By Jennifer Rector
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The captain of a ship makes sure he and everyone on his boat reaches their final destination. But sometimes it’s not that easy. A parish, like a ship, needs a knowledgeable captain with detailed charts to navigate its way successfully through financial shoals, spiritual straights, pastoral storms and more.
The Diocese of Honolulu has created a new parish task force to help pastors successfully chart their way through challenging times. The group was created from the experience of the recently completed seven years of reviews of parish and school operations.
The parish/ship metaphor belongs to Father Konelio Faletoi, pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Kailua-Kona and chairman of the task force, called the Parish and Parochial School Vitality Task Force. He said the reviews, conducted by an independent Honolulu-based accounting and consulting firm, revealed which parishes were successful, not only financially, but “functioning at a manner that is good and healthy.”
According to the “healthy parish” page on the diocesan website, factors that can cause a parish to experience decline are “changing demographics, poor management, leadership issues, and lack of efforts to promote stewardship.”
The benchmarks of a healthy parish are a capable pastoral council, a parish financial council, parish stewardship efforts, competent lay employee compensation, repair, maintenance and renovation efforts, schools that follow Catholic teachings (if the parish has a school), a parish budget, the reporting of parish financial conditions, bills paid when due, and generous Sunday giving.
Guide to success
With the parish review process complete, the new Vitality Task Force was formed to keep the momentum going. It is made up of pastors, deacons, seminarians, lay people with financial backgrounds, principals, and office managers.
“It’s a really good group of people, the pastor said, “with different backgrounds.”
The formation of this group is a step in the right direction, Father Faletoi said, considering each parish review costs $5,400.
“That was a concern of many priests,” he said, that money that could have been used for ministry went to the review process.
The purpose of the task force is to write a “playbook” for pastors.
The document would serve as a reference point, said Lisa Sakamoto, the diocesan financial officer.
A parish self-evaluation sheet is how Father Faletoi described it.
The playbook goes to Bishop Larry Silva and his finance and presbyteral councils in early December for their appraisal.
Sakamoto is hopeful it will be in place for use by next fall.
“It will be a journey,” she said. The November 2024 priest convocation could be where the initial draft is presented to all priests.
Said Father Faletoi, “If it’s agreed that we would use this playbook and everyone follows it, great.”
Parishes that are still struggling can always return to the original formal review, he said. Either way will help keep pastors accountable.
“It goes back to leadership. If you got really good leadership helping them [parishioners] grow closer to the Lord, people will be happy to serve in ministries. People will be happy to share their gifts, their time, their talent and their treasure,” said Father Faletoi.
“A healthy parish starts with the leadership, and then trickles down to other parish leadership who support and help the captain of the ship,” he said.