In St. Ephrem’s Theological College, Satna, I am taking a course on ‘Professional Ethics’ for the fourth year theology students. As we were discussing in the class room whether there should be an ‘ethical code for Catholic priests’ and can priesthood be identified as a profession, students began to raise different, rather contradictory opinions. The following is an article on the basis of those discussions and some of my personal reflections (definitely, thoughts acquired from my personal readings) on this issue.
Professional ethics, in the simplest sense, is the discipline of applying ethical
principles to professional affairs and relations to determine what is right/
wrong or good/ bad in those affairs and relations. It offers people principles
and guidelines to handle professional situations with ethical priorities in
mind.[1] So, as Velasques notes, it is
“a study of moral standards and these apply to the systems and organizations
through which modern societies produce and distribute goods and services, and
to the people who work within these organizations. Professional ethics, in
other words, is a form of applied ethics. It includes not only the analysis of
moral norms and values, but also attempts to apply the conclusions of this
analysis to that assortment of institutions, technologies, transactions,
activities, and pursuits that we call profession”.[2] It encompass the personal, organizational
and corporate standards of behaviour expected of professionals. According to
Ruth Chadwick, “professional ethics concerns the moral issues that arise
because of the specialist knowledge that professionals attain, and how the use
of this knowledge should be governed when providing a service to the public”.[3] According to S. Kannan and K.
Srilakshmi, they “are moral principles, rules and standard of conduct guiding
professionals in performing their functions”.[4]
In
the present day society the interest in a ‘code of ethics in the work place’
seems to have assumed much importance and we see it everywhere. Each year we
hear more reports of universities and professional institutes offering special
courses in professional ethics and offering seminars on the ethical dimensions
of their profession. But practically very little attention has been given to
the ethical problems arising in the ministry of a priest.[5] “In general, priests, unlike
many other professionals, have no code of ethics to which they can turn for
support and guidance”.[6] Today, many people (faithful)
complain and express their disappointment for lack of professionalism in
priestly ministry and they opine that today we have a lot of confused,
directionless, incompetent, inefficient, insecure, dictatorial or
authoritative, visionless priests. “The idea of priestly professionalism may
make some people nervous and may raise discomforting questions. But people who
are comfortable with it see priests lagging behind in professionalism in their
ministry and service”.[7] In this context, our interest
here is the moral demands that arise from the professional exercise of any
pastoral ministry.
The
trend to make ministry more professional has aimed at improving the quality of
the practice of ministry. But the sense in which ministry can be considered a
profession and how professional ethics can help us to understand the moral
responsibilities of the minister is a controversial issue in itself. It seems
to me that we have more to gain than to lose by qualifying pastoral ministry as
a profession, by expecting pastoral ministers to act professionally, and by
holding them accountable as professionals. Yet, a common objection that we hear
for treating pastoral ministry as a profession is that it is a religious vocation.
As a ‘vocation’, so the objection goes, it is such a unique kind of Christian
leadership that it cannot be compared to other professions. They argue that, to
‘professionalize’ pastoral ministry is to reduce it to tasks and to ignore its
spiritual, transcendent dimension. My conviction is that pastoral ministry as
religious vocation is compatible with pastoral ministry as profession. In fact,
the two aspects strengthen one another. I contend that, because pastoral
ministry is a religious vocation we must even more respect the responsibilities
that come with being a professional as well. Although the ministry may not be
strictly parallel to the other professions in every feature, it is sufficiently
analogous to them to warrant learning from them and drawing from their
procedures and standards, and then adapting where there are true differences. I
am afraid that if we were to cut ministry loose from professional requirements
altogether, we would easily fall into the temptation of saying, “I have a vocation
from God; therefore, rules and expectations that apply to professionals do not
apply to me”. But we must resist the temptation to hide behind a ‘religious
vocation’ in order to avoid fulfilling sometimes demanding moral duties. To
give ministers an exemption from the moral demands of being a professional on
the basis that they have a ‘vocation’ opens the way for all sorts of special
pleading to make excuses for substandard performances or even moral
improprieties.
To
say that pastoral ministry is a vocation means that it is a free response to
God’s call in and through the community to commit oneself in love to serve
others. The communal dimension of a vocation means that the call to ministry is
heard within the Church, is sustained by the Church, and is to serve the
mission of the Church. There is no private, individualistic vocation to
ministry. We are not called into ministry primarily for our own benefit, but
for the sake of the mission of the church. A person’s attraction to ministry
and ability to serve must be recognized and confirmed by the Church through the
bishop. In whatever shape pastoral ministry takes, the communal dimension of
vocation means that pastoral ministers ought to give priority to serving the
good of the community over individual goals.
The
voluntary nature of a vocation means that we must be willingly self-disciplined
so as to subordinate self-interest to serving the well-being of others. The
transcendent dimension of a vocation is that we stand for ‘something more’. As
a vocation, then, pastoral ministry is a free response to our experience of God
in and through the community. Through the ministry, we live a life of service
that promotes the mission of the Church to bring everyone into fuller communion
with God. If we try to understand the history of the development of the
professions, it shows that the word ‘profession’ in its original nous means ‘to
stand for something’. What we ‘profess’ to be, defines our fundamental
commitment to the community. The oldest use of the term ‘profession’ carried
fundamentally a religious meaning. The professions derive from the religious
setting of monks and nuns making a religious ‘profession’ of their faith in God
by taking the vows of poverty, celibate chastity, and obedience. So, making a ‘profession’
and having a ‘vocation’ go together. By the late Middle Ages, through a process
of secularization, non-religious institutions were set up to serve the
functions once provided by the Church. Even though the term ‘professional’ no
longer applied just to religious, it continued to carry the connotation of
being motivated by love to commit oneself to serve the world.
The
trademark of being a professional in the classical sense entailed the
commitment to acquire expert knowledge and skills and to serve human needs with
good moral character. Ideally, then, professionals are to reflect a high degree
of congruence between what they publicly declare to be committed to and the way
they carry out their tasks. They are to apply their specialized knowledge and
skills according to standards of excellence for meeting, first and foremost,
basic human needs and not to be seeking to advance their own interests.
This
classical sense of being professional is lost on many today. It comes from the
negative connotations associated with being professional. For example, when
some hear ‘professional’ they think immediately of someone’s being interested
more in making big money than in rendering a service. For others, being
professional means having the privileges that come with high status in society.
If this is what being professional means, then no wonder some pastoral
ministers resist being identified as ‘professional’. These characteristics all
run counter to what true pastoral ministry is about.
But
being ‘professional’, in its classic sense, does not mean any of these things.
The positive meaning of being professional connotes a specialized competence, a
commitment to excellence integrity, selfless dedication to serve the community,
and to holding the public trust. These are features everyone wants to consider
characteristic of pastoral ministry as well. I agree with Gaylord Noyce, who
concludes his essay, The Pastor Is (Also) a Professional, by saying,
“Thus, rightly understood, the professional tag is not destructive. Quite the
contrary. It can firm up our sense of purpose and our understanding of how to
go about the work of ministry”.[8] Pastoral ministry is a
vocation and a profession means recognizing the moral responsibilities of being
a pastoral minister that arise not only from the social conventions of being
professional but also (ultimately) from the voluntary positive response to the invitation
of God to be his ministers in this world in a very special way.
[1] Cfr. Mathew Illathuparambil, Business Ethics, Macfast
Publications, Thiruvalla, 2005, 41.
[2] M. Velasques,
Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Pearson Education, New Delhi, 2002,
15.
[3] Ruth Chadwick,
“Professional Ethics” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Craig (Ed.), 1998.
[4] S. Kannan,
- K. Srilakshmi, Human Values
and Professional Ethics, Texmann Publications, New Delhi, 2012, 131.
[5] Cfr. Edward LeRoy Long, A Survey of Recent Christian Ethics, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1982, 151.
[6] Richard M. Gula,
Ethics in Pastoral Ministry, Paulist Press, New York, 1996, 3.
[7] Paul Fernandes,
“Priesthood and Professionalism: The Need to Support the Process of
Professional Development in the Church”, in Jnanadeepa Journal of Religious
Studies, 13/2 (2010),166-167.
[8] Gaylord Noyce,
“The Pastor Is (Also) a Professional”, in The Christian Century, 105
(Nov. 1988), 976.
