Pastoral assistants subverting the traditional priesthood

Interview with pastoral workers: What needs to change in the Church

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Seeing a need for reform in the church: 

Harald Petersen

Kathrin Baumann

Hans Fellner

It is not a loss of power for a pastor to distribute tasks among several shoulders.

The job description of pastoral assistant has been around for 50 years.  In the interview, three representatives from the District of Miesbach explain what needs to change in the church.

They were created to compensate for the emerging shortage of priests.  When Cardinal Julius Döpfner sent out the first seven "pastoral assistants" in Munich on 3 July 1971, many in the church leadership considered these new positions for pastoral workers who did not want to be ordained to be only a temporary stopgap.  50 years later, pastoral assistants (women have also been admitted since 1976) are active in many parishes or in specialised pastoral care.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of this theological profession, we asked three representatives from the District of Miesbach to talk to us: Kathrin Baumann (52), a pastoral assistant from Miesbach, Harald Petersen (43) from Holzkirchen, who is active in pastoral care for the elderly within the deanery and Hans Fellner (77) from Holzkirchen, who was instrumental in setting up his own training centre for pastoral assistants at the Archdiocesan Ordinariate in Munich from 1979 onwards.

Ms Baumann, Mr Petersen and Mr Fellner, pastoral assistants perform tasks that used to be the sole responsibility of priests.  Does it happen that they are sometimes mistaken for them?

Petersen: It has indeed happened to me, and not just once.  It happens again and again that people address me as "Parish Priest".

Does that honour you?

Petersen: It shows me that ultimately what matters to people is not the office but the way you do your job on the ground. However, that also means that sometimes you are confronted with excessive expectations. Unlike an ordained priest, I have a family myself and therefore more private commitments.  That cannot be reconciled with the high demands that the profession of a priest entails.

However, are not you also saying that only ordained priests should continue to be able to lead a parish community?

Petersen: No. I think it is important that men and women in the service of the Church can decide for themselves which path they want to take.  There are already pastoral assistants who decide to take on leadership positions, not only in the pastoral care of the elderly, young people or the sick but also in the Ordinariate and, more recently, in parish communities.  What urgently needs to change are church structures that blanketly exclude people from certain offices and positions.

Baumann: There really is a great need for reform here.  Theologically, it is no longer justifiable why a woman cannot proclaim the message of Jesus.

Fellner: Fortunately, the pressure from the grassroots is increasing.  Due to the work of pastoral assistants, more and more people are realising: "They can do it too."

Is this a realisation that has already reached the Church?

Fellner: Certainly in certain areas.  More and more parish priests are finding out that pastoral assistants and especially women do not endanger pastoral work but enrich it.  Ultimately, however, much still depends on the people on the ground in the parish associations, how much the team idea is lived out.

Baumann: As long as the parish priests have sole decision-making authority, they also define how much scope the pastoral assistants have.  We here in the Deanery of Miesbach are in the fortunate position of being able to draw from the full range.  However, that is by no means the case everywhere.

Fellner: Everyone simply has to realise that it is not a loss of power to distribute tasks over several shoulders.  On the contrary, this is the only way to create diversity and thus the chance to reach more people with pastoral care.

But this also requires sufficient personnel.  Can pastoral assistants make up for the shortage of priests?

Baumann: No.  As there is not only a shortage of priests but also rather a shortage of pastoral assistants.  That is precisely why it is so important to make the profession so attractive with the reforms mentioned that more young people decide to study theology again.

The recent revelations about the abuse scandal should not necessarily make this easier, do you think?  Who would want to defend an institution that deals with serious mistakes from the past in this way?

Baumann: It is not a question of defending these things.  On the contrary, it is the task of the pastors on the spot to answer people's questions.  Sometimes it also helps to simply say honestly that you yourself are speechless and overwhelmed.  That is precisely one of the strengths of pastoral assistants.  They are perceived as particularly credible because in people's eyes they lead a completely normal life.

Is this a chance for the Church to emerge from deep crisis?

Fellner: The Holy Spirit has always given the Church the vocations it has needed.  It is important to be open to this and not to cling to old, rigid structures that have long since ceased to have any justification - not even in the Faith itself.