On Leadership

We have been reflecting on a new program in Leadership and Creation Spirituality.  But what is leadership?

I have been blessed to experience some authentic spiritual leaders in my lifetime. 

One of them is Sister Dorothy Stang, whose 15^th anniversary of martyrdom we remembered yesterday.  She was a lover of the Amazon and its indigenous and peasant peoples whom she served for forty-two years. 

She was gunned down on Feb. 15, 1985, by thugs hired by land owners, the very people who are still trying to clear the land of peasants and native peoples in order to burn the Amazon down to create cattle farms to feed beef addictions, and to rape the land for its gold.    

Sister Dot led by learning—not just the language but the political, economic and judicial realities of the people. 

At her funeral a peasant farmer stood up and declared, “Sister Dorothy, we are not burying you; we are planting you.”  The battle—her battle—goes on.   I was honored to have her as a student and to learn from her brothers that her study of creation spirituality and living of it was integral to nurturing her courage and her strength.

This is my deepest hope for our CSLP program—that it nurture students’ courage and strength for without that—without magnanimity—we will all fall short of our goal to save the earth as we know it.  Without it there is no leadership.

At the time of my silencing in 1990 by a very corrupt papacy (see my book The Pope’s War and my article on In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy to learn how corrupt) I wrote about leadership in my journal and I repeat some of those thoughts here:

’Washing our hands like Pontius Pilate’—so speaks an Australian aboriginal poet whose poems I have been reading. 

How true this is of the lack of moral courage evident in the Catholic Church hierarchy in our time.”  [Cf. the Republican senate  and the recent refusal of Pope Francis to address the need for a non-celibate priesthood in our time].

I go on:

The signs of the times tell us that it is time to respond to the injustices done women, homosexuals, earth, the young, artists, the poor, now before it is too late.

This response will take two ingredients that church authorities seem so weak in: 1) faith, i.e. trust in the Spirit and its ability to create and re-create and make order of chaos, and 2) courage, i.e. a big heart that puts heart before power and control. 

The times do not allow anyone the luxury of waiting around for others to lead.  All have leadership charisms to offer the community and ought to be invited to do so.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 341-343, 202.

See also Matthew Fox, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved

Also Matthew Fox, Review of Frederic Martel’s In The Closet of the Vatican

Banner image: “Pentecost” Image by Holger Schué from Pixabay

Queries for Contemplation

Do you agree that “all have leadership charisms to offer the community?”  Are you among those?  How is it going, your leadership?

Do you sense in today’s political world a “washing of our hands like Pontius Pilate” going on?  History repeats itself, doesn’t it?

Recommended Reading

The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved

The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The final section in the book focuses on birthing a truly catholic Christianity.
“This book should be read by everybody, not only for its ferocious courage, but also for its vision for what needs to be saved from the destructive forces that threaten authentic Christianity.” ~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope.
“In the gripping The Pope’s War, Matthew Fox takes an unwavering look at the layers of corruption in the Catholic Church, holding moral truth against power.”   — Jason Berry, author of Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II