ARTICLES

Ordination's No Object

San Jose Diocese's Continuing Revolution

BY R.T.M. KIERNAN

The January 18 edition of the San Jose diocese's Valley Catholic carried the latest in an ongoing series of articles on the topic of "non-priest 'directors of parish life.'" Articles on this topic appear routinely in the Valley Catholic, but they are not news stories. They seem more like pieces aimed at selling the concepts by repeatedly keeping the topic in the public eye. The latest article's author is executive editor of the Valley Catholic and director of the diocese's office of media relations, Roberta Ward, who also wrote many of the other Valley Catholic articles on this topic. Notably, the diocesan website states that the executive editor of the Valley Catholic "serves as the public spokesperson for the Bishop of San Jose." Ward described the articles as "part of a continuing education for local parishioners" on the role of the director of parish life.

The full title of the January 18 Valley Catholic article is "Non-priest 'director of parish life' being discussed in Diocese of SJ." The article starts by repeating a part of the story that has appeared in earlier articles on the topic — that the San Jose diocese's council of priests originated the discussion about the concept in the mid-'90s. The article goes on to say that "in 2003 Bishop Patrick J. McGrath agreed to proceed with a process to surface qualified candidates who might eventually be assigned by him to lead parish life in specific parishes."

Bishop McGrath's overt support for lay leadership of San Jose parishes was documented in the November 2003 Faith article, "Another Name for 'Pastor.'"

In the latest Valley Catholic article, Sister Pat Mitchell, diocesan director of parish and planning, who is often quoted in articles on this topic, provided a list of guidelines that "apply to leadership pastoral appointments." The guidelines are the only new information in the article. The first so-called guideline is striking in its underlying assumption: "in as much as the bishop is committed to appointing the best spiritual leader, a parish may at times have a priest pastor and at other times a non-priest director of parish life."

Where will the diocese find these the "best" leaders that Valley Catholic claims will be hired as directors of parish life? From graduates of the diocese's Institute for Leadership in Ministry.

Institute graduates only take three years of classes that meet for about three hours on 12 Wednesday nights each year. First- and second-year-students meet for six additional six-hour Saturday sessions. The total amount of time institute graduates spend in classes is approximately 180 hours. Students in the institute are not required to have any amount of previous education. In a June 2003 Valley Catholic article, director Anne Grycz said, speaking of institute students, "a third grade graduate can succeed in the ILM program, graduate and be a natural born leader in his community." In contrast to lay ministers, priests are required to obtain college degrees plus seminary training on the graduate level.

But wait, directors of parish life are going to be "advanced lay leaders" with additional training. In a Valley Catholic article from April 2002, institute director Anne Grycz wrote that the diocese had begun programs for training and formation of permanent deacons and advanced lay leaders as far back as September 2001.

To be a deacon or an advanced lay leader (director of parish life) or pastor, a person must take the first two years at the institute for Leadership in Ministry and then take three more years of advanced courses "under the Institute's Advanced Lay Leadership umbrella." Director of parish life candidates therefore will have five years of part-time training that still does not compare to the years of seminary training that priest candidates undergo.

A related policy change affects all new priests. Even after their seminary training and ordination, if they want to be pastors, they must be trained at the institute as well. An April 2003 Valley Catholic article says, "participation in these workshops does not guarantee that a priest will become a pastor or that a lay leader will become a DPL, but participation is a prerequisite for anyone who aspires to these positions,"

Other noteworthy "guidelines" in the January Valley Catholic article include: "the candidate will be formally installed by the bishop." This seems to imply that the lay directors will be formally installed with a ceremony of the kind used for installing priest pastors. "The candidate serves in conjunction with three priests." There will be "an adjunct priest," who under this arrangement "provides for the sacramental life of parishioners." A dean will be "canonical pastor of the parish," which seems to mean that to fulfill the letter of canon law, the dean would officially be the pastor. This guideline goes on to say the dean's role would only be as "supervisor of the director of parish life." The third priest serving in conjunction with the lay person who, it seems, would be pastor in everything but name, "would be assigned as a mentor."

The Valley Catholic article ends with this: "there are deep issues regarding the traditional perception of who is a leader in the Church; leadership as gift; centrality of Eucharist; availability of priests to become pastors; pastoral leadership stemming from within the community; the reality of fewer vocations to the priesthood; optimum use of clergy; acceptance by the Catholic faithful." [Emphasis added.] These are deep issues indeed.

When asked for comment about these proposed changes, Charles Wilson, executive director of the Saint Joseph Foundation of San Antonio, Texas (an organization that specializes in canon law), said that from his reading of a draft of this article, San Jose diocese's plan to install directors of parish life would be inconsistent with the law of the Church. "In fact," he said, "the job title itself appears to conflict with an instruction approved by Pope John Paul II in 1997." The instruction, Some Questions Regarding Collaboration of Nonordained Faithful in Priests' Sacred Ministry, states that "it is unlawful for the nonordained faithful to assume titles such as pastor, chaplain, coordinator, moderator and other such similar titles which can confuse their role and that of the pastor, who is always a bishop or priest."

Beyond the difficulties with job title itself, Wilson said he believes it would be problematic from a canon law perspective to have a priest bearing the title "canonical pastor" when, for all practical purposes, the functions of a pastor are being performed by an individual who is not a priest.

Wilson, responding to a request for help that came to his organization from a San Jose Catholic, is "working on a draft petition to start the ball rolling on appealing the matter." He mentioned several other dioceses and archdioceses (St. Paul/Minneapolis, Lexington, Kentucky, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin) that had begun to lay the groundwork for similar lay leadership of parishes until his organization's canon lawyers presented cases to Rome that pointed out the irregularities in their plans. As is generally true with these kinds of cases, no official response was received. Rome does not intervene publicly in such cases. At press time, Wilson said he is looking into "exactly what happened to similar schemes that were tried in other dioceses." He believes that plans for lay pastorates in those dioceses and archdioceses have been modified so as to resolve the canonical difficulties or else quietly shelved.

Wilson's organization (http://st-joseph-foundation.org) itself is run by lay people and relies strongly on the Vatican II teachings about the involvement of the laity in the Church. Wilson does not question the need for or appropriateness of lay leadership. He cites mission areas where lay catechists teach the faith, even baptize and witness marriages, when priests are few and far between. What he does question is the institution of a job that puts a lay person in the role of spiritual leader of the parish.

And the Holy See questions this as well. "Thus the ordained priesthood is absolutely irreplaceable," says the document cited by Wilosn. "As an immediate consequence of this there is the necessity for a continuing, zealous and well-organised pastoral promotion of vocations so as to provide the Church with those ministers which she needs and to ensure a proper seminary training for those preparing for the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Any other solution to problems deriving from a shortage of sacred ministers can only lead to precarious consequences."

Wilson's assessment of a need for lay people to be involved in situations where there are not enough priests is similar but not identical to that of a San Jose priest, Father X, who was interviewed on this topic by this reporter, but who requested anonymity. Father X has been sending materials to his parishioners and having informational meetings at the parish about the role of directors of parish life, because, he said, lay people must start leading parishes because of a shortage of priests. The person who in the future may replace him may or may not be a director of parish life, he said, but the change in who leads parishes is coming some time or another. Father X said that he is neither a proponent or opponent of this change; he feels, however, that it is inevitable. The materials circulated at his parish also provide information about how directors of parish life have to get higher wages to compensate for the fact that they do not get free housing.

Sacred Heart parish has had a woman acting in a pastoral role since 2002, under pastor Monsignor Alexander Larkin. The woman, Elizabeth Lilly, is listed at the parish website as "Pastoral Associate." Lilly's bio at the church's website mentions that she is a faculty member of the Institute for Leadership in Ministry and states that she was "a founding member of Parish Pastoral Associates Group of the Diocese of San Jose, a professional organization affiliated with the National Association for Lay Ministry." Confusion about the function of pastoral associates among the public is evident in the fact that the website for Blach Construction Company shows a picture of the church, which the company worked on, and refers to Elizabeth Lilly as the assistant pastor.

Monsignor Larkin wrote the following in an e-mail in reply to questions from me about Lilly's role: "Elizabeth Lilly is the Administrator Pro Tem at Sacred Heart Church. As such she has the responsibility and authority of a DPL. The difference is that her position is temporary. I am on leave from the parish at the moment but still the pastor."

Between the time I sent my questions to Monsignor Larkin and received his reply, I came across a January 8, 2005 San Jose Mercury News article with the news that Monsignor Larkin had been recently removed because of sexual abuse allegations against him by former altar boys at another parish. The Mercury News article includes a quote from Roberta Ward, the diocese spokeswoman. Ward said Larkin was "an excellent administrator who, in 1992, was named director of pastoral ministry, one of the diocese's largest offices," and she said it was a tragedy. This news story and Monsignor Larkin's e-mail account for why St. Nicholas is the only parish listed at the diocese's website without a pastor's name.

Another major issue is that when and if a director of parish ministry is formally installed, the diocese of San Jose will have the equivalent of married parish pastors, many of whom will be women. They will not be ordained, but they will be graduated from the Institute for Leadership in Ministry in St. Joseph's Cathedral, and they will be formally installed by the bishop. And they will be very well paid.

WHERE THEY ARE

Following is a list of San Jose diocese parish leaders already serving in jobs whose titles may be unlawful according to the Vatican instruction cited by Charles Wilson. The information was obtained from the list of parishes posted at the San Jose diocese's website at http://dsj.org and at the individual parish websites.

Catholic Community at Stanford lists one priest chaplain (Dominican Father Thomas DeMan, chaplain: January-May); four women chaplains, including one religious sister (Teresa Pleins, chaplain: director of music and liturgy; Nancy Greenfield, chaplain: marriage preparation; Dominican Sister Gloria Marie Jones, chaplain: director of faith formation), and lists Vivis Colombetti as parish administrator.

Holy Spirit parish in San Jose lists Rosalie Marty as pastoral associate.

Queen of Apostles parish in San Jose lists Marianist Brother William Bolts as pastoral associate.

Sacred Heart Parish lists Elizabeth Lilly as pastoral associate. This parish is the only parish without a pastor listed. Lilly is de facto acting director of parish life.

St. Christopher's parish in San Jose lists Chuck Blalock as parish administrator.

St. Nicholas parish in Los Altos lists Sister Rosheen Glennon as pastoral associate.

St. Victor parish in San Jose lists Jean Dargis as parish administrator and Congregation of St. Joseph sisters Noreen Driscoll and Francis Marie Hansen as pastoral associates.

St. William parish in Los Altos lists Kathy Schlosser as pastoral associate/administrator. The parish website identifies Schlosser as an Institute for Leadership in Ministry graduate.

WHAT THEY MAKE

The diocese's website listed the salaries for all parish positions as of 2004. The high end for a director of parish life is a little over $90,000 a year. Also notable is that a 2004 matrix shows salaries for directors of parish life, even though in 2004 the diocese had none employed.

The following salaries were obtained from the "Parish Compensation Program," published at: www.dsj.org/Uploads/Personnel/ParishCompensation.PDF.

The salaries are at the highest end of those listed in a table called "Parish Compensation Program Position Matrix."

Director of Parish Life I: BA/MA + 5-10 years; $48,389-$72,584.
Director of Parish Life II: BA/MA + 5-10 years; $54,197-$81,296.
Dir. of Parish Life III: BA/MA + 5-10 years; $60,185-$90,278.

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