This paper attempts to isolate some implications for secondary and adult education emerging from an exploratory study of perceived effective interactional communication in a religious organisation. Leaders of the local parishes of the Catholic Church in Australia are in the process of moving from the traditional basic communication structure of an hierarchical model to the lateral and collaborative interaction of a more participative model of management. This descriptive study records the perceptions of a sample of parish workers in the Church throughout Australia as they describe some of the problems they experienced in communication processes and attempted to identify the reason why these problems emerged. In doing so, they also identified the more effective communication processes emerging in this new form of pastoral ministry. They listed a number of attitudes which they believed would lead to greater communication effectiveness and without which genuine constructive communication usually does not take place (Carl Rogers 1957 in Bolton, 1983 p. 259). The media and written communication are not explored, except in their relation to effective meeting procedures. Verbal and non-verbal communication amongst people interacting with one another in the interpersonal organisational setting is the focus of this work. The findings of this study point in the short term, to the need for empowering people engaged in pastoral work with the necessary skills of effective communication processes. In the long term, the paper proposes the need for continuing educational emphasis on communication skills especially in secondary schools when students move towards a more personalised form of self-assertion.