Is your priest a black sheep?
Or maybe just an off-shade of grey?
Parishioners in Germany can learn all that and more from a website that lets them rate their priest or minister online.
Hirten Barometer — Shepherd Barometer, in English — takes the pulse of about 10,000 priests from four denominations across the country.
The site — online at hirtenbarometer.de — went live in April and has topped more than 25,000 ratings from a far-flung cyber flock.
An English version is being readied and may reach Canada in the spring.
It's much like sites that let people rate their teachers or doctors.
But this one gets to the spiritual heart of the matter, rating priests for their services, credibility, how much their finger is on the pulse of their community and how they work with seniors and youth.
“We think it's positive thing for both sides,” Fabian Ringwald, the site's CEO and co-creator told the Star. He says the site is moderated to prevent abusive comments from making it online.
“Potential community members can get a first impression on what to expect when attending a service by a priest. And since congregation members don't often speak up about their priests, the priests can now get feedback about their work.”
And not just parish priests.
Pope Benedict XVI gets just 3.84 (out of 6) on the good shepherd scale, rating just 3.4 for knowing the pulse of his worldwide flock. He's dark shade of grey on the sliding sheep scale.
Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, rates 4.5, getting a 4.7 nod for his credibility and a whiter shade of grey.
“We'll probably have to wait 25 or 50 years to see how the rating of the current pope is developing,” Ringwald says. “People tend to like the past more than the present.”
The Hirten Barometer team has members who are Catholic, Protestant and even an atheist.
Ringwald says they have no secular or religious agenda and just want to give churchgoers a
voice.
The Catholic Church has only responded indirectly, he says.
“Quite a few priests are huge fans of the site. They like it and see the value of it, how it has the potential to improve their daily work by giving them feedback they'd otherwise never get,” he explained.
“And then we have high-level bishops that tend to be more concerned that it might lead to witch hunts, that the quality of the feedback isn't sufficient enough for a priest to actually benefit.”
Germany's Protestant Church seems to be onside.
“In one press statement, the only thing they really felt sorry about was that they didn't come up with the idea themselves,” Ringwald says.
But Father Thomas Rosica, CEO of Toronto's Salt and Light TV network, is no fan.
“Public polls and mechanisms like that are not the way that we evaluate the life of the Church or the effectiveness of ministry,” said Rosica, former papal appointee as media attaché to the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican.
“We're talking about saving souls, about very deep things that aren't often obvious. So while this may sound enticing and exciting, that's not how we rate things at all. The real question is whether pastoral ministers are bringing people closer to God. Only God knows that."
“Priests must be accountable for their preaching, but we don't evaluate that by blogs. Preaching and church and liturgy are not entertainment reviews. It's about living, breathing communities of faith.”
Father Peter Watters, recently retired from Oakville's St. Andrew Catholic Church, agrees.
“I think it could lead to significant amount of abuse . . . people who will blame the priest forever and ever because of some little thing that has happened to them in the past,” he says.
“It might not even be the same priest, they just feel that way about clergy in general.”
He says priests are subject to laws and theological philosophies that lay people often don't understand.
“Change in the Catholic Church is very, very slow. I don't think priests or ministers should be subjected to that kind of review. Being a priest isn't a popularity contest.”