Remembrance of things past, Adelaide’s Pastoral team
Paul Hawkes, BTh. is an active layperson participating in a range of local ministries within the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide. He has a particular interest in ecclesiastical history and in the contribution of the laity in the light of the challenges facing the Catholic Church today. In this article he looks at Archbishop Faulkner’s Diocesan Pastoral Team as a model of governance for our times.
In the darkness of the deeply painful scandal of sexual abuse in the Church and the general disconnect with secular society we are now more than ever looking at ways to mend a broken Church.
Perhaps we should imagine a change to the institutional structure of Church where the individual diocese is administered by a pyramidical structure with bishop at the top, parish priest at the bottom and laity maybe being consulted from somewhere in or outside the structure. Could we imagine a more flattened structure where the bishop governs in a team along with a priest, a religious and a lay person? A team where each member took on a portfolio of responsibilities within the diocese and, as a team led by the bishop, took deliberative decisions as to the overall governance of the diocese.
This movement from unilateral to participatory leadership in the Catholic Church has actually manifested before; only once and it was unique in the world to Adelaide, South Australia.
In 1986 the then recently appointed Archbishop of Adelaide, Leonard Faulkner, along with the College of Consultors and the purely consultative Council of Priests, governed the Archdiocese of Adelaide in collaboration with a Diocesan Pastoral Team instead of the common (post-conciliar) model of governing with the assistance of an auxiliary bishop. This form of governance arose from an already present practice of collaborative ministry in the archdiocese and sought to engender Archbishop Faulkner’s vision of a Community for the World which in its turn was soundly based on the theology arising from Vatican II. The Diocesan Pastoral Team was the centre of the continuing and evolving process of renewal which characterised the post-Conciliar Church in Adelaide and especially pointed to a more considered understanding of the place of the laity in the modern Church. The Diocesan Pastoral Team depended upon this theological vision and operated on the basis of continually testing the authenticity of its actions against the principles of Community for the World.
The recent findings of the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse noted that reports of abusers in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, at 2.2% over six decades, was the lowest number in any diocese in Australia and the third lowest within Australian Catholic Church institutions generally. It was the testimony of expert Catholic theologian witnesses that the fact that Adelaide was relatively untouched by the abuse scandal may well be explained by the different type of governance in Adelaide under Archbishop Faulkner and, particularly, the important and public role which women were seen to have at the most senior level of the diocese.
In Adelaide, the passing of this unique form of open and inclusive governance was regretted by many and recently I was given to understand the depth of that regret. When I left paid work a few years ago I studied for a bachelor degree in theology and for my honours thesis in ecclesial history I made a study of the Adelaide Diocesan Pastoral Team, emphasising the role of the three lay women who, at different times, served on the team. A number of people later suggested that I publish the story, and after expanding and updating my account I published it as Prophetic Pastoral Leadership: The Adelaide Archdiocesan Pastoral Team 1986-2001. (Copies are available from the author: pkhawkes@gmail.com)
Last month I launched the book and many of those attending suggested that the book should be sent to all the bishops in Australia as an aid in their discernment process for the 2020 Plenary Council. Leonard Faulkner’s Diocesan Pastoral Team model addressed a call for change which still resonates with the current sentiment being expressed as to the needs of a modern Church and points to the imperative need to give the laity deliberative as well as consultative roles in ecclesial governance. Thanks to the fact that a number of people in Adelaide put their money where their passion was, this book has now been sent to more than 40 Catholic bishops and leaders in Australia. It is not meant to be a blueprint of how governance should be done but rather it is an invitation to consider the possibilities of what might be done by examining the history of the Catholic Church in Australia.[/s2If]
