Eleven Characteristics of Excellent Pastors
Findings From Among the Roman Catholic Pastors in the Archdiocese of Washington
Across the nation, throughout the Sustaining Pastoral Excellence community, we think, talk, and reflect upon the nature of excellent ministry. Although pastoral excellence cannot be reduced to a simple formula, we must still try to find the words to describe this elusive entity.
In our own project, Sustaining Pastoral Excellence-Promoting Pastoral Excellence, we have spent much of the past few years sifting through extensive research—surveys, focus groups, and interviews—trying to find the key marks of pastoral excellence for Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Sponsored by the Archdiocese, the Dominican House of Studies, and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, this research effort culminated in a list of 11 characteristics of pastoral excellence. Distilled over many months, these characteristics reflect the interplay of qualities, abilities, and values that are required for pastoral ministry. In many ways, this list of characteristics embodies the full range of “catholic” spirit, which attempts to hold in unity a wide spectrum of experience.
We share them with our SPE colleagues, both Catholic and Protestant, as part of our continuing dialogue and in the hopes that they might help us all move forward on the road to excellence.
- 1. Preaches where the Gospel and people’s needs intersect from a personal experience of Jesus Christ and the struggle to be a faithful disciple in a post-modern society.
Excellent pastors have a personal yet very public relationship with Jesus Christ, one that is neither private nor in isolation. This relationship is alive and engaged within the broader culture but always aware of and sensitive to the challenges of faith in what some theologians have called a “post Christian” culture. Even with this relationship with the Lord, however, the excellent pastor is aware of the struggles with belief that many others have. This friendship with Christ and understanding of the tensions between faith and doubt come through in the pastor’s preaching of the Gospel.
- 2. Has a deep love of the Lord and fidelity to the Church and expresses and deepens that love through a reverent celebration of the Eucharist and other sacraments.
Love must be expressed. Our pastors express it through fidelity to the Church and the reverent celebration of the sacraments—especially the Eucharist. Through such expressions, love for the Lord and the Church is enriched and deepened.
- 3. Strives to know the mind and heart of parishioners and takes their joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, triumphs and defeats to heart and to prayer.
An excellent pastor knows his people. Much more than a professional concern for “clients,” this knowledge of the people and their lives penetrates the pastor’s heart and prayer. In turn, carried into the heart, it cultivates the attitude of “pastoral charity” that Pope John Paul II described so well as essential to the priesthood.
- 4. Collaborates with his parochial vicar in the mission of the parish and displays a fraternal interest, and an active role, in his ongoing formation.
Excellence breeds excellence in others. Throughout our research, we repeatedly found that excellent pastors valued and benefited greatly from their relationship with a pastor-mentor and strongly advocate similar mentoring for all priests in the first few years of their ministry.
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5. Collaborates with other clergy, staff, and parishioners and empowers them to service--both within and beyond the parish.
At least two clear leadership skills are absolutely required for excellent pastors. First, they must be able to collaborate with others along an astounding range of competencies. The pastor works with a diverse people, from highly educated and skilled clergy and ministerial professionals to lawyers, doctors and other professionals to poorly educated and unskilled volunteers. Second, the pastor must be able to empower people—whatever their abilities—for service to both the Church and the wider community. Excellent pastors see beyond their parish boundaries.
- 6. Has a vision for what it means to be a people of faith in this time and this place and has the interpersonal skills to engage others in that vision, work through conflict, form community, and lead people in service.
Vision is at the heart of the characteristics of pastoral excellence because it holds together the tension between the present and the future. Vision keeps the pastor grounded—in reality, in the lives of his people, in his own humanity. (See my article Pastoral Vision in Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Newsletter, March, 2006.)
- 7. Prays and listens deeply to God’s Holy Word and to the Church.
An excellent pastor is clearly a person of prayer. His prayer explores both the depth and the breadth of the human experience. He is no hermit. His spiritual life is fueled by his many relationships. Daily, he feasts on the Word of God and the Bread of Life. He embraces a global community with all its grandeur and beauty, its failures and sins.
- 8. Seeks to understand, penetrate, and transform the culture with the Gospel.
An excellent pastor balances the interior life with an awareness of the culture that shapes—for good and ill—his people and himself. Culture can both illuminate and ignore the Gospel. The excellent pastor roots his preaching in the transforming power of the Gospel to break through social conventions and reveal the Kingdom of God.
- 9. Seeks a life of authenticity and holiness for himself and for his people.
Excellent pastors have integrity. Yet, integrity is never enough. As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to holiness. Holiness is not bound by class, gender, ethnicity, or office. It is a life surrendered to and saturated by God’s inexhaustible grace.
- 10. Honors the Catholic Tradition and makes it accessible to his people.
Excellent pastors recognize the richness of the Catholic Tradition and view it as a resource that will help feed the people in their struggle to be faithful in a post-modern society. Excellent pastors are not, however, disengaged academics. They are mindful of their people’s needs and their capacity to appropriate the tradition. Consequently, they may often have to set aside their personal preferences in study, piety, and traditions to instead cultivate those traditions that are most meaningful to the people.
- 11. Embraces the richness of Christ’s ministry—to teach, sanctify, and lead--within his person, his priesthood, his prayer, and his pastorate.
An excellent pastor is aware of both the sanctity of his calling and his own human frailties. He surrenders himself to his ordination in order to shepherd his people in Christ’s name. He labors at his identity as well as his priesthood, his prayer and his work because he has surrendered all that he is—and uses all he has acquired—to serve others in the name of Christ. Excellence is not enough; he desires holiness for himself and his people.
Our Sustaining Pastoral Excellence project is aware of the limitations of our research and, thus, the limitation of our reflections. Our research focused on a select group of pastors, from one religious tradition, in a narrow geographical region of the country, over a two year period. The Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program, however, gave us a unique and privileged opportunity to explore in depth the characteristics of pastoral excellence and how they emerged over time in the lives of our excellent pastors.
The characteristics that emerged from our research are not only rich and textured in and of themselves. They also reveal a lively dynamic among themselves that is at work in the mind and hearts of our pastors as they struggle to be faithful and effective pastors to their people. As with any good recipe, the ingredients alone are not enough; they must come together in the creative and loving dynamic of cooking. Jesus cooked breakfast for his disciples. Excellent pastors do the same.
Donald R. McCrabb, D. Min., is director of administration for the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and project coordinator for Sustaining Excellent Pastors - Promoting Pastoral Excellence.
