EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Survey on community living was undertaken in March-April 2019, as one of the preliminary steps in order to prepare supportive materials to facilitate an interdisciplinary reflection regarding community life with a view to strengthening the same within the Congregation, as mandated by the XXV General Chapter (MS 70.5).
The Survey consisted of 10 items (8 closed and 2 open-ended questions) and was formatted and distributed via www.surveymonkey.com/ to the members of the Congregation. 720 members responded to the survey, giving a return rate of around 32%, which corresponds to the average return rates for surveys. Of these 720, 71.7% identified themselves as members of a team ministry; 24.8% as individuals working on a specific ministry given by and received from the community; and 3.5% as seniors who join in community mission through their ministry of intercession and offering up of suffering.
The Survey has generally returned favorable indicators on community living. The respondents believe that there is a fairly good sense among members as to their vocation being a co-vocation through common life and mission shared in community. There is a fairly good level of appreciation, welcome, and integration of personal and cultural differences of individuals within communities. Respondents overwhelmingly consider themselves to be fairly good to very good in being appreciative and affirming of other members in their communities.
However, the quality of giving and receiving of fraternal encouragement and correction within Major Organisms is mostly average, indicating room for improvement. The use of guidance and power in the exercise of authority within Major Organisms too is just above average, indicating another area where life can be bettered. The disparity among some of the parameters begs the question: Is our being happy and affirming of one another in community predicated on members not willing to offer and receive fraternal correction constructively?
Of the challenges presented for rank-ordering, growing individualism has been identified the greatest challenge over and above every other challenge. Difficulties in intercultural and intergenerational living as well as the influx of social media reducing quality of community life are the next two challenges identified. As to the accentuations (emphases) the Congregation has embraced for itself, the participants believe that community being called and sent forth by the Word of God, life in communion as the first act of mission, and community configured by the Mission as the most important accentuations in the given life-world of the Congregation.
The final two open-ended items sought to tap practical ways members have been contributing to and must contribute to creating joyful and missionary communities. Some of the most valued ways are related to the ministry of presence; shared prayer, liturgy, ministry, and recreation; respect, valuing, listening to, and appreciating the other; availability; dialogue; and love and forgiveness.
ITEM-WISE DETAILED ANALYSIS
- Constitutions #13 speaks of three ways of being a community in mission. Which one is the way you are currently engaged in?
Total Number of Respondents: 709 (Skipped: 11)
| Nº | Category of Respondents | Numbers | Percentage |
| a. | As member of a team associated in a common ministry | 508 | 71.7% |
| b. | As an individual working on a particular ministry received from my community | 176 | 24.8% |
| c. | As a person who prays and suffers on behalf of the Church in my illness and/or in my senior years. | 25 | 3.5% |
| TOTAL | 709 | 100% |
Key Insights:
- Given that the survey was sent out/accessed by mostly priests and permanent brothers (and not by professed students), we can conservatively conclude that the return rate of the survey (720 respondents in total) is around 32%, which is a fairly normal rate of response to surveys.
- Majority of the respondents consider themselves “team members” sharing in a common mission and ministry.
- 1/4th of the respondents is engaged in individual ministry, however, with a sense of having received it from the community.
- Very few members who are sick and aged have responded to the survey, which is understandable given their physical condition and/or unfamiliarity with online platforms.
- Constitutions n.7 speaks of our Claretian missionary vocation as co-vocation in common life and same mission. How well has this “shared vocation” been realized in your local community?
Total Number of Respondents: 713 (Skipped: 07)
| Response Categories à | Very poorly | Poorly | Average | Fairly Well | Very Well | Weighted
Average |
| Nº of Respondents à | 14 | 48 | 179 | 364 | 108 | 3.73
= Close to Fairly Well |
| Percentage
à |
1.96% | 6.73% | 25.11% | 51.05% | 15.15% |
Key Insights:
- The weighted average of 3.73 indicates that the sense of one’s vocation as shared vocation in common life and mission is fairly good in the Congregation.
- 2/3rd of the participants (66.20%) consider this sense of shared vocation to be fairly good to very good.
- How well are personal and cultural differences appreciated, welcomed, and integrated in your community so as to live fraternal unity in the diversity of gifts?
Total Number of Respondents: 713 (Skipped: 07)
| Response Categories à | Very poorly | Poorly | Average | Fairly Well | Very Well | Weighted
Average |
| Nº of Respondents à | 14 | 49 | 154 | 364 | 132 | 3.84
= Close to Fairly Well |
| Percentage
à |
1.96% | 6.87% | 21.60% | 51.05% | 18.52% |
Key Insights:
- The weighted average of 3.84 indicates that the respondents believe that generally there is a fairly good ambience of welcome and appreciation of personal and cultural diversity in communities.
- Slightly more than 2/3rd of the participants (69.57%) consider this sense of appreciation and integration of diversity to be fairly good to very good.
- There is a congruence in the response rates between the sense of shared vocation and the appreciation of diversity.
- Frankly, how appreciative and affirming have you been towards other members in the local communities in which you have lived so far?
Total Number of Respondents: 711 (Skipped: 09)
| Response Categories à | Very poor | Poor | Average | Good | Very good | Weighted
Average |
| Nº of Respondents à | 7 | 26 | 135 | 426 | 117 | 3.88
= Close to Fairly Well |
| Percentage
à |
0.98% | 3.66% | 18.99% | 59.92% | 16.45% |
Key Insights:
- The respondents generally think of themselves as appreciative and affirming of other members of their community. The weighted average of 3.88 indicates that they are fairly good in such attitude towards their community members.
- 3/4th of the respondents (76.37%) consider themselves to be fairly good to very good in being appreciative and affirming of their brothers in community.
- There is a congruence in the response rates among the sense of shared vocation, appreciation of diversity in community, and members being appreciative and affirming of one another.
- How well is mutual fraternal encouragement and correction given and received in your Major Organism?
Total Number of Respondents: 708 (Skipped: 12)
| Response Categories à | Very poorly | Poorly | Average | Fairly Well | Very Well | Weighted
Average |
| Nº of Respondents à | 37 | 141 | 254 | 233 | 43 | 3.31
= Average |
| Percentage
à |
5.23% | 19.92% | 35.87% | 32.91% | 6.07% |
Key Insights:
- With regards offering and reception of fraternal encouragement and correction within the Major Organisms, there is a lot to be desired. The weighted average of 3.31 indicates that members are only average in their skills of effectively offering and receiving mutual correction or encouragement.
- 1/4h of the respondents (25.15%) believe that the members are poor to very poor in skillfully and fruitfully offering and receiving fraternal correction and encouragement.
- In comparison with the parameters discussed before, one may ask the following questions for self-reflection:
- Is our being happy and affirming of one another in community predicated on members not willing to offer and receive fraternal correction constructively?
- What can be done to be open to giving and receiving corrections, and be a loving and affirming community?
- How constructively do Claretians in general use guidance and power in the exercise of authority (superiors, parish priests, directors of institutions, etc.) in your Major Organism?
Total Number of Respondents: 713 (Skipped: 07)
| Response Categories à | Very poorly | Poorly | Average | Fairly Well | Very Well | Weighted
Average |
| Nº of Respondents à | 27 | 58 | 258 | 340 | 30 | 3.40
= Just above Average |
| Percentage
à |
3.79% | 8.13% | 36.18% | 47.69% | 4.21% |
Key Insights:
- The use of guidance and power in the exercise of authority at various levels within the Major Organisms is just above average (weighted mean = 3.40).
- However, half the number of respondents (51.90%) consider the ability to effectively use guidance and power to be fairly good to very good. Only 1/10th (11.92% consider it to be poor to very poor.
Comparison of Weighed Averages on QQ 2-6
Key Insights:
- The above summated chart provides a generic comparison across the parameters.
- Valuing differences in community scores highest in the “very well” rating category, closely followed by self-perception of the quality of one’s care for others in community.
- Self-perception about the quality of one’s own behavior scores the highest among the “fairly well” rating category: Nearly 60% of the respondents believe that they care fairly well their brothers in community.
- The parameter that stands out in the “poor” and “very poor” rating categories is one and same: quality of encouragement and correction given and received.
- A fruitful life in community has always been the dream and concern of the Congregation, as is evident in the General Chapter documents. Over the years, some of the challenges identified by the Chapters are the following. Kindly rank-order these challenges as per their greatest relevance as of today, as you perceive it.
Number of Respondents: 708 (Skipped: 12)
| Ranking | Challenges | Weighted Score |
| I. | Growing Individualism | 5.08 |
| II. | Difficulties in intercultural and intergenerational living | 4.19 |
| III. | Influx of social media reducing quality of community life | 4.14 |
| IV. | Lack of community life nurtured by shared moments of daily prayer and Eucharist. | 4.02 |
| V. | Lack of healthy leadership in communities | 3.76 |
| VI. | Individual projects not received from or reported to the community | 3.71 |
| VII. | Lack of properly conceived and implemented Community Life Project | 3.64 |
Key Insights:
- In terms of ranking differences, there is very little to choose between those challenges scoring ranks 2-7 (rank differentials range between 0.05 to 0.26 among the challenges ranked 2nd to 7th). However, Growing Individualism, which has been identified as the primary challenge, stands apart from other challenges with a score differential of +0.89 from the second-ranked challenge. This indicates that an overwhelming majority of the respondents identify growing individualism as the greatest challenge in community living.
- Given below are the summary accentuations (emphases) on community life, across the last seven General Chapters. All of them are important, but kindly rank-order these accentuations as per their greatest relevance as of today, as you perceive it.
Number of Respondents: 697 (Skipped: 23)
| Ranking | Accentuations for Community Living | Weighted Score |
| I. | Community is called and sent forth by the Word of God (GC XXI, Servants of the Word, 2-3, 6-9) | 4.66 |
| II. | Life in communion is the first act of Mission
(GC XXII, In Prophetic Mission, 27-30) |
4.63 |
| III. | Community is configured by the Mission (GC XIX, Mission of Claretians Today, 51, 63, 70-71, 73, 82-85, 126-141) | 4.54 |
| IV. | The person of the missionary in the missionary community (GC XX, Claretian in the Process of Congregational Renewal, 2, 4, 13-19, 60-65) | 4.09 |
| V. | From the “I” to the primacy of “We”, being a “community in mission” (GC XXV, We are Missionaries, 3.2, 3.3, 8, 16, 25-27, 46-48, 69-70) | 3.73 |
| VI. | Community as an intercultural environment that fosters life and missionary commitment (GC XXIII, That They May Have Life, 46, 49, 50-51, 71-72) | 3.43 |
| VII. | Community that burns with charity, embracing interculturality (GC XXIV, Men on Fire with Love, 16-17, 56) | 3.34 |
Key Insights:
- Whereas Community being called and sent forth by the Word of God is desired to be the primary accentuation for the Congregation to live out, those accentuations ranked 2nd and 3rd – life in communion as the first act of mission and community as configured by mission – are of nearly equal importance, as is evidenced by marginal ranking distance (range being only 0.03 to 0.09). Thus, these three can be considered the top three accentuations of fairly equal weightage. Besides, the ranking differences across all seven are fairly minimal, ranging from 0.03 to 0.36, thereby revealing varying viewpoints that indicate all seven to be of some importance to different respondents.
- Please share practical ways in which you have been contributing to creating joyful and missionary communities wherever you have been.
Of 720 respondents to the survey, 684 persons answered and 36 skipped this item in the questionnaire.
What is given below is the list of most repeated ways (values) in which the respondents have contributed to creating joyful and missionary communities. Given the high volume of responses and their descriptive nature, only the most frequent values are highlighted below, transcribing them into cryptic, common language. The items at the top are of greater frequency than those towards the bottom of the list, though the list is not exactly in the order of frequencies. The list is given to provide a bird’s eye view of the responses and the mind of the members of the congregation.
- Sharing life and responsibilities
- Prayer for the other
- Community Prayer & Eucharist
- Respect
- Appreciating
- Listening
- Joyful shared living and service
- Sharing mission/ Common goals
- Availability
- Dialogue / Daily dialogue with members
- Welcoming the Word
- Participation in community activities
- Understanding & Acceptance
- Caring & Helping
- Fraternal Corrections
- Presence
- Community recreation
- Visiting families of Claretians
- Openness to multiculturality
- Addressing difficulties together
- Sharing of experiences
- Openness & transparency
- Celebration of significant days of brothers in community
- Forgiveness
- Mutual welcome and openness
- Fluid communication
- Please suggest three practical ways in which we can better our joyful living and missioning in community.
Of 720 respondents to the survey, 678 persons answered and 42 skipped this item in the questionnaire.
What is given below is the list of most important practical ways (values) that the respondents believe that we could contribute to bettering joyful living and missioning in our communities. Given the high volume of responses and their descriptive nature, only the most frequent values are highlighted below, transcribing them into cryptic, common language. The items at the top are of greater frequency than those towards the bottom of the list, though the list is not exactly in the order of frequencies. The list is given to provide a bird’s eye view of the responses and the mind of the members of the congregation.
- Living Community life well
- Prayers – Personal and Communitarian
- Respect
- Dialogue
- Listening
- Acceptance & valuing of the other
- Appreciation for and knowing and valuing the other
- Sharing of mission and ministries
- Greater Love for the other
- Mutual encouragement
- Leadership as shared mission and service
- Fraternal correction
- Eucharist & Retreats
- Intercultural living
- Taking initiatives
- Commitment
- Love and acceptance for the other and differences
- Community project
- Sharing daily moments together
- Regular shared recreation time
- Availability
- Shared values
- Mutual Forgiveness
- Teamwork
- Ongoing formation
- Celebration of others’ significant moments of life
- Inculturation & openness to cultures
- Highlighting shared vocation as Claretian missionaries
Los Negrales, May 31, 2019.
+ + + The End of Analysis + + +