Leadership 360: Priests and lay leaders are benefitting from a new assessment tool customized for the Catholic Church
Faith & Leadership
The Rev. Jason Makos had an idyllic start as a priest. After ordination and theological studies in Rome, he spent four years as an associate pastor at a parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, immersed in ministry. He said Mass. Visited the sick. Delivered homilies. Celebrated the sacraments.
“It was great,” Makos said. “It was almost 100 percent priestly, pastoral work. Each day, I enjoyed the priesthood more and more.”
But in October 2010, Makos, then 33, was appointed pastor at the Church of the Holy Ghost in Whitman, Mass. Considered a medium-sized parish in heavily Catholic Boston, the church serves 2,400 families and draws more than 1,100 people to six weekend Masses. The parish’s only priest, Makos oversees an 11-person lay staff, from business manager to custodian.
It was as though overnight he became the CEO of a small business, with more on his plate than just next Sunday’s homily.
“It was an eye-opener,” Makos said.
In making the transition to pastor, Makos has been able to take advantage of a new resource: a 360-degree leadership-development feedback tool customized for use by Catholic clergy and lay leaders.
Makos is one of 15 recently ordained pastors in the Boston Archdiocese who are using Catholic Leadership 360 as part of a new initiative launched by the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management. The feedback tool focuses not on religious or spiritual matters but on broader leadership skills, especially in managing the temporal affairs of the church.
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