a short list of printed resources for this.

All perspectives about working collaboratively in service of the gospel need to be recognized. The basis of collaboration, the communion that exists among us because of our sharing in God’s own life, invites us to include and honor different stages of growth and varying perspectives.

What matters is that we live communion in the Church, gaining strength in that task because of our relationship. What matters is that, as we do this, we build a civilization of love. Wherever we might find ourselves on the spectrum, we need to be people of hope. Cardinal Kasper offers an insight on this at the end of his book on leadership in the church:

I myself am one of those who remain incorrigibly convinced by the vision Pope John XXIII set out in his opening discourse at Vatican II, when he spoke of a renewed Pentecost, and I was happy to find the same perspective of hope in John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente in preparation for the Holy Year (1994). Let us listen to the ‘signs of the times’ and bring the wealth of our tradition to a new splendor, in order that we may represent the person and the message of Jesus Christ credibly and convincingly, as an invitation to others, in order that the world may believe.¹

APPENDIX I

This appendix offers several models of collaborative ministry that are, or have been at work in the archdiocese.

Included are:

• A model of parish-wide collaboration.
• A model of cross-cultural parish collaboration.
• A model of collaboration in a parish without a resident pastor.
• Three models of staffing for collaborative ministry.

MODEL OF PARISH-WIDE COLLABORATION

St. John the Baptist Parish, Covington

Duration of This Approach: Twelve years, beginning in 1990 with the establishment of the parish.

How It Worked: From the outset, Archbishop Hunthausen asked that a community of people be built, not a building. The building, when it came, would be the house of God’s People. The Archbishop envisioned an eventual modest parish center, with, perhaps in time, one or two satellite centers in the valley. The focus was on the baptismal call of every believer, on the call to stewardship in its fullest sense. This set the vision, the direction.

Key Ingredients and Results: By coming to a new parish, people knew they could be involved. A key ingredient was intentionality. People wanted to bond, establish friendships, and become part of the parish enterprise. There was palpable excitement. Everything focused on worship, service, and praise. Linking Sunday worship with what we were doing was critical, and from the start (first Mass, first Triduum) we modeled what the vision was by celebrating baptisms at Mass. After the first year, we discovered that half of all registered parishioners were individuals who had not been going to church before joining St. John the Baptist. People who in prior parishes had not been involved in leadership took on leadership roles. When the parish center was eventually built, contributions came exclusively from regular Sunday fiscal stewardship gifts. In 2006, this may be the smallest parish in the archdiocese with a Sunday income of over a million dollars.

Staff Function: People who had a vision of the baptismal call of every believer were sought as staff on the emerging pastoral team. Major staff ministers were drawn from persons who came originally as interns from Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry. The staff operated on the principle that to be a stewardship parish, each minister had to be a generalist with a particular ministry focus. The staff’s goal was to call forth leadership from parishioners. And that happened: the community was highly talented with gifts for management and other forms of leadership. This led to high levels of parishioner involvement.

Strengths of the Model: As long as the community numbered no more than 600 households, its life was filled with a remarkable intentionality. The model fostered a strong sense of identity, of belonging, and of empowerment. It also allowed freedom to grow as a community in new ways of living our ministry.

Weaknesses of the Model: The larger the parish became, the more difficult it was to maintain staff persons who were generalists (since there were substantially higher demands for particular ministries). Also, the larger the parish became, the more the potential for vital parishioner interrelationships declined. The model worked so long as there was a pastor who was relational (rather than only role oriented).

Other Comments: This model called for a pastor who could maintain a sense of balance between our church’s tradition and allowing new developments to emerge. Finally, it raised this important question: How do we create intentional communities today? Maybe the Mormons have it right: when you get more than 500 households, start a new community.

MODEL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PARISH COLLABORATION

St. Mary Parish, Seattle

Duration of This Approach: Almost twenty years, beginning in 1986 with the appointment of the
first English and Spanish speaking priest and the ministries of Anglo and Latina pastoral associates.

How It Works: The philosophy of St. Mary’s is “House of God, Home for Everyone.” With the congregation and the staff, collaboration is both enhanced and challenged by many cultures. A multi-cultural staff works directly with parishioners in all aspects of parish life, including the hiring of staff, long range planning, and day to day decisions. Interaction is rooted in mutual trust of all participants, shared decision making, and independent work. This was evident in the recent remodel of the worship space, which included the entire congregation in planning, discerning, construction and fund raising.  Decisions are made consultatively with discussion among both parishioners and staff, with respect for the canonical authority of the pastor. People try hard to listen to one another. A strong pastoral council (with commissions and a Finance Council) is in place. Active participation by the congregation is encouraged in all aspects of the liturgy and parish mission.

Key Ingredients and Results: Leadership development among the parishioners, particularly those who speak Spanish, is a high priority in, for example, catechist training classes, Cabrini ministry, ‘SALT’ (Scripture and Leadership Training), special classes, etc. This has enabled people to participate actively and effectively in decision making. 

At the same time, the reality of two languages and many different cultures presents certain challenges. It requires a great deal of careful listening to one another, sensitivity to different cultural leadership models, and concerted efforts to build one community through shared social activities. 

Laypersons are active in the liturgical life of the parish as lay presiders, preachers, and planners. The community prays together with a bi-lingual Triduum, weekly bi-lingual Mass, and special prayers throughout the year.

Staff Function: Since 1993, St. Mary’s has had a half-time priest pastor, two pastoral associates (one with primary focus on the Hispanic community), a bi-lingual administrative assistant and youth minister, a food bank director, and a part-time facilities manager. The entire staff meets every two weeks for two hours. One pastoral associate attends deanery meetings with the pastor. Pastor and pastoral associates attend pastoral council meetings, and one pastoral associate attends Finance Council meetings. Pastor and pastoral associates are responsible for pastoral care of the parish.

Strengths of the Model: The model has enabled a small low-income parish (450 households) to accomplish wonderful outreach ministries and a major remodel of the church, while building a strong sense of one community. It has invited the gifts of many people in the worship, service, community building, and evangelization mission of the parish. Perhaps the most profound impact is on parish children who grow up understanding that leadership is shared by all people and requires a deep respect for differences.

Weakness of the Model: The model results in a huge investment of staff time at parish meetings and some duplications of efforts as work is done with two language communities. Coordination requires a great deal of time and effort, as well. The model depends heavily on a pastor who can genuinely share his authority with others, who is confident enough in his own ministry to instill confidence in others’ ministry, and who honestly believes that everyone is here to build the kingdom of God. There is no assurance that a new pastor will bring these gifts.

MODEL OF COLLBORATION IN A PARISH WITHOUT A RESIDENT PASTOR

Holy Innocents Parish, Duvall

Duration of This Approach: From the inception of the parish in 1914 to the present. How It Works: This small community (less that 150 households in 1990 to 500 at present) has always involved partnership and shared ministry, given its makeup as a smaller rural parish. Laity have discovered their empowerment for the life and direction of the parish because there were no resident clergy. Apart from 1979-1989 and again in 1992 for five years, there was no consistent priest present for weekend liturgies. Beginning in l998, the Archdiocese began assigning a parochial vicar to the mission for weekend Masses. As a result, ministries were developed and cared for by lay volunteers.

Key Ingredients and Results: The parish has been somewhat like a foster child. It belonged as a mission first to Monroe, then, to Bothell, then to Monroe again, then to Snoqualmie – until in July 2004 it was established as a parish. 

Parishioners thus developed a sense of keeping the parish alive themselves, in concert with their visiting priests. There was a strong desire to sustain a viable community, empowered in mission and witness. Parishioners themselves provided this stability.

What has resulted is a readiness of parish lay leaders to respect the priests who have served the community, a respect reciprocated historically by the priests. Clergy and laity honor each other’s roles. Instead of competition, there is mutual respect for each other’s ministries in service to the parish.

Other results are an amazing openness and flexibility (one does not hear ‘we’ve always done it this way’ or ‘we’ve never done it that way’); and a genuine sense of hospitality (as the community moved recently into its new church building, a stated value was to maintain the parish as a warm and welcoming community).

Staff Function: For the parish’s first seventy six years there was no paid staff. Volunteers did everything, from facilities management to fundraising, to the ministries of religious education and worship. At present, a small staff includes one full-time lay woman who is effectively in charge of parish administration, maintenance, ministries, outreach, and social events. A second full-time person oversees and empowers liturgical ministries and assists with administration, and the parttime minister has responsibility for faith formation. The team seeks to actively invite parishioner involvement, and the response is universally and immensely generous.

Strengths of the Model: The model has helped the community to be alive and to take ownership for its own life. In addition, the model frees the priest to preach well, serve the sick, and do pastoral ministry – without getting bogged down in administration. Finally, autonomy experienced as a mission parish results in people being ‘forced’ to develop a vision of church, rather than relying on the pastor to set the vision. As a result, the people have a lived experience, which helps them define what it means to be church.

Weaknesses of the Model: There has been virtually no training for this approach to collaborative ministry; the parish and its leaders discovered it as they went along. Further, being served by itinerant priests makes it difficult to connect the branch with the vine: for good or ill, a more permanent pastor can help solidify this bridge.

THREE MODELS OF STAFFING FOR COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY

Holy Family Parish, Kirkland

Duration of Team’s Service: Six years.

Name and Composition: Pastoral Core Team; the pastor and two pastoral associates, the latter also having responsibility for specific ministries.

Function: The Pastoral Core Team is responsible for overall pastoral administration, including: membership on pastoral council and finance council (pastor and pastoral associates), oversight of parish budget, appointment of pastoral associate/s as pastor’s representative at functions within and outside the parish, participation of one pastoral associate with the pastor at Eastside Deanery Meetings, preaching/presiding, service as annulment advocates, funeral ministers.

Meetings: Once a month or when immediate decisions are needed. Extended time is spent away for planning purposes as core team.

Decision-Making Process: Decisions are made on an equal basis and in unison, with the understanding that for canonical questions the ultimate decision rests with the pastor. In the absence of the pastor, pastoral associates manage day to day parish operations, consulting as needed and appropriate with other staff members.

Strengths of the Model: Three people, in collaboration with other staff, make better overall decisions for a 2,000 household parish. Allows forum for broader information on parish life, and allows parish life to continue in absence of pastor. Promotes lay ecclesial ministry and invites broader use of gifts and talents. Includes a female voice and presence in major staff leadership. Offers mechanism for fuller response to day to day issues and concerns. Offers staff choices of three individuals to minister to their needs. Strengthens collaboration with entire parish staff.

Weaknesses of the Model: There is no recognition from Archdiocese for this new form of leadership, which creates a lack of authority other than from pastor. Pastor’s two days off a week can slow decision-making process. None of the members had formal training in this collaborative style of leadership, and there are no bench marks in place locally or nationally to evaluate the model (other than self evaluation). There was some initial resistance from staff to accept the model. Parishioners and staff can tend to look at core team for all decisions, which creates a lack of responsibility for their own decision-making. The model is dependent on the pastor; a new pastor could dissolve the model at will.

Other Comments: The parish is strengthened by responsibility for overall parish leadership residing in not just the pastor alone. A high level of trust is needed among members of the team. A woman’s presence gives a feminine approach to ministry. Members of the team need a sense of the wider church, a variety of life experiences, a Vatican II perspective, and a strong spiritual foundation. For a copy of the rite of commissioning developed when the pastoral associates began service and used at the parish Masses, please contact Pat Ibach, patib@hfk2.org.

Sacred Heart Parish, Bellevue

Duration of Team’s Service: Two years, beginning in March, 2003.

Name and Composition: Core Team; the pastor, school principal, and parish administrator (when
it began, a pastoral associate was a member).

Function: The Core Team takes responsibility for general pastoral oversight of the parish.

Meetings: Monthly, in principle. Two days away are given to assessing our work together as a
group, and also to plan a two day retreat for the entire staff (which numbers 55).

Decision-Making Process: Decisions are made consultatively in discussion and recommendations, but the final decision rests with the person with the area of responsibility corresponding to the decision in question. For canonical questions, the ultimate decision rests with the pastor.

Strengths of the Model: The members, because they are three, are better informed about over-all matters of parish life. Parishioners bringing new requests know there is a forum where their concerns will be dealt with. In a parish of this size (1600 households) with only one priest, the model is invaluable. It also clarifies day to day operations when the pastor is away for his day off, vacation, or retreat.

Weaknesses of the Model: Consultation always slows down the decision-making process, but it remains extremely valuable and avoids making a decision too quickly or without sufficient information.

St. Luke Parish, Shoreline

Duration of the Team’s Service: 19 years, ending in 2002 (the model here described having evolved in the final ten years).

Name and Composition: Pastor and Pastoral Associates’ Group; pastor, and pastoral associates (initially three, then two). Pastoral Associates had, in addition, responsibilities for specific ministries.

Function: The Pastor and Pastoral Associates’ Group was responsible for assuring overall coordinated pastoral care of the parish, including: pastoral associates’ preaching every 6-8 weeks, pastoral associates’ presiding at non-eucharistic funeral rites in the absence of a presbyter, this group’s engagement with team of parishioners in overall liturgical planning for major seasons, being on call as necessary for emergency pastoral care, visiting and praying with the sick and dying, offering counsel and assuring the availability of professional pastoral counseling for troubled individuals or families, welcoming new parishioners by phone calls and at parish welcoming events, fostering and supporting structures for parish life that facilitated shared decision-making, working with the pastoral assistant for administration on pastoral dimensions of administrative questions, meeting together as a group to engage in corporate planning and to address other emerging pastoral matters, and meeting with the general pastoral team and the program team on a regular basis.

Meetings: Twice a month for up to 90 minutes.

Decision-Making Process: Decisions were made by consensus, with decisions on any canonical question being the prerogative of the pastor, having reflected with the team.

Strengths: The model allowed assurance of broad overall pastoral care for the community of 1150 households, enabling that to happen appropriately even if the pastor was not available. It also brought the voices of competent laypersons, including women, to key pastoral vision and leadership. It invited a culture of collaboration in other structures of parish governance and in parish life, and provided a forum for broad reflection on action proposals or pastoral concerns of individual parishioners. It allowed gifted lay ecclesial ministers to share their wisdom, insights, experience, and perspectives with the pastor, and to hear his. It served as a forum for this group to hold itself accountable for its service, to evaluate that service on an annual fall retreat, and to redraft and sign their corporate Ministry Description following their spring retreat. Finally, it enabled the participants to enjoy each other’s company three times annually at non-businessrelated dinners.

Weaknesses: The model demanded many meetings, in addition to multiple other meetings with staff, pastoral council, commissions, and parishioner (including school) groups. For the participants, the demands of overall pastoral care plus other specific responsibilities that each carried in the parish could sometimes be overwhelming. The parish was not used to collaborative ministry or to such a model of leadership. There was no recognition or support from the Archdiocese for this form of leadership.

Other Comments: The model assumed a basic level of trust and respect among its participants; if (rarely) this broke down, added time was needed with a facilitator to deal with appropriate conflict management. The model assumed the team’s congruence of vision on the theology of church, of presbyteral ministry, and of lay ministry. Anyone wishing a copy of the Pastoral Team’s Vision Statement on Collaboration or of the Pastor and Pastoral Associates’ Group Ministry Description is welcome to contact Fr. Roger O’Brien for these at rogerobrien@verizon.net.

APPENDIX II

This appendix offers a few select written resources on collaborative ministry.

• Archdiocese of Seattle. You Are the Branches: Policy and Guidelines for Parish Consultative Structures. Seattle: Archdiocese of Seattle, 1990.

• Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. The Sign We Give: Report from The Working Party on Collaborative Ministry. Chlemsford, Essex: Matthew James Publishing, Ltd., 1995.

• Drilling, Peter. Trinity and Ministry. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991.

• Ferder, Fran and Heagle, John. Partnership: Women and Men in Ministry. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1989.

• Fox, Zeni. “Lay People in an Evolving Ministry: Gift, Response, Challenges,” Church, Spring, 2004, pp.11-16.

• Fox, Zeni. New Ecclesial Ministry: Lay Professionals Serving the Church. Chicago: Sheed and Ward, 2002.

• Kasper, Walter. Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles can Serve the Christian Community Today. New York: Herder and Herder, 2003.

• Lakeland, Paul. The Liberation of the Laity: The Search of an Accountable Church. New York: Continuum, 2002.

• Mahony, Cardinal Roger. As I Have Done for You: A Pastoral Letter on Ministry. Los Angeles: Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 2002.

• Suenens, Leon-Joseph Cardinal. Coresponsibility in the Church. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968.

• Weisgerber, Archbishop James V. “Building a Church of Communion,” The 2005 Philip Murnion Lecture of the Common Ground Initiative, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2005. Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada): Archdiocese of Winnipeg, 2005.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Sign We Give: Report from the Working Party on Collaborative Ministry (Chelmsford, Essex: Mathew James Publishing, Ltd., 1995), p. 45.
2. Leon-Joseph Cardinal Suenens, Coresponsibility in the Church (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 97.
3. John Heagle, unpublished quotation, used with permission.
4. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 32, Austin Flannery, ed. Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, 1975), p. 389.
5. Pope John Paul II, “Address to the Bishops of Pennsylvania and New Jersey” Sept. 11, 2004, in Zenit, Sept. 12, 2004, p. 1.
6. Ibid, citing Pastores Gregis, 44.
7. Ibid.
8. “Address to the Bishops of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, op. cit, p. 2.
9. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry, 2005, p. 33, at www.usccb.org/laity/laymin/co-workers.pdf
10. A Future Full of Hope: Vision, Priorities, and Goals for the Years 2004-2005, Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, in consultation with the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, Seattle: Archdiocese of Seattle, 2004, No. 14.
11. Ibid., No. 17.
12. Ibid., No. 27.
13. Dean R. Hoge, “The Current State of the Priesthood: Sociological Research,” presented at Boston College, June 15, 2005, www.bc.edu/church21/metaelements/ doc1, p. 12.
14. Ibid
15. Ibid., p. 13.
16. Ibid. p. 14

I. MEANING

1. Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Sign We Give: Report from the Working Party on Collaborative Ministry (Chelmsford, Essex: Matthew James Publishing, Ltd., 1995), p. 17.
2. Cited (emphasis added) in The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 4, Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, l975), p. 352. Peter Drilling describes ministry as grounded in mutuality and communion, as is the holy Trinity. “Because the sacrament of baptism has the same effect within each member of the church, there is absolute equality of dignity among church membership…. Each is to be respected for the person he or she is, created equally with everyone else in…the
love of God.” Trinity and Ministry (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 36.
3. “The apostolate of the laity is a sharing in the salvific mission of the Church. Through Baptism and Confirmation all are appointed to this apostolate by the Lord Himself. … Every lay person, through those gifts given to him [and her] is at once the witness and the living instrument of the mission of the Church itself.” Ibid, No. 33.
p. 390.
4. Cardinal Roger Mahony, As I Have Done for You: A Pastoral Letter on Ministry (Los Angeles: Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 2000), Part III.
5. Archdiocese of Seattle, You Are the Branches: Policy and Guidelines for Parish Consultative Structures (Seattle: Archdiocese of Seattle, 1990), p. 14.
6. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, Inc., 1994), No. 910.
7. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 33.
8. Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, No. 1, Flannery, op. cit., p. 766.
9. Ibid., No. 2, p.768.
10 Mahony, op. cit., Part II.
11. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry, 2005, p. 33, at www.usccb.org/laity/laymin/co-workers.pdf
12. Ibid., p. 46.
13. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 10, op. cit., p.361.
14. A Future Full of Hope: Vision, Priorities, and Goals for the Years 2004-2005, No. 15.
15. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 30, op. cit., p.388.
16. You Are the Branches, op. cit., p. 9.
17. Pope John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis. 1992, No. 12.
18. Ibid.
19. Mahony, op. cit., Part IV.
20. Bishops Conference of England and Wales, op. cit., p. 17
21. Ibid.
22. Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici, 1989, No. 32

II. KEY ASPECTS

1. Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Sign We Give: Report from The Working Party on Collaborative Ministry (Chelmsford, Essex: Matthew Jones Publishing, Ltd., 1995), p. 29.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 31.
4. Ibid., p. 15.
5. Ferder and Heagle, op. cit., p. 127.
6. José de Broucker, The Suenens Dossier: The Case for Collegiality (Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, Inc. 1970), p. 16.
7. Archbishop James V. Weisberger, “Building a Church of Communion,” the Philip J. Murnion Lecture, Washington, D. C., June 24, 2005; unpublished text from the Archdiocese of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, p. 5.
8. Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership: Pacific Northwest Regional Symposium Report at www.emergingmodels.org, p. 6.

III. PRACTICAL ISSUES

1. See The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 32, Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing Company, l975), pp. 389-390.
2. Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Sign We Give: Report from The Working Party on Collaborative Ministry (Chelmsford, Essex: Matthew Jones Publishing, Ltd., 1995), p. 26.
3. Ibid., p. 25.
4. Elizabeth Johnson, “Women’s Place,” Boston College Magazine, Summer, 2004 at www.bc.edu/publications/bcm/summer_2004/features.html
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid. Margaret O’Brien Steinfels offers a survey, with commentary on recent books on the challenge of equality among men and women in contemporary Catholic church practice. Included in this survey are Sandra Schneiders’s With Oil in Their Lamps; Faith, Feminism, and the Future; Mary F. Katzenstein’s Moving Feminist Protest Inside the Church and the Military; Joan Chittister’s The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman’s Life; Phyllis Zango’s Dorothy Day: In My Own Words; Jane Schaberg’s The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament; Elizabeth A. Johnson’s (ed.) The Church Women Want: Women In Dialogue; Mary Catherine Hilkert’s Speaking with Authority: Catherine of Sienna and the Voices of Women Today; Mary Gordon’s Joan of Arc; Donna Steichen’s (ed.) Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church; and Sally Barr Ebest and Ron Ebest’s (eds.) Reconciling Catholicism and Feminism?: Personal Reflections on Tradition and Change.  Steinfels concludes her article with a reminder that the Catholic women’s movement “challenges the kind of community the Catholic Church is now” and proposes (again in Schneiders’s words) “a gospel imperative” that is committed “to the full personhood of every human being and right relationships among all creatures.” (“What Women Want”, Boston College Magazine, fall, 2003 at www.bc.edu/publications)

7. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity, Nov. 15, 2000 at www.usccb.org/mrs/unity.shtml
8. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Encuentro and Mission: A Renewed Pastoral Framework for Hispanic Ministry at www.usccb.org/hispanicaffairs/
encuentromission/shtml
9. Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, op. cit., p. 24.
10. Robert Oldershaw, “Liturgy: Collaborative Ministry,” GIA Quarterly, Fall, 2004 (Vol, 16, No. 1), p. 16.
11. Ibid., pp. 17, 42.
12. Ibid., p. 42.
13. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Coworkers in the Vineyard of the Lord, 2005, p. 44 at www.usccb.org/laity/laymin/coworkers.pdf

CONCLUSION
1. Walter Kasper, Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles Can Serve the Christian Community Today (New York: Herder and Herder, 2003), p. 75.