Our blogs and website have dealt with leadership. We have reviewed the secular literature for leadership topics and articles. We then attempt to transform that information customizing it to be more relevant for priests. The next several blogs will follow a slightly different format.
We have conducted an original nationwide survey of seminaries to determine what type of leadership training is offered. We hope to publish that in one comprehensive article in the future. Until we can do that, we will release that publication in a serial format in our next few blogs exclusive to our readers. Some may question how this could benefit them, especially at the mid-latter stages of their career. We believe that better understanding of the training our new priests are receiving will be of value to more senior priests who may serve as mentors to them. The first installment follows:
Author Patrick Lencioni, a renowned leadership expert, said in his book, The Better Pastor, “Being the pastor of a Catholic parish is one of the most challenging jobs in the world.” Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago was quoted in an article in Time magazine (6/19/17) as saying, “The demands on their leadership (new priests) are going to be altogether different from their predecessors.” Bishop W. Shawn McKnight in an article on Patheos.com (2011) said, “priests for the future need not only to be good spiritual leaders with solid theological grounding, they also have to be competent administrators and communicators, like Dale Carnegie with an MBA.” Why?
Priestly formation has always been challenging but today’s young priests are encountering issues that did not previously exist. “Leadership development has become more important in recent years as the number of priests has declined and as the time between ordination and the first pastorate grows shorter”, stated author Mark Fischer in a journal article published in 2010.
The four pillars of priestly formation (human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral) that constitute the traditional seminary curriculum leave little time for extensive training in leadership. A negative cycle could arise from this. Seminarians are given little training in leadership so they may not develop the skills or confidence needed. Lacking this confidence, they may avoid opportunities to learn more on this topic. Upon ordination, they have little time or limited resources to gain additional training.
To understand how to best help these young priests it would be beneficial to learn what they are being taught. Published information on what is currently being taught on leadership in seminaries is very sparse and limited. In an attempt to better understand what is being taught in US Catholic seminaries, a nationwide survey was recently completed. This information could serve as a basis to help pastors and parish staffs in their efforts to successfully assist the new priests as they transition into leadership roles.
Survey Design
A three-question survey was sent to 77 seminaries in 23 different states throughout the United States. The questions were designed to gather information on business/management training as well as courses specifically geared to leadership training. In addition, there was a question related to post-graduate training and/or mentoring of priests. The intent of the survey was to determine the type of training being offered as well as the number of courses included as part of the curriculum.
Survey Results
Twenty-six of the 77 seminaries responded to the survey request and provided answers to the survey questions. This translates to approximately a 34% survey response rate. In checking several online sources, this would be considered an acceptable number (range 10-40% on average) for the survey to be valid. The geographic response was also well balanced with replies coming in from 17 of the 23 states initially included, with some states having multiple respondents.
Business and Leadership Course Credit Hours
As can be seen in the above chart, 9 seminaries (34.6%) offer 2 or fewer credits, 1 seminary (3.8%) offers 2 credits, 7 seminaries (26.9%) offer 3 credits, and 9 seminaries (34.6%) offer more than 3 credits. Deeper analyses of the data show that 16 seminaries (59.3%) offer courses that focus specifically on leadership as distinguished from management. An additional 4 seminaries (15.4%) participate or recommend post graduate training with The Catholic Leadership Institute, The Pastoral Leadership Institute or The Pastor’s Toolbox cited. Seven seminaries (26.9%) mentioned structured mentoring within the diocese or in conjunction with local universities/business schools.
The article will continue in our next blog.