Successful Strageties for Just Treatment
Just Treatment for Church Ministers:
Some Strategies That Work
Workshop of Experts Organized by FutureChurch and Presented at National Call To Action Conference. November 1999
“Your contract is invalid,” a Florida pastor said to his pastoral musician the day after Christmas. The musician who had established a youth mass, a flourishing choir and special Advent and Christmas services received her last paycheck on January seventh. A registered letter accompanied it saying her contract was terminated. This was one of several “cases” describing unjust treatment of Church ministers that was reviewed by a panel of experts at the CTA pre-conference workshop: “Just Treatment for Church Ministers: Are There Strategies that Work?”
“I tried to do some intervention for the music director in this diocese and no one would talk to me. This woman had no one to speak for her,” said panelist Sr. Louise Bond, Director of the National Association of Lay Ministry (NALM) which along with the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators (NACPA) has long advocated due process procedures, signed contracts and just personnel policies in U.S. parishes and dioceses. Neil Parent, Director of the National Conference of Catechetical Leaders observed: “Unfortunately there is great disparity between dioceses on the question of contracts. However, a good human resources director can make a significant difference.” NACPA recommends that dioceses should have one human resource person per 100 lay employees. The Florida diocese in question didn’t even have a human resources office according to Bond.
Washington Theological Union canon lawyer Fr. James Coriden spoke glowingly of a diocesan grievance officer in the Pacific Northwest who has successfully settled numerous cases before they went to court. This person has both saved the diocese hundreds of thousands of dollars and brought a sense of justice to the aggrieved. “Not even half of dioceses have such an office yet, but it can make a huge difference,” he said.
Taking another tack, CTA board member and attorney John Ayers noted: “Often issues of justice for Church employees are issues that you and I have a lot more to do with than any pastor could dream of. Pastors don’t have the money. They get it from us … or not. It’s time we took a serious look at whether our parish employees are being paid a living wage and if due process structures are in place. By the time it gets to litigation everybody in the community has lost.”
Fr. Bob Silva, who was once Rector of the Stockton, California Cathedral, and now a former president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, believes priests “want to walk together with our ministers, but sometimes it feels like we’re not partnering, we’re being co opted and that’s got to be brought to the table. Parish priests are some of the most powerless people in the Church. When you look at the issues, they are the same for all of us...which is why we need to stay together as a community of disciples rather than as priests and laity.” He advised ecclesial ministers to accept only written contracts with employment for cause, co-sign the personnel handbook with the pastor, and know who the diocesan due process officer is. He recommended the NACPA handbook: “Just Treatment for Church Ministers” as a resource.
The workshop was co-sponsored and co-facilitated by Mary Louise Hartman of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church and Sr. Chris Schenk of FutureChurch. It concluded with an interactive group process that surfaced financial and formation issues such as continuing clergy and ecclesial minister education, salary equity for poor and rich parishes and the need for empowerment of parishioners to address justice issues.
Just treatment issues are core to FutureChurch’s Advancing Women in Church Leadership Project. With over 30.000 paid ecclesial ministers now serving 20 hours or more per week in parishes, prisons and hospitals and just 18,000 active priests, these issues are not going to go away any time soon. If you would like some positive approaches to working for visibility and just treatment of ecclesial lay ministers in your diocese and parish, send for our organizing packet.