Twenty years from now, if the current low rate of priestly vocations persists, and if today’s aging corps of Catholic clergy is afforded “the luxury of retiring at 75,” more than two-thirds of U.S. parishes will have no priest in residence. So predicted Marti Jewell, a past chairman of the National Association for Lay Ministry (NALM), during a talk that prompted vigorous discussion among an audience of 60 or so, in Gasson Hall on the evening of November 28. Jewell currently directs the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project, based in Washington, D.C., a collaboration of NALM and five other U.S. Catholic associations, including the National Federation of Priests Councils and the National Association of Diaconate Directors, aimed at conducting research on the American parish and piloting new models of parish leadership.

Ongoing studies suggest that the scenario Jewell predicted is already taking shape, with 17 percent of the nation’s 18,000 parishes currently lacking a resident priest. At most of these parishes, Jewell said, a priest from somewhere else—a university, the diocesan staff, another parish—comes by to perform the sacraments. In all, 44 percent of parishes now share a priest with at least one other parish or mission. Jewell’s data drew groans from the audience, which included 10 men who identified themselves as priests during a show of hands.

To the statistics, Jewell added examples and anecdotes of underserved parishes and overburdened priests. Some parishes, she said, offer the Eucharist only once a month, some only at midweek. One priest Jewell encountered serves three parishes in the western United States, each at least 80 miles from the others. Another priest serves two clusters of three parishes apiece, with the clusters sufficiently far apart that he has to maintain two residences and sometimes loses track of his books, his computer, and other professional tools. “Priests in the Pacific Northwest have set down the law,” Jewell said, with doleful humor. “They’ve told their diocese they will not take more than five parishes [apiece].”

In addition to the priestly burnout that can result from serving multiple parishes, clergy and parishioners may be losing the chance to get to know one another, an audience member pointed out. Dividing up a priest’s time among parishes can also lead to inter-parish conflict, said Jewell, who recommended that parishes sharing a priest study how-to books for blended families. (”‘Daddy likes us better, he keeps his clothes here,’” she mimicked. “‘We see him on Sunday.’ ‘We see him on Saturday night.’ That’s an exaggeration,” she said, “but those dynamics are there.”)

Having spelled out the decline in clerical ranks, Jewell then announced what she called “the good news inside the change”: Parishes of the future, she said, will be “total ministering communities,” whose many ministries—led, in the main, by the laity—will include bereavement groups, catechesis, and “peace and justice work.” Already, she said, more than 31,000 non-ordained ministers are employed at least half-time by America’s Catholic parishes, of whom 64 percent are laywomen, 20 percent laymen, and 16 percent religious sisters. (Many of the country’s 15,400 deacons, who are ordained, also serve in parish ministry, in roles such as pastoral associate, but “I do not think we understand the role of deacons in the parish,” said Jewell. “There’s no theology for it, so [their service] is often at the whim of the pastor.”) And then there is the enormous amount of parish work taken on by lay volunteers.

Almost 500 non-ordained ministers currently oversee parishes, said Jewell. Priests of the future will perform the sacraments but encourage parishioners to do much of the rest, including visiting the sick and homebound, leading prayer groups and services, and making many key decisions for the parish. “What pastors are beginning to understand,” said Jewell, “is that their role is less and less to do the ministry and more and more to call forth the ministry of the parishioners.”

While Jewell’s talk was well received, one audience member faulted her for dodging “the question of ordination, and, of course, the ordination of women.”

Jewell answered him by noting that women’s ordination went beyond the mandate of her group’s research, which is to seek out near-term, realistic solutions for the growing priest shortage.

“Can there be a Eucharistic community without the celebration of the Eucharist?” her interlocutor persisted.

“That’s a huge question. Huge!” responded Jewell, though without attempting to answer it.

At a modest reception after the talk, Alvin Shiggs, a member of the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, said he found Jewell’s message heartening. “Our parish is actively involved in the development of lay leadership,” Shiggs said, “so I learned we’re on the right track.” Shiggs’s parish shares its pastor, David Gill, SJ, with Boston College, where Gill teaches classics.

Patricia Boyle, CSJ, MA’90, who trains liturgical ministers, organizes volunteers, visits the sick and homebound, and leads a women’s prayer group and the occasional graveside service at St. Ann’s Parish in Quincy, also spoke favorably of the talk, saying Jewell had sketched a landscape that wasn’t fully understood in her parish or by the Boston archdiocese. “I find what we’re being called to exciting,” said Boyle, “but . . . we’re moving very slowly into the necessary changes. The challenge for me is engaging [laypeople] so that they’ll see their place as more than volunteers: ‘We don’t have any priests, so you’ve got to do it.’”

Three days after Jewell’s talk, on December 1, Thomas Sweetser, SJ, and Peg Bishop, OSF, of the Milwaukee-based Parish Evaluation Project, led a workshop that seemed to take up where Jewell left off, focusing in detail on how lay parish leadership might work in practice. The Parish Evaluation Project is a 35-year-old consultancy that offers its clients (parishes, dioceses, priests) assessments of parish life and guidance in such areas as community-building, administration, leadership, and liturgy. The daylong workshop drew more than 20 priests and lay parish leaders to the McElroy Commons meeting room. Like Jewell’s talk, it was part of a series of presentations on the American parish sponsored by Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Center and the University’s Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

Early in the workshop, Bishop announced what she called its central precept: “that each person has a piece of the wisdom . . . that God can speak to anyone at any time,” implying the necessity of increasing lay involvement in parish work and decision-making.

Toward that end, Bishop and Sweetser outlined a structure of parish governance made up of five “commissions” of six to nine members—one commission each on worship, administration, formation, outreach (visits to the sick, contacting inactive members, peace and justice work), and community life (social events, welcoming, volunteers, men’s and women’s groups). No more than one member of a parish’s paid staff should serve on each commission, said Sweetser, “so that the rest of the commission members don’t step back and let the staff members run it.”

In the Sweetser-Bishop model, an overarching parish council made up of 12 members (“apostles,” Sweetser joked) would include the pastor, one representative from the church staff, and two individuals from each of the five commissions, increasing the likelihood that the council has a solid read on all important parish issues. To spread leadership broadly, each parish council member would serve a single two-year term, said Sweetser, with the terms staggered for continuity.

The pastor would remain “the ultimate decision-maker,” Sweetser said. But, he added, “that doesn’t mean the pastor is the only decider in the parish. Lots of decisions are made without his knowledge. And he can also say, ‘I want to share my authority. . . . I do not wish to have the [parish] council be advisory only.’” During a discussion session, Bishop acknowledged that the changes she and Sweetser were urging on parishes constituted “a huge shift in our culture.”

“We’re effectively asking people to act as adult decision-makers,” commented a layman in the audience. “And they’re not used to that, especially in church settings.”

In a telephone interview a week or so later, Rev. Joseph O’Brien, one of six priests in attendance and the pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit, near Albany, New York, said that he planned to approach parishioners with ideas raised at the workshop. He said he was especially interested in adding more members to parish committees. Broadening the leadership, O’Brien said, makes sense theologically. “If we really believe what we say about baptism and God giving people good gifts to use, maybe we should find a way to use those gifts,” he said. “If we did, can you imagine how rich a Church we would be?”

David Reich is a writer based in the Boston area

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