Enhancing pastoral management: An insider action research at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Capiz

• Main Author: Funa, Marvin F.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/4665
• Institution: De La Salle University

Action research is a theory in action. David Coghlan advocates the so-called Insider Action Research to emphasize the role of an insider at the organization as a central actor or the principal agent in the action research project. Many scholarly works employ insider action research as a promising remedy to address various issues in the corporate world but rarely apply it in religious organizations, like the Catholic Church. This paper presents the accounts of initiating the first insider action research at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Capiz, aimed at three areas for enhancing pastoral management, such as inadequate management skills of priests lack of common parish policies and practices and lack of sound financial reports. This paper also reports the merits of obtaining the hierarchys attention and time in order to carry out substantial interventions, which would eventually produce fruitful effects and necessary improvements. After consultations, interviews, meetings, discussions and efforts of collaboration with priests and seminarians, broad agreement exists among priests that they felt unprepared to handle basic issues in Church administration. Using the four management functions as a framework, the priests recognize the important role of managerial skills in their ministerial duties they prefer being educated or formally trained in management rather than self-taught or trial-and-error management and they are open for change in order to become effective Church managers. As a result, integration of management training in the seminary formation, development of sound financial reports, and proposal to have an archdiocesan manual were key interventions for positive changes. In this study, I found out that enhancing pastoral management demands the balance between ministry (pastoral role) and management (administrative role), interdisciplinary programs in pastoral preparation, professionalized ecclesiastical systems, and opportunities for collaboration between business schools and Church organizations.