By Julie Sly
The Catholic Herald - The newspaper of record for the Diocese of Sacramento
“I’ve been looking for something like this to enhance my ministry for a long time,” says Father Rey Bersabal, pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom.
That something is “Good Leaders, Good Shepherds,” a program for clergy designed to help priests tackle the complex challenges of priestly ministry and be better leaders. The program will start next month for 31 priests serving in the Diocese of Sacramento.
Good Leaders, Good Shepherds, a program since 2006 of the Catholic Leadership Institute based in Exton, Pa., is designed to help priests be better leaders after the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, teaching skills to help them excel as Christian leaders and Christian witnesses. The diocese is one of 42 dioceses in the nation and abroad participating in the leadership training.
The group of priests participating in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds will have their first training module May 4-7 at Christ the King Passionist Retreat Center in Citrus Heights, the first of six modules over a two-year period. They will also meet one day each month in different regions of the diocese.
Good Leaders, Good Shepherds is designed to equip priests with the relevant, practical and pastoral leadership skills necessary to shepherd a parish and support the governing office of their priesthood. During the program, priests learn about the various contexts in which they lead, and specific skill sets within each context that will help them lead most effectively.
Participants are given materials to deal with time management, working with individuals and with teams, and how to create a vision for the parish or institution and a plan to carry it out.
The program follows Jesus as the ultimate model of leadership, believes that prayer inspires and sustains all leaders, and is motivated by the love for the church, according to Father Bill Dickinson, a priest of the Diocese of Cleveland and the national director for leadership development of the Catholic Leadership Institute. He will be present the program to the first group of diocesan priests.
The Diocese of Sacramento is growing, while demographics and community dynamics are changing. While growth and change can be exciting, changes in any form will call pastoral leaders to respond to new leadership challenges and to renew their leadership skills, according to Father Dickinson. These changes are what bring many priests to participate in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds, he said.
“It’s common for priests to say, ‘I lack the confidence to truly lead my people into the future,’” Father Dickinson told The Herald in an interview. “Ministering today is complex and many priests want to better equip themselves to serve their people. Many have never had any leadership training to support their role as pastor. Good formation of leaders takes place over time.”
One of the objectives of the first module in the six-part curriculum, for example, is for priests to learn to recognize their own instinctual behavior and to be able to identify the behavior preferences of others. Understanding the tendencies of certain personalities allows the priest the opportunity to distinguish how to successfully engage, interact and lead a person, group or team to action. Priest participants learn that understanding oneself is critical to leading others.
Priests today deal with a variety of issues that weren’t covered in their seminary studies, said Father Michael Hebda, vicar for clergy for the diocese who helped organize the priests for Good Leaders, Good Shepherds. The priest participants range in age from the recently ordained to experienced pastors, he noted.
“The big draw for all of them is that they want to hone their skills as leaders to serve our parishes,” he said. “In the seminary, they maybe had one class in parish management. They received basically theological and spiritual formation, but they didn’t really learn how to lead in a parish.”
Father Hebda said more priests in the diocese are serving multiple parishes, and young priests are becoming sole pastors of parishes in just three to four years after ordination instead of the traditional 10 or 15 years. “In the past, the new pastor would have had many years of hands-on experience, plus observing other pastors and their leadership,” he said. “Today the situation is much different.”
From their participation in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds, priests will receive “the building up of their self-confidence as a leader of the parish community,” he said. “Because of the skills they will hone in the program, our pastors will have the confidence to be effective in the parish community, encouraging lay people to be involved and collaborate with them in various ministries.”
For Father Bersabal, pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish since August 2008, his hope is to grow as a priest. He is looking forward to the classes in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds, which are ordered around strengthening priestly identity, fraternity and ministry.
“I wanted to be part of the program for my own personal growth, as well as for my present and future ministry in the diocese,” said Father Bersabal, who previously served as pastor of St. Paul Parish in Sacramento for five years and as parochial vicar of St. Anthony Parish in Sacramento and St. James Parish in Davis. A native of the Philippines, he has been a priest since 1991.
As pastor of a parish with more than 3,400 families, he faces many challenges as an administrator of finances and programs, as well as in providing pastoral ministry. “I hope to learn skills that will help me deal with any situation that would arise in my parish,” he said.
Father Francisco Hernandez-Gomez, pastor of St. Isidore Parish in Yuba City since September 2007, told The Herald that administering his parish of some 2,300 families is his greatest challenge as a pastor and the main reason he is participating in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds.
Prior to serving in Yuba City, he was pastor for five years of Sacred Heart Parish in Maxwell, which includes three mission parishes in Williams, Arbuckle and Stonyford, with many weekday and weekend liturgies. Ordained in 2001, he also served as parochial vicar of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Colusa and St. Theresa Parish in South Lake Tahoe.
“I see the program as a great opportunity for my own development and for the sake of my parish community,” Father Gomez said. “One of the most complex challenges I face is dealing with different cultures in the community — to be able to serve everyone in the way they expect us to serve. That’s a challenge for me, but by the grace of God I hope to grow as a person and as a pastor who can lead better.”
As a parochial administrator for the first time, Father Brian Atienza of St. Joseph Parish in Auburn said “it’s a different world right now in running a parish." “On a day to day basis, I work in human resources, budgeting and accounting, yet have to have a sense of how to bring a parish community together,” said Father Atienza, who previously served as director of vocations for the diocese and as parochial vicar of St. Joseph Parish in Elk Grove and St. Philomene Parish in Sacramento. “One of the descriptions I heard for being a pastor is conducting an orchestra with different sections. That about sums it all up.”
He hopes his participation in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds will help him develop a range of leadership skills “to be a more effective pastor in ministering to the parish community.” Even though he is an experienced priest of 32 years, Father Mathew Marankulam, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Anderson for the past two years, said changes in the priesthood continue to demand new ways to help priests minister better.
“The training in Good Leaders, Good Shepherds will help me deal with new challenges and serve God’s people better, and that is always my first priority,” said Father Marankulum, who previously served as pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Susanville for four years and Our Lady of the Snows Parish in Westwood for two years. He arrived in the diocese from the Diocese of Raipur in India in 1999 and served as parochial vicar of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish for four years.
Bishop Jaime Soto said he wanted to bring the leadership building skill curriculum of Good Leaders, Good Shepherds to priests in the diocese as it is both spiritual and pastoral in its application.
The bishop experienced the benefits of “Good Leaders, Good Shepherds” during a seminar with bishops last year, he said.
The seminar “was based on some of the curriculum used in the more extensive program offered for priests,” he said. “The time spent with my brother bishops exploring our different leadership styles was insightful and personally very helpful.”
The program was endorsed by the Priestly Life Committee and the Council of Priests in the diocese, he said, noting that it is also appropriate that the program for priests’ leadership begins during the Year for Priests.
The diocese “is blessed with dedicated, zealous priests,” said Bishop Soto, who is a member of the episcopal advisory board of the Catholic Leadership Institute. “The demands of ministry require them to develop their knowledge and talents so that they can be effective co-workers with the Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his flock.”
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