Pastors across the country serve two, three, and even seven parishes. With innovation and flexibility, parishes are learning as they go. 

Father Ed Vanorny loves celebrating liturgy with his parishioners-even if that means traveling 185 miles to four faith communities every Saturday and Sunday to do it. "I think every Mass I do energizes me all over again to barrel into the next one," says Vanorny, who was ordained for the Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota 10 years ago at the age of 53. He has been the pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Gregory, Immaculate Conception Parish in Bonesteel, Sacred Heart Parish in Burke, and St. Anthony Parish in Fairfax for three years.

At one time there were 10 priests covering the parishes of Gregory County, which now includes 365 Catholic households in the southeast corner of the diocese. Parishioners were still being served by two priests until Vanorny replaced them, and they continue to adjust to their new pastoral reality. The parish councils and finance councils of two of the parishes have merged, for example, and it is likely that the other two parishes will follow suit.

"The primary issue for me-and the parishioners are very much attuned and sensitive to this-is cutting back on some of the administrative duties I have been doing," he says, explaining that he sees their spiritual needs as his main focus. That "gets shortchanged a lot," he admits. "People tell me, ‘Father, you don't have to visit my mother in the hospital who is dying. We know you have a lot to do.' That frustrates me."

Nevertheless Vanorny doesn't appear to miss much. He travels 2,500 miles each month to visit the two hospitals, nursing homes, and care centers in Gregory County and to be present at events at the three local high schools.

Drive-thru pastors

Vanorny isn't alone in facing the challenges of pastoring more than one parish. About 44 percent of the country's 20,668 Roman rite parishes and missions share a pastor, according to a groundbreaking study conducted in 2005 by Sister Katarina Schuth, O. S. F., who holds the Endowed Chair for the Social Scientific Study of Religion at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, Minnesota. Schuth reported her findings in Priestly Ministry in Multiple Parishes (Liturgical Press).

The highest percentages of multiple parish pastoring are found in a region that includes Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, where 48 percent of the priests serve more than one parish. At 78 percent, the Diocese of Rapid City is second only to the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, where 94 percent of the priests cover two or more parishes.

Schuth discovered that more than 50 percent of priests in four other states were offering pastoral care to multiple parishes: Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, and Idaho. The lowest percentages-less than 10 percent-were in New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Nevada.

"Somehow those numbers have to be addressed," she says. "How are we going to continue this? Who is going to take responsibility? It can't just be left in the hands of church authority. This is a larger church issue."

Among those rising to the challenge are six national organizations that partnered to form the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project with a grant from the Lilly Endowment. Project members researched ministry to two or more parishes, among other topics; results will appear in the forthcoming Pastoring Multiple Parishes (Loyola Press), co-authored by Mark Mogilka, who led the project's study committee on multiple parish pastoring, and Kate Wiskus.

"We're following a path that has not been mapped out-we're finding the answers for ourselves," says Marti Jewell, project director for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project. "What we've discovered is that people are really creative and adaptive as they move into the new situations they're finding themselves in."

That creativity is necessary, she says, because only a handful of dioceses are providing any formal training for people involved in ministry to two or more parishes, despite the fact that this is the solution most often used by U.S. bishops when they have more parishes than people to staff them.

Still, Jewell says, "people are realizing that this is a reality that's happening. They're beginning to realize the need to provide preparation and training."

On-the-job training

This hasn't been, however, the only change to the pastoral landscape.

"Historically the way you learned to be a pastor was to be an assistant pastor for 10 or 12 years-it was a mentoring system," Mogilka says, noting that this is no longer the case. "In my own diocese, [priests] are being made a pastor in two or three years now."

With much of that time needed to learn how to be a good priest, few of these men are able to develop the "prophetic vision" necessary for ministry to a cluster of parishes, he says. Without it, they often find themselves in survival mode.

As more dioceses begin to face the need to plan for multiple parish ministry, seminaries are also entering into the conversation. Many are addressing multiple parish ministry as part of existing classes on parish life and leadership. Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois has devoted an entire course to the subject. Taught by Wiskus, associate dean of formation at Mundelein, it is thought to be the first of its kind in the country.

When graduates of Mount St. Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland come back to visit, rector Msgr. Steven Rohlfs takes them aside to ask, "How did we do? Was there anything we could have done to prepare you that we didn't do?" About two years ago, he started hearing about multiple parish ministry.

"You can't really train men at this level to administer more than one parish," he says. "What you can do is present the issue to them so it gets on their horizon, so they can begin to think about it."

In a yearlong course Rohlfs teaches on parish leadership and administration, "We show them things that have been successful and things never to do if they're placed in these assignments."

One of those "potholes" to avoid is rushing people when the decision is made to link two or more parishes. "I tell them not to think of this as a project-like the fall bazaar," Rohlfs explains. "It takes several years, and they have to use a gentle hand. And the more parishes there are to mesh, the more time it takes."

Job opening

As new models of parish ministry continue to play out, it has become clear that lay Catholics are not only willing and able to make them work, but are vital to their success. Mogilka cites the new position of parish life coordinators as a prime example (see sidebar).