ARTICLES
September 2005 ARTICLES
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Priest, Prophet, and CEO
Conference Proposes Wal-Mart Model for the Catholic Church
BY CHRISTOPHER ZEHNDER
How can we solve the problems of the American Church? Imitate Wal-Mart.
This advice was given by Geoffrey Boisi, a retired former partner of Goldman, Sachs and Co. and the vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase, speaking at a Leadership Roundtable held July 9 and 10, 2004 at the Wharton School in Philadelphia. The roundtable conference brought together "members of the Church hierarchy with leaders from the religious, corporate, and nonprofit worlds to discuss ways to strengthen the governance, human resources, and financial structures and management of the U.S. Catholic Church." Among those attending were Orange's Bishop Tod Brown and Bishop Gabino Zavala, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, as well as Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco, now prefect of the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The conference worked up an 80-page Report on the Church in America, which Boisi formally introduced on March 14 of this year. The report, which outlines recommendations on how to apply better administrative, financial, and human resource management practices in dioceses and parishes throughout the country, will serve as a guide to a new National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, which Boisi also introduced to the world on March 14.
In his introductory remarks at last year's round table conference, Boisi described a three-hour dinner he had had with Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. It was "one of the more interesting evenings of my business life," said Boisi; and he continued: response to a question I asked about the keys to his success, [Walton] leaned over and said, 'Listen to the customers and listen to the employee on the shop floor. My job and yours as leader is threefold: first, reassure them that this is their company, too; second, give them the confidence to speak up, because they will come up with a creative solution to almost any problem; and third, instill in the management the courage to act on their advice.'
"If the leadership of the Catholic Church did that with its laity and religious," said Boisi, "we could solve all our problems in very short order."
Listening is the key, according to old Sam Walton. As a practical demonstration of this, the July 2004 roundtable participants, as Boisi noted, "span our Catholic leadership landscape. You should take comfort in knowing the invitation list was purposefully inclusive from a geographic, philosophical, and demographic perspective." Those included under the philosophical head were "thinkers ranging from George Weigel to E.J. Dionne" (though it is uncertain whether either attended), America magazine's former editor (who stepped down under Vatican pressure), Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, and Commonweal editor Margaret Steinfels. From the list of participants notably absent, however, were members of what some call the "Catholic Right"; most participants seemed to represent the Catholic middle to left professional class.
But this is hardly surprising, since the recommendations adopted by the roundtable conference suggest making the Church run more like a corporation. One will not find in the recommendations calls for democratizing the Church, an overthrow of the monarchical episcopate and priesthood in favor of "people power." No, the "collaboration" models that the recommendations suggest smell more of a board of company stockholders than a plebiscite. We have here nothing so hopeful as a peasants' revolt but something more tedious -- a corporate takeover, for instance, or a parliamentary power play.
The recommendations are divided into two parts, "priority recommendations" and "recommendations for the longer term." As its name suggests, the first division comprises recommendations to fix immediate problems; the recommendations in the second are for the long haul. Both divisions are divided into recommendations for the "national level," the "diocesan level," and the "parish level."
The priority recommendations, while not clearly encroaching on the essential authority of bishops and pastors, nonetheless call for the setting up of structures, or the strengthening of existing ones, that could create loci of lay power in the Church. For instance, one recommendation calls on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to revise the charter of the lay National Advisory Council (formed in the wake of the sexual abuse scandals) to give it the power to "initiate, as well as react to, proposals" before the U.S. bishops. The recommendation calls for regular meetings between the council and the executive committee of the U.S. bishops as well as giving the council the authority of "publicly reporting its advice and findings to the USCCB." [Emphasis added.] Such recommendations not only appear to establish the National Advisory Council as a routine participant in the bishops' counsels but give it the means of using public pressure to influence episcopal decisions.
Of course, the National Advisory Council is not, nor will be, made up of any but "professionals" of the managerial class -- except for, perhaps, a token member of the hoi polloi. The same is true for the management advisory councils, which the recommendations call on diocesan bishops to form. These are to be made up of "experienced lay professionals" who will assist in the "evaluations and improvement of management practices in the diocese." The bishop is to "appoint a chief administrative officer ... with managerial training and experience" to help him (the chief executive officer?) to run the diocese. Parishes, at least the larger ones, are to appoint chief administrative officers, who are "to assist the pastor in managerial functions." The parish equivalent to the advisory council, it seems, would be the finance council, directed by "financially experienced parishioners," who would then train other parishioners to share in their expertise.
The priority recommendations suggest a kind of corporate centralization of the American Church. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the recommendations say, should establish national standards for budgeting, auditing, and diocesan operations. To make sure dioceses remain in compliance with these standards, "Catholic funding agencies ... with the assistance of other private and community foundations, should collaborate in developing a system of accreditation and reporting." This recommendation calls for "an outside professional ... to help implement this system, which should include the publication of a 'report card' on each diocese." Thus, it appears, that bishops who do not agree to join the managerial reform, for whatever reason, may have to undergo a public shaming.
Though some might think that the reforms the recommendations suggest would only affect a narrow category of Church life, the recommendations see choice of "personnel," including bishops, as falling within the managerial ambit. "While recognizing the Holy See's role in the appointment of bishops," says one of the priority recommendations, "the USCCB Committee on Selection of Bishops should, with the assistance of human resource leaders, seek to improve the existing process for selecting bishops. These improvements should include a clear definition of qualifications (including managerial capabilities), face-to-face interviews, and well-informed nominations and recommendations from clergy and laity."
On the diocesan level, the "managerial responsibilities" that will fall to the offices of the chief administrative officer and the management council, are to include "deployment and direction of personnel." According to a priority recommendation, "it is essential to create a strong performance review program at the diocesan level for priests, brothers, sisters, lay ministers, and auxiliary bishops. This program should incorporate (1) job descriptions, (2) agreed-upon goals, (3) formal, 360-degree feedback as part of an annual review, and (4) constructive coaching." A similar review program is suggested for the parish level, as well.
One result of such a review at the parish level may lead not only to lay participation in parish life but lay direction of parish life -- and not just in priestless parishes. "The Catholic Church's paradigm of leadership should be strengthened," says a priority recommendation, by "changing the expectation that all priests must become pastors." But what if it is determined that Father X is not fit to be a pastor, even though he is the only priest available in his parish? The recommendation does not directly say, "appoint a capable layman in his place," but it does call for "assigning lay and religious ministers on the basis of talent and ability to meet the needs of the parish." So, if a lay man or woman is considered more fit than Father X to function as a pastor, could he or she then take on the functions of a pastor in order "to meet the needs of the parish"?
The round table conference's "Recommendations for the Longer Term" call for a "national dialogue to share experiences in dealing with cultural and organizational change." What could "cultural change" mean? The recommendation does not say. It calls on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to induce "prominent Catholic lay and religious leaders who have significant experience in leading and managing influential institutions of substantial scale," both ecclesiastical and lay, to join in this dialogue. These "leaders" should come from across the United States and "should represent the broad philosophical perspectives found within the Catholic Church." Would these "broad philosophical perspectives" include those who call for ordination of women. recognition of homosexual marriage, a democratization of the Church, as well as pacifists and hawks, pro-abortion and anti-abortion Catholics? The text does not say, though the roster of participants of the roundtable suggests this possibility. "Similar periodic regional meetings," however, "should also be considered," it says.
Both the priority and longer term recommendations foresee a Church with more lay control. As we have seen, laymen are increasingly to take over functions previously falling to priests; they are to sit on boards to review a priest's "performance." And a longer-term recommendation suggests establishing "a process for evaluation of homilies." The changes suggested seem to call for a less hierarchical order in the Church; as another longer term recommendation says, "bishops, pastors, and priests should draw on the powerful notion of managing from the middle to increase trust and empowerment and to utilize better the skills and talents of people around them, particularly the laity."
The longer-term recommendations seem to push the notion of Church as corporation even further. A diocese, says one recommendation, is to "look at its parishes as clients (for example, the Detroit Archdiocese replaced the word Chancery with Central Services) to emphasize the role of the diocese in supporting each of its parishes." Seminaries are to train priests "to inspire" and provide them "with a common vision of how a successful parish works." But how does a "successful parish" work? Is there a one-size-fits-all model of the "successful parish" any more than there is such a model for the "successful family"? In the name of "better management" is the Church to abandon local diversity and pastoral creativity for chain store or franchise uniformity? The Report does not address such questions.
But how far conference participants wanted to push the corporation model on the Church is unclear. The Report included statements from roundtable panelists. One of these, Dr. Paul Wilkes, speaking of what he considered as a model parish, said that what was behind its success was "an entrepreneurial spirit," as well as the recognition that though "they are part of a bigger church, they apply its rules intelligently, not dogmatically. They know their customers are the parishioners, and they want to serve them, not just the institution." But in his concluding remarks, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese said that though common view emerged" during the conference "that contemporary American management practices can truly help the Church" and that "management expertise is important and can make a difference," still "there was also agreement that the Church is not a business. Parishioners are comparable to customers, but they're not simply customers any more than they are sheep. Applying secular terms to the church -- whether from business or agriculture -- always boils down to a question of analogy. There are similarities, and there are differences. In areas where there are similarities, the practices of American management -- whether management of nonprofits, businesses, or universities -- certainly can be helpful to the Church."
But if parishioners are similar to customers, in what ways are they similar? And to what degree are bishops and priests similar to businessmen trying to please a clientele? The Report on the Church in America does not clearly say. What does emerge from the statements of panelists, however, is the notion that older, more traditional models of monarchical rule must give way to governing by consensus, as panelist Monsignor John Styrnkowski, the U.S. bishops' executive director of the secretariat for doctrine and pastoral practices, said, or to the model of clerical and lay leaders as "empowerers" of parishioners, as Father Reese put it. How many of the participants agreed with British Dr. David Barker, of the Queen's Foundation Working Party on Authority and Governance in the Catholic Church, cannot be known, but his was one of the more revolutionary of the statements given in the Report. Said Barker, "the urgent need to re-examine the nature and authority of priesthood must address the core problem of a clerical culture that emphasizes ontological differences and sacred power." In other words, in the good doctor's view, not only some of the functions of the priest must be reexamined, but even the essential character of his office itself.