Secular organizations seem to get it. The other day I discussed Gordon Brown's resignation because Labour lost the elections in Britain.
That's just how things have to work if you want to succeed: if someone isn't getting the job done, you replace them until you find someone who makes it work, who is right for the situation, who has the talent and skills needed to get it done. That's what you have to do if you are in competition or accountable to stake-holders.
Now I find out that apparently one failing school district decided to fire all their teachers in order to start with a new slate and fix things! The teachers had to re-apply to get their jobs back, and only half would be re-hired.
They're all getting their jobs back after much negotiation now, for better or worse...but the fact that this would even occur to the district (and that even the President of the United States expressed support for the mass firing) shows how accountability and efficiency has to work!
Yet, I get the sad sense that no failing dioceses are ever going to even consider firing all their priests and putting out a call for a whole new slate of volunteers while only re-hiring half of the old. Nor is the Vatican going to remove vast swaths of bishops even though the barque is letting on water at an alarming rate...
Part of the problem, of course, is the shortage due to mandatory celibacy and the full-time model of the current priesthood. You can only be efficient with workers when there is a whole pool of willing candidates you can threaten to replace them with. And yet, without something like this, I see no real incentive for anything but mediocre performance in the clergy.
That's just how things have to work if you want to succeed: if someone isn't getting the job done, you replace them until you find someone who makes it work, who is right for the situation, who has the talent and skills needed to get it done. That's what you have to do if you are in competition or accountable to stake-holders.
Now I find out that apparently one failing school district decided to fire all their teachers in order to start with a new slate and fix things! The teachers had to re-apply to get their jobs back, and only half would be re-hired.
They're all getting their jobs back after much negotiation now, for better or worse...but the fact that this would even occur to the district (and that even the President of the United States expressed support for the mass firing) shows how accountability and efficiency has to work!
Yet, I get the sad sense that no failing dioceses are ever going to even consider firing all their priests and putting out a call for a whole new slate of volunteers while only re-hiring half of the old. Nor is the Vatican going to remove vast swaths of bishops even though the barque is letting on water at an alarming rate...
Part of the problem, of course, is the shortage due to mandatory celibacy and the full-time model of the current priesthood. You can only be efficient with workers when there is a whole pool of willing candidates you can threaten to replace them with. And yet, without something like this, I see no real incentive for anything but mediocre performance in the clergy.
1 comment:
"Yet, I get the sad sense that no failing dioceses are ever going to even consider firing all their priests and putting out a call for a whole new slate of volunteers while only re-hiring half of the old."
you can say that again. and yet, if a school district can do it, why not a diocese? is suspect youre right that it has everything to do with the fact that a diocese wouldn't get 800 willing applicants lining up to replace them
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