Adaptive Pastoral Leadership in a Multicultural Church

Abstract

The Catholic Church in the United States is no longer a Euro-American church receiving immigrants. Rather, it is an immigrant church, the cross-cultural Body of Christ. Serving such a diverse church is difficult and complex, providing both prophetic and pragmatic challenges for pastoral leaders seeking to build the parish as a dynamic, relational, multicultural community, living out the Gospel of Christ. The challenges of creating vibrant parishes in the light of growing diversity was the subject of a qualitative research study that interviewed more than 500 Catholic pastors, staff, and parishioners, from 40 parishes across the US. This study discovered that, while parishioners from different cultures want the same things—good liturgy, leadership, community, and faith formation—they want it in culturally distinct ways. This has created challenges not previously encountered by parish leaders. Effective leaders in these communities exhibited the skills of adaptive leadership, learning to put aside biases and assumptions, in a synodal style of ministry in which they listen deeply, and respond to, the needs of their faith community while using intercultural competencies. Together, pastoral leaders are becoming bridges, bringing together the faithful across cultures, enriching the life of the community.

1. Introduction

When asked if the parish council meetings offered translation for the Spanish-speaking members of the parish, the answer from one Anglo member was, “We tried that, but it didn’t work”. This was in a parish that was 90% Latino, with a parish council that was 90% Anglo. Pressed further, the Anglo participant in our research on multi-cultural parishes said, “The Hispanics in the parish want the Anglos to take care of the administrative work of the parish”. No further reasons were offered.

This language problem was a common issue in the churches involved in our national study of 40 multicultural Catholic parishes. Not one respondent in our study mentioned anything about offering translation services in parish meetings. In other words, if the parishioners did not speak English they were disqualified from joining the committee, pastoral council, or finance council. The lack of bilingual members in parish leadership, coupled with the lack of translation services, was just one of the barriers to building an inclusive and welcoming community in these 40 parishes. And that was only the beginning of the challenges.

The Catholic Church in the United States is no longer a Euro-American church now welcoming immigrants. It is, rather, a diverse church of many cultures and ethnicities, a diversity which enriches parish life. For some, this is a welcome change. For others, it is a source of deep struggle. This is the landscape we encountered in the study of vitality in multiculturally diverse Catholic parishes, conducted for the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) and the Conference for Pastoral Planners and Council Development (CPPCD).

After extensive preparation, the authors conducted qualitative interviews from 2022 through 2023 with pastors, staff, and parishioners from 40 parishes located throughout the country. We focused on parishes which had a specific diverse membership, identified as 30% of the registered families. In all, we interviewed people from nineteen Hispanic parishes, an oversampling; nine African American parishes; five Vietnamese parishes, and twelve multicultural parishes with no single identifiable group, other than Anglo, over 30%. Some of these parishes overlapped. We discovered that most parishes, today, have a degree of cultural diversity, and that they differ, not in the traditional activities of a parish, but in how these activities are delivered. Mostly we discovered a rich tapestry of vibrant life and community within the parishes we interviewed.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of this research was the ability to witness both the richness of the diversity in US Catholic churches, and the consequent adaptive challenges. We came to realize, from these conversations, just how much the US church has changed, yet how little the church has adapted to that change. Pastoral leaders serving multicultural communities will tell you theirs is challenging but highly rewarding work. Yet, even with the greatest care and compassion, unexpected roadblocks make for a bumpy journey. They are finding challenges that they have not had to address in the past. Add to this the challenge in the US, of those struggling with multicultural diversity. Parish communities minister to immigrants, both first and second generation, in a politically charged atmosphere. Church leaders speak of demographic changes as “the future of the church”, but the people in our study said that “the future is now”.

2. Research Methodology

Our study, “Exploring Vibrancy in a Multicultural Church”, began with the research question, “What can we learn about parish vitality with a focus on parishes of diverse cultures?” We hoped to study the characteristics of vibrant Catholic parishes through the lens of cultural diversity. Between October 2022 and September 2023, we interviewed pastors, staff, and parishioners from 40 parishes, nationwide. Participating parishes were identified by CLI and CPPCD. With about 350 parishes contacted, and 40 parishes agreeing to participate, the rate of response to participation in the study was about 11.4%.

The research design focused predominantly on Hispanic, African American, and Vietnamese parishes, with an oversampling of Hispanic communities. Using the rubric that a parish had to have registered families comprising at least 30% of an identified culture group to qualify, the study included 9 African American parishes, 19 Hispanic parishes, and 5 Vietnamese parishes. Twelve additional multicultural parishes without an identifiable group over 30% were included. Occasionally there were two identifiable cultures in a given parish, bringing the total of parishes to 40.

The sample varied in ethnicity, size, and regional representation. Parishes came from all regions of the US: Northwest (2), Southwest (13), Midwest (12), Northeast (10), and Southeast (3). They included suburban, inner-city, and rural parishes, which ranged in size from 250 to 5300 families.

Using qualitative research methods (Yin 2009), we interviewed clergy, as well as over 400 staff and parishioners, from the 40 parishes. The design included one-on-one interviews with each pastor and two focus groups per parish, one with parish staff and another with parishioners.

Members of the focus groups were chosen by the pastor of that parish. Spanish language facilitation was offered to all parishes. Six focus groups were conducted in Spanish and interpreted by a person familiar with parish pastoral work. The interviews were recorded and notes taken from each of these interviews and focus groups. These were hand-coded and analyzed using standard coding procedures for qualitative research.

3. Results

Two main aspects of parish vitality surfaced in our study. The first honors the unique landscapes of culturally diverse parishes and the shared adaptive challenges they face. While our findings cannot be generalized to whole populations or individual persons, they give an indication of what cultural diversity in parishes looks like today.

Secondly, three significant leadership lessons surfaced. While they would be effective for leaders of all communities, they are especially needed for those providing pastoral care in multiculturally diverse parishes. Success in leading these parishes requires adaptive leadership. A term from the business community and developed by Harvard professors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, adaptive leadership is the ability to adapt to the ways in which the world is changing, go beyond simple technical solutions, work with members of the community, and together find new ways of moving forward (Heifetz and Linsky 2002). Consistent with adaptive leadership, these leaders practiced synodal listening and dialogue and were open to working with the community to find solutions. Synodality is the call from Pope Francis, after three years of worldwide consultations for the Synod on Synodality, to be a church that listens (Francis 2024). And finally, they developed intercultural competencies which recognize, understand, and handle cultural differences. ‘Intercultural competence’ is the term used by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to describe actions and attitudes necessary to create vibrant multicultural communities (USCCB 2011).

4. Discussion

4.1. Landscape of Culturally Diverse Parishes

Church life today is a changing and challenging story. First, we can affirm that churchgoers of all cultures and ethnicities want a good Sunday experience, caring pastors, engaging faith formation, a variety of opportunities to serve others, and a parish community that cares about them. However, we also discovered that how people wanted these ministries provided varied from one culture to another. To set the context, some of the uniqueness of the cultures we interviewed is described here. Please note, these descriptions are not intended to be generalized to specific individuals or cultural groups. Rather, they are indicators of the cultural vitality that we found in our study.

4.1.1. African American Parishes

We interviewed nine traditionally African American parishes. While African Americans comprise two percent of US Catholics (Pew Research Center 2024), their parishes are home, not only to people of African heritage, but also others as well such as recently immigrated Africans or those from the Caribbean. These historically Black churches tend to see themselves as a sanctuary in a racially charged world, many located in areas that have known the brunt of gun violence, illness, and poverty. Loyalty to the parish community is strong, many coming from generations of attendees. Members who no longer live in the area will drive long distances to go to Mass and be involved in these historically significant parishes. Three areas stood out in their interviews.

• Sanctuary: Each of the African American parishes we interviewed was intentionally welcoming. Attention is placed on treating all comers with respect and dignity. Interviewees spoke of making the church as esthetically pleasing as possible, with attention paid to groundskeeping and decorating with colorful African Kinte cloth. They take pride in statues of Black saints such as Martin de Porres, Peter Claver, or Our Lady of Kibeho known for her apparitions in South Rwanda. Attention is paid to forming the whole person. For example, youth can find mentors, tutors, and sports in addition to religious formation.
• Liturgy-centric: Liturgies are described as joyful experiences, with “lots of participation, exuberance, clapping, shouts of praise, response to preaching, extended signs of peace”,1 even liturgical dancing. Key to this liturgical experience is the music. Choirs sing Gospel or full-Gospel music, often accompanied by Djimbe drums.
• Source of Outreach and Social Justice: While all the parishes in our study mention performing outreach, the groups that most consistently spoke of both outreach and social justice were the African American communities. The outreach went beyond parishioners and would involve, for example, supporting street people, neighborhood children, addicts, or those living in a food desert.

4.1.2. Vietnamese Parishes

Four percent of US Catholics are of Asian heritage, one of which is Vietnamese (Pew Research Center 2024). Five Vietnamese parishes participated in this study. Interviewees reminded us of the arrival of Vietnamese in the US, following the Vietnam war, which set a very unique context for these communities. Experiencing very different traditions and ways of relating was difficult for the earliest arrivals who then found comfort, safety, and solace in worshipping together. This experience also, according to one Vietnamese pastor, made them very aware of the need to welcome newcomers to this country. Three areas of parish life surfaced in our interviews.

• Shaped by the Ancestors and Elders: The ancestors and the elders are deeply revered by Vietnamese Catholics. The pastor is considered the most powerful and respected person in the parish, followed by male elders who must be consulted before any decision is made. This narrative is being challenged as younger generations are immersed in US culture. Elders who have been in the US the longest are “learning to respect and adapt into American culture and not impose their ideas but allow freedom to the younger generations”. Losing these traditions is a source of grief for older generations. Keeping them is a source of tension for younger Vietnamese.
• Rooted in Contemplative Spirituality: Vietnamese Catholic spirituality is devotional, contemplative, and has deep roots in the religions of their ancestral country including Buddhism and Hinduism. Traditional Vietnamese spiritual practices, such as the litany of the ancestors, have been integrated into liturgical services. Especially important is Marian devotion, focused on our Lady of LaVang. Caring for the community is considered part of their spiritual life, with all expected to serve and share their gifts.
• Forming the Children: Ensuring their faith and their traditions are passed down to the next generations matters a great deal in the parishes we interviewed. Parishioners want their children to learn the Catechism and to be placed in their own classes, whether these are taught in English or Vietnamese. Interviewees spoke of the importance and joy of teaching children the old ways, traditional celebrations, and dances marking feasts and holy days.

4.1.3. Hispanic Parishes

Nineteen Hispanic parishes were included in this study. The phrase “many cultures, one Church” is critically important to understand in looking at these parishes. Hispanic Catholics, 35% of the US Catholic population (Pew Research Center 2024), have a common language but, as pastors often reminded us, come from a variety of Latin and South American countries as well as Spain. They represent a wide variety of traditions each with their own cultural understanding of Church and faith. The nineteen parishes in our interviews represent people from twenty-three different countries. They also represent multiple generations, some of which do not speak Spanish.

• Familial Spirituality: Hispanic interviewees express a deep faith in Jesus along with a spirituality rooted in the extended family. Described as a highly devotional piety, this focuses on sacraments, prayer, and love for the Blessed Mother. For those of Mexican heritage, this devotion is focused on Our Lady of Guadalupe. Other countries may prefer other titles for the Blessed Mother. Visible reminders of this devotion, such as flowers left at the Mary Altar or pictures in the home, are important.
• Sacramental Formation and Ritual: Hispanic parents place great importance on the reception of Baptism, First Eucharist, and Confirmation for their children. Quinceanera, the coming-of-age celebration for girls reaching the age of 15, is especially important. While parents want their children to receive sacramental formation, reception of the sacrament is the highest priority.
• Shared Parishes: Interviewees spoke of a desire for a strong relationship with the pastor, preferably one who is a Spanish-speaker. Many Hispanic parishes are “shared parishes”, where the Hispanic and Anglo communities belong to the same parish and share the same pastor, staff, and buildings, but exist as separate. siloed communities, each according to their own linguistic and cultural context (USCCB 2023). Attempts to combine these communities within the parish, especially on councils and committees, are often frustrated by language barriers.

4.2. Adaptive Challenges in Multiculturally Diverse Parishes

While this study did not directly ask participants to identify adaptive challenges, per se, we heard about many ways in which the church and the world are changing. Interviewees spoke about ways that the church needs to change internally to adapt to the external changes that surround them. These discussions allowed us to induce the following list of eight significant adaptive challenges facing today’s parishes.

• Shortage of Culturally Competent Leadership: It is no secret that parishes across the country are suffering from a shortage of priests, permanent deacons, religious sisters, and lay ecclesial ministers. That need is even more pronounced in these multicultural communities. There is a deep longing for clergy and staff who can speak their language; however, the need for bilingual and culturally competent leaders, especially Spanish-speaking clergy and staff, is not being met. Consequently, the church is turning to well-intentioned, and often otherwise educated, but unprepared English-speaking candidates, to fill these positions. We interviewed parishes that were largely Hispanic but neither the pastor nor anyone on the staff could speak Spanish. As one interviewee put it, “We are a mostly Hispanic parish with an all-Anglo staff”.
• Lack of Parishioner Engagement: In our experience, engagement of lay people is an adaptive challenge in most Catholic parishes. In multicultural parishes, once again, that challenge is even more formidable. Diversity has made it more difficult for parishioners to engage because of language or cultural differences. Many participants in our study see the need for more engagement of volunteer and leadership parishioners to emerge, especially from the diverse members of the communities in the parish. The sad irony here is that we also heard from diverse participants in our study who said that their gifts, talents, and ideas are not being fully understood or appreciated. This is often due to the lack of ability to speak the language and practice the competence that is needed from the pastors and parish staff.
• Changes in Technology: Live-streaming has changed the landscape of every parish in two ways: It has increased access for the homebound while also disincentivizing some others from returning to church services or activities. Parishes are looking at possible online formation, especially for teens and young adults. Technology changes also require expertise in social media, which our parishes found sorely lacking in this study. These challenges are even more pronounced in the multicultural parishes in our study. Language and cultural barriers aggravated parish attempts to build culturally accessible websites, to provide online formation, or to use other new technologies that are becoming essential tools of parish life today.
• Generational Shifts: Younger generations are less inclined to make religion a priority in church life across the board in the US today. They are less involved in anything outside of home, friends, sports, and work. For years, older generations have been offering most of the volunteer activities in the parish, often without mentoring the next generation. Unexpected changes such as the pandemic have diminished the number of older parishioners actively engaged in parish life. In the multicultural parishes we interviewed, this problem was even more significant. They experienced the added challenge of cultures that expect young people to embrace the beloved traditions of their cultural group, which often included religious customs, while living in a very different culture. Young adults, many of whom are more likely to be bilingual, are leaving the Church, and few are looking for employment there, further aggravating the shortage of culturally competent candidates for staff positions or leadership.
• Inculturation: Many Anglo members of these multicultural parishes wonder when the cultural groups in the parish will melt into the general population and not require Mass in their own language. This was the path taken by previous waves of immigration. On the other hand, foreign-born parishioners struggle with the loss of cultural practices and norms in general. They find church services in their native language and customs to be comforting reminders of the traditions they miss. They want to continue to hold church services in their native language for as long as possible. Parishes struggle to find the balance between preserving these popular traditions while integrating the cultural groups into the parish. Sometimes even the simplest tasks of orientation of newcomers are overlooked.
• Pace of Change with Growing Diversity: As the world becomes more diverse, the face of the Catholic parish will continue to change even more drastically, as younger generations are ever more diverse. As they become predominantly English speakers, they may or may not retain their parents’ native tongue. The accelerating pace of this change has not yet been recognized by church leaders. It will require a mindset change on the part of the Anglo members of the church, coming to grips with the reality that the church has changed, is changing, and will continue to change, and become even more diverse moving forward. Some people embrace change, but many do not. It can cause challenges, conflict, even polarization.
• Siloes/Divisions: Many organizations struggle with departments, divisions and satellite offices that operate in siloes. The multicultural nature of these parishes lends itself to this type of segmentation. The parishes in our study spoke of the separate nature of the various communities of the parish, and how they operate in siloes. Each of the different groups (based on culture and language) create their own communities inside a parish and often operate as separate units. This happens most often in the “shared parishes” where members of the cultural groups in the parish often feel unwelcome in the English Masses and feel left out of the communication, planning and decision-making systems of the parish. Those who cannot speak English may not be considered for parish pastoral and finance councils, and parish committees. These parishioners are unable to communicate to the pastor and staff what they need, or how they could get involved in the life of the parish.
• Leadership Training and Formation: Because of the language and cultural barriers, diverse parishes are having a particularly difficult time training their parish staff and lay leaders. They explained that most lay ministry formation programs are not offered in multiple languages. Many of the parish staff in our study explained that they were “hired from within”. Typically, they spoke of being a regular parishioner who was volunteering their time or taking the initiative on a ministry in the parish and then hired to do a whole range of ministries without preparation and training.

4.3. Leadership of Culturally Diverse Parishes

Learning about leadership in a multicultural community, whether from designated positions of authority or informal leadership, was a significant focus of our interviews. When asked to name the most important mark of vitality in a parish, more than anything else, all cultural backgrounds named having good pastoral leadership. While leadership can come from anywhere in the parish, most often interviewees started with, “It all starts with the pastor”. There was never doubt in our interviewees’ minds that the pastor is the designated authority figure and one that is expected to show leadership. As the designated authority, then, a pastor sets the style and manner of leadership.

Parish staff, whether quite large, or only a couple of people, handle much of the day-to-day functioning of the parish. The staff members, most paid, some volunteers, were most often recruited by the pastor from within the parish community. They are often given leadership responsibility for specific segments of parish life but also work with the pastor in his responsibilities. Staff speak caringly about their communities and are cared for by them, in return. Both pastors and staff named the expected challenges of ministering in today’s parishes, of providing pastoral care, a sacramental life, and faith formation.

Parishioners, of course, are deeply involved in the life of the parish and may surface as informal leaders in the community. Being a member of a welcoming community was the second-most important factor for people when choosing a parish to belong to, with nearly 90% of the interviewees naming it as a top priority. They want a place where people are “kind and happy”, “engaged and caring”, and “involved with lots of activities”. They long for community, a place where they feel safe and at home.

We discovered quickly that the pastoral leaders of multicultural communities all speak of the additional challenges endemic to ministering in multicultural communities. In analyzing the style and characteristics of the leadership we encountered, three significant skill sets surfaced: adaptive leadership, synodal listening, and intercultural competencies.

4.3.1. Adaptive Leadership

Many studies—particularly by the Pew Research Center—document that the face of the Catholic Church has changed, and continues to change, from a largely white, European church to one characterized by increasing diversity (Pew Research Center 2024). Participants in our study lamented the fact that the Catholic Church has been slow to see this change as something that has already occurred. They noted that church leaders tend to talk about diversity, especially the growth in Hispanics, as something that will happen in the future, not as a current reality. However, pastoral leaders who are adapting to this new reality are those who are able to recognize these adaptive challenges and work towards adaptive change, using the skills of adaptive leadership.

The challenges faced by today’s multicultural communities are problems and situations they have not previously needed to deal with, and for which there are no easy answers, no quick fixes, no technical adjustments that will suffice (Heifetz 1998). They call us to admit we don’t have all the answers. Instead, the emphasis is on developing skills needed to change hearts and minds, behaviors and attitudes, cultural practices and beliefs (Ebener and Jalsenjak 2021). Adaptive leaders recognize they must engage members throughout the parish and local community to find new ways of being together, in the face of these challenges. This requires courage, grace, wisdom and resilience to face the reality of today’s world, to make coherent sense out of it as a team and to call people into an interactive change process. This means leaving a past behind that we loved and taking a leap of faith in God and each other to move toward an unknown future. It calls us, as recognized by the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality, to a “conversion of emotions, images, and thoughts inhabiting our hearts which proceeds together with the conversion of pastoral and missionary activity (Francis 2024).

In this study, we witnessed adaptive leadership emerging from every direction: from the pulpit and the pews, from the clergy and the laity. We saw clergy step up and lead adaptive change, while also stepping back at times to create the space for leadership to emerge from others. Lay people step up and lead, even as, at times, the “old guard” needs to step back to create space for others to take the initiative. This kind of leadership comes when we practice the voluntary, interactive process that intends adaptive change (Ebener and Jalsenjak 2021).

Beyond the work of pastors and staff, participants spoke of the need to develop the leadership potential of people from the diverse communities in their parish, and the challenge of engaging parishioners in activities and leadership in their communities. One Anglo parishioner said, “There is potential for growth if we start getting culturally diverse members involved. Otherwise, this parish is dying”. As one staff member put it, “We need more new people to step up and lead. It is easy to get people to volunteer for simple tasks, when asked, but few will take up a leadership role”. According to participants in our study, one way this can be accomplished is to actively invite people to participate and to lead. “You have to get to know people, what their strengths and gifts are, then ask them to get involved and cultivate people into leadership”.

To encourage more leadership, those in authority can provide (1) protection for those who take the initiative, (2) direction about how change can take place, and (3) support for those trying to lead adaptive change (Heifetz and Linsky 2002). In a parish, this applies not only to the pastor, but also to other members of the community, for example, the chair of the finance council, the women in charge of the kitchen, or the church secretary. Heifetz and Linsky (2002) call this “giving the work back” to the people (p. 123).

Adaptive challenges, such as the eight we list above, require a change in the culture of an organization, changing people’s attitudes, behaviors and practices. Many organizations fail to deal with adaptive challenges precisely because they tend to gravitate toward quick fixes, which are easier to apply but which—at best—provide a partial solution to most of our problems. Changes like these cannot be coerced and require very specific leadership skills. In fact, in the face of a new global reality, the “command and control” approach to such problems no longer works, whether in the church, government, or business, much as people might want this to be the case.

New and complex challenges, such as the cultural change in church communities, call for a new kind of leadership. The words and actions of pastoral leaders help create the structures and culture that determine to what extent leadership can take place. Structures that are less hierarchical can encourage leadership. Cultures that are open to new ideas also encourage leadership. Those with the positional authority in an organization can decide whether to build the adaptive capacity of their people, or whether to hold tightly to the reins of power. People cannot be ordered to become more welcoming, and accepting of, this new diversity in the churches. Adaptive change, in the face of the cultural shifts facing our church communities, requires leadership that is coactive, and co-responsible, involving people at all levels of the organization (Heifetz and Linsky 2002).

To do this, adaptive leaders must listen and listen deeply. Heifetz and Linsky call this “listening to the song beneath the words” (Heifetz and Linsky 2002). Churches need leaders who can listen deeply and collaborate with people at every level of the community and beyond. We experienced this in the interviews. In pastoral language, these adaptive leaders demonstrated the skills of Synodal listening and intercultural competence, which are the next two findings we present here.

4.3.2. Synodal Listening

When asked what advice they would give to those beginning leadership in a multicultural parish, pastors unfailingly said, “LISTEN! Listen and never assume”. Leaders have learned through experience what the Synod on Synodality came to as its most significant conclusion. “Listening is an essential component of every aspect of the Church’s life” (Francis 2024).

By introducing the concept of synodal listening, Pope Francis invited the Catholic Church into exactly the type of interactive process that is required of adaptive leaders. This process reads a lot like a case study in adaptive leadership, which always starts with intense listening. It says we need to be “listening to people inside the Church and on the margins, discerning the signs of the times, and involving everyone in a participative process” (Francis 2021). Synodal participants came to believe that synodal listening will “inspire people to dream about the Church we are called to be, make people’s hopes flourish, to stimulate trust, bind up wounds, weave new and deeper relationships, learn from one another, to build bridges, enlighten minds, warm hearts, and restore strength to our hands for our common mission” (Francis 2021).

The adaptive skills required of pastoral leaders enable them to ask open questions, listen with attention, and involve the people closest to the problem: those who can help identify the problems and surface possible solutions (Schein 2013). These are also the basis of synodal leadership: ensuring parishioners are able to recognize themselves in the life of the community (Francis 2024). While this may be a new concept in the life of the Catholic Church, it is clear that our respondents would agree. Parishioners want a pastor who listens. When pressed for evidence of the pastor’s ability to listen, one person said he was good at “summarizing what the other person was saying and following that up with a question”. Another said they knew the pastor was listening because his vision reflected the ideas and will of the people.

Which leads is to the third learning of our study, acquiring “a greater capacity to nurture relationships: with the Lord, between men and women, in the family, in the local community, among social groups and religions, with all of creation” (Francis 2024). Based on what we heard, we would add good relationships between and among pastors, staff, and parishioners.

What makes this difficult in multicultural parishes are the language and cultural barriers encountered by the pastors and staff. The question pastoral leaders ask is, “How can you listen carefully to your people when you do not speak the primary language of the person in front of you?” A particular challenge in any parishes is providing language accessibility on committees and councils. The challenge of finding and using interpreters can be daunting, especially in the face of the need for expediency in getting work done.

It was not only in administration that this is an issue. These barriers also challenge the pastoral and liturgical life of the community. One pastor spoke of having Masses in three language every weekend: Spanish, Vietnamese, and English. He was bilingual but not trilingual! Vietnamese and Hispanic parishioners especially long for same language leaders. This becomes especially important in providing pastoral care when people want to share their pain and joy in their primary language. One response to this is developing intercultural competencies, our third finding.

4.3.3. Intercultural Competencies

As we have said, many of the pastoral leaders in our study struggled with language barriers, but even more with learning to be culturally sensitive. They understand that their parishioners long for pastoral leaders who understand their culture and long-held traditions. Their love for parishioners came through as they talked about the gift of getting to really know the parish and feeling very close to the parishioners. Pastors and parish staff worked at developing intercultural competencies for themselves and their parishioners. Larger parishes would have staff dedicated specifically to one group or another.

The US bishops’ conference has named a set of skills required for intercultural competence. They include understanding there can be more than one perspective or interpretation of reality, more than one language, and the dynamics of intercultural communication. These require the skills of empathy, tolerance, and adaptivity as well as openness, curiosity, and tolerance of ambiguity (USCCB 2011).

Where inter-culturation is happening, pastors and parish staff are intentionally working towards inclusion and being culturally sensitive. According to our interviewees, cultural sensitivity, a phrase we often heard, is needed. Pastoral leaders learned the need to be present to, and caring for, the diversity of the community. They often spoke of the importance of not making assumptions, and for ensuring rituals and festivities important to a given cultural population.

More than one staff member spoke of studying Spanish in order to better communicate with Spanish-speaking parishioners. Some hosted intentional gatherings or parish-wide celebrations designed to encourage intercultural conversation. Others spoke of the need to build bridges, develop relationships, and call forth new leadership. Some make it a priority to speak/learn the language and understand the customs and culture of parishioners and the local community.

One African American parish told the story of an Anglo priest who was the pastor of a historically Black church for 30 years and was deeply loved by his congregation because “he was willing to immerse himself into the people and the culture of Black Catholics”. They said that this was an example of how the pastor does not need to be the same ethnicity as his congregation but needs to be culturally sensitive and competent.

Participants in our study also spoke about the need to be able to engage in healthy conflict resolution with parishioners, another adaptive leadership skill, especially during parish meetings. Once again, this communication skill requires that the leaders can speak the language and understand cultural differences in dealing with conflict. It is an important aspect of cultural competence to handle task conflict (honest differences of opinion) without allowing it to become relational conflict.

5. Conclusions

The world is becoming increasingly complex, interdependent, secular, multicultural, and unpredictable (Heifetz and Linsky 2002). The same is true of parish life. It requires continuous reflection, dialogue, learning, and action (Glaser 2014). That is the stuff of leadership, a voluntary, interactive process that intends adaptive change (Ebener and Jalsenjak 2021). Organizations need to adapt to these global changes and adopt a new approach to leadership. Religious institutions are no different.

Adaptive challenges require a change of hearts and minds, which requires adaptive leadership. To respond to the eight adaptive challenges facing today’s diverse parishes, strategies are needed to recruit younger and more diverse members, practice authentic hospitality, engage the laity, share leadership, exude joy in the parish community, build bridges across cultural divisions, encourage hearts that burn for social justice, listen with intention and empathy, be mindful of the differences in our cultural communities, and most of all, nurture a welcoming attitude on the part of everyone in the parish so it becomes embedded in the culture.

Religious institutions need adaptive leadership from everywhere, from the pulpit and from the pews. We need clergy to step up and lead adaptive change, while also creating space for lay leadership to emerge. We need lay people to step up and lead, and at times the “old guard” needs to step back to create space for younger members to take the initiative.

Parish vitality looks different in the new global reality of cultural and ethnic diversity. It suggests a need to change our mindset. It calls us to be adaptive, synodal, and interculturally competent. The diverse cultures of today’s parish life add strength and beauty to the Catholic Church. It is time to ‘re-imagine’ what it means to be a parish. The opportunities this diversity present to the Church can be more fully realized if we increase cultural competence, cultural awareness, and language skills among our clergy, parish staff, and parishioner leadership.

Some people might view this seismic shift toward a diverse church as “the future of the church” but research participants in this study clearly demonstrated that “this is the present church, not the future”. The church needs to fully embrace this new reality and adapt to this global change, not only because it affords the opportunity to grow the church, but also because it is what Christian discipleship entails. We are a diverse church, not a church with diversity. We are sisters and brothers in Christ whose faith and lives are intertwined.