Reflection
Trusteeship, a calling
On 3 December 2021, Mercy Ministry Companions (MMC) came into existence as the entity holding governance responsibility for ministries previously governed by the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia and Papua New Guinea. The community service, education and health and aged care ministries in which you are involved are an important part of the Church’s mission in Australia.
Significantly, the second half of the twentieth century brought a new understanding of co-responsibility for the mission of the Church. Not only bishops, priests and religious are called to ministry in the Church but all its members. This development has seen the emergence of new Church agencies, like Mercy Ministry Companions, which are under lay leadership. In Church law, these are titled ministerial public juridic persons (MPJPs) and their leaders are titled canonical stewards or trustees.
MPJPs are largely autonomous in Church law, similarly to religious congregations. Governed by a council of trustees, they have an exclusive focus on Church ministries. Other Church agencies like, for example, dioceses have a broader mandate while they are under a single authority, their bishop. Trustees can be, and almost always are, lay people rather than the vowed religious or ordained clerics leading other Church authorities. A council of trustees is ‘missioned’ to progress the mission entrusted to them, namely stewardship of an MPJP’s ministries. In exercising their role, they delegate to incorporated boards the governance of their ministries.1
The emergence of MPJPs has been described as “an ecclesial earthquake. It is radically reshaping the way we understand and govern our institutional commitments”. Trustees “are not just caretakers, holding these ministries in trust until some future day when vowed religious emerge to reclaim their historical role. Lay people are now in this for the long haul”.2
The role of trustee is a calling to the stewardship of the ministries entrusted to an MPJP, in our case Mercy Community Services Australia, Mercy Education and Mercy Health Australia. Trustees understand their role as a vocation, answering a call to ministry. This perspective places the invitation to serve and the mission at the heart of the role. In accepting this calling, trustees are cognisant that “We don’t decide what our vocation is, we receive it. It originates from outside us …The stronger our sense of vocation, the more resilient and courageous we are”.3
A fundamental characteristic of the new MPJPs is collegial or shared decision-making and relational practices. This is the manner in which trustees seek to work together. A ‘heart for mission’ is critical to their ministerial journey and trustees actively integrate formation and reflective practice in their activities.
The title of our MPJP, Mercy Ministry Companions, reflects that all involved with MMC – trustees, board directors, executives, staff, clients and volunteers – are integrally part of developing this new MPJP in the Mercy tradition. We might ask ourselves:
- Does my ministry have its focus on companionship for those who work there and those whom we serve?
- How could we better foster relational practices?
Gabrielle McMullen AM
Trustee Director
- Association of Ministerial PJPs, ‘About MPJPs’, https://ampjp.org.au/about-mpjps/#:~:text=MPJP%20structures%20are%20often%20unique,Catholic%20identity%20of%20Church%20ministries.
- CE Bouchard (May-June 2019) ‘100th Anniversary – Sponsors are Called to be Prophets and Reformers’, Health Progress, https://www.chausa.org/publications/health-progress/archive/article/may-june-2019/100th-anniversary—sponsors-are-called-to-be-prophets-and-reformers.
- MJ Wheatley (2002) ‘Leadership in Turbulent Times is Spiritual’, https://margaretwheatley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Leadership-In-Turbulent-Times-Is-Spiritual.pdf.