Let me begin to report on three projects, and use as an introduction a continuation of the theme about how far this organization has come. At least for me, autobiographically, I remember being invited in 2003 to a meeting in northeast Washington by Geoff Boisi, whom I had never met in my life. Fr. Don Monan [Leadership Roundtable board member] called and said, "Would you go to the meeting?" If Don Monan asks a question, I say yes.
I went to a meeting that I was not quite sure what it was about, and it has been a long road, but a very productive road. I think the key thing is, it was the right initiative at the right moment. Not only the right moment in the Church, but also a time in which the kind of standard setting for nonprofit organizations in the country as a whole, religious and otherwise, has been under both scrutiny and intense interest. This organization fits into that framework.
I will report on three projects. First of all, the Work of Hope, renewing and strengthening trust in the Catholic Church in the United States. Secondly, diocesan planning for excellence, and thirdly, performance development systems for the evaluation of personnel in the Church. I will make general comments about the three, and brief, specific comment about each.
Generally, these three projects arise from the earliest days of the Roundtable's discussion. They are at the creation, if you will, and are now finding fruition. Secondly, they are still in process. While all three of them are still a work in progress, during the coming months, they will be publicized throughout the Roundtable. Thirdly, all three of them are the product of collaboration within the Roundtable, but also with groups outside.
Finally, if you look at the architecture of these three, it is interesting. Renewing trust affects the Church nationally. Planning for excellence is a challenge facing every diocese, and then the development of evaluation and personnel and roles in the Church get you inside the diocese and down to the parish. The architecture of these three nicely covers the agenda of the Church in the United States in a particular way.
The Work of Hope, renewing and strengthening trust in the Catholic Church in the United States. What I would I say about this project is first of all, it confronts a major complex challenge that touches the very fiber of the Church in this country.
Secondly, it offers an opportunity for this organization to make a crucial contribution to a task that everybody recognizes, but we are not crystal clear on how we do it. Thirdly, it is still very much a work in progress.
The challenge of this initiative is that ministry is based on trust. You cannot minister without trust. This particular work of the Church is different from other organizations, but every organization needs a dimension of trust. This organization needs it raised to the third power. It is also creating trust in light of obviously the crisis of the Church over the last eight years. Finally, what this organization focuses on is what you might call the temporalities of Church life. There are many things that need to be addressed in order to build trust. But questions of finance, management, and human resources are what the Leadership Roundtable focuses on as a crucial dimension of the larger problem. This work in progress will have more attention during this meeting.
Secondly, diocesan planning for excellence. This is an issue obviously again that every diocese faces. It faces it because of a mix of financial constraints, declining numbers of what you might call Church professionals in the sense of religious, but the arising vocation of Church professionals among laity. It also is a challenge that faces every diocese because of the changing demography of Roman Catholicism.
The most recent report from the Pew Foundation on the landscape of religious life in the United States poses a specific challenge for Catholicism. One third of the Catholics they interviewed have left the Church. At the same time, there is an enormous infusion of an immigrant population that newly comes to the Church. The double challenge of recapturing the third who have left and ministering to those who are just arriving is both a moment of opportunity, but obviously very strenuous standards need to be used.
What the organization tries to do is to develop a model of strategic planning. It draws from strategic planning as it goes forth in other organizations, but it also recognizes the distinctive features and necessities of what it means to be the Roman Catholic Church. At times, we look like IBM, but we are not just IBM. The question is, how you mix and match continuities and discontinuity. Six modules have been produced on planning in general, planning for schools, parishes, mission and ministry, and the development of vision and its implementation.
Thirdly, the performance development system. This was originally entitled "The 360-degree project." It is about the development of sophisticated assessments and performance development of Church personnel. It has been modified from "The 360-degree Project " for two reasons. The existing standards of personnel development in the Church in the United States are so diverse, developed in some places and not in others, that you could not just implement the 360 process. Secondly, there are particular challenges when you are evaluating the multiple roles that make up Catholicism. Ordained, lay, religious lay, how you put those standards together in one place.
Interestingly enough, the organization of the Leadership Roundtable is in a collaborative model with the National Federation of Priest Councils, and the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators. Once again, it is drawing on established groups that are also involved in this work.
Basically, what it tries to do is to develop a model, training standards, training of trainers, and an instrumentality for assessing church personnel and their ongoing performance development. These three projects, as I say, are all works in progress and are subject to more review and consultation. |
