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Witnessing to the prophetic presence of Dr. King

1/20/2014

This originally appeared on the Pax Christi USA website. Joe Nangle, OFM, is a friar of the Holy Name Province.

By Rev. Joe Nangle, OFM
Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace

The following is a homily delivered by Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace Rev. Joe Nangle, OFM.

The coincidence of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and the 2013 inauguration of America’s first African-American president for a second term must be seen as truly historic. Just 150 years ago, another president issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all people of African descent from slavery; and fully ninety-one years later in 1954, the courts finally decided that segregating black children from others in America’s schools was against the law.
Our country has come a long, long way in overcoming its national “original sin” of racism. We have, also, taken a long, long time for the day to dawn, when a Black man has the privilege and the right to take the oath of office as our country’s chief executive, swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” – the same Constitution which for seventy-four years allowed for his people to be bought and sold as property.

With reason, therefore, we celebrate today that long and as yet unfinished journey toward “liberty and justice FOR ALL”. We celebrate, too, the towering influence which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had on that process during his short 39 years of life. In the midst of “Hail to the Chief” and the “Star Spangled Banner” on this inauguration weekend, we shall hear echoes of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech given at the Lincoln Memorial fifty years ago this August. And we shall rightfully rejoice and marvel at how far we have come as a nation.

And yet – and yet…

Many, including myself, say that this wonderful coincidence of Barack Obama’s second inauguration and the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on the same weekend must serve to push us still further in the great cause of equality and non-violence which Dr. King spoke about, lived out and, yes, died for. They say that we need more than “I have a dream” rhetoric. In a word, they insist, we need today the same kind of prophetic voice which the black pastor from Atlanta, Georgia hurled at the powerful of his day. We need the words that this black clergyman would say to this black president.

So for a moment this weekend let us move beyond the familiar and soothing words of “I Have A Dream” and listen to other prophetic utterances of Dr. King, applying them to our time and place in history:

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty” [Where Do We Go From Here – Chaos or Community?, 1967]
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” [Ibid.]
“If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam – [Iraq, Afghanistan]. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of people the world over.” [Beyond Vietnam, 1968]

In preparing for today’s homily, I spoke with an African-American Jesuit theologian and asked him what Dr. King might say to Barack Obama today. His answer was immediate and clear: “This president needs the kind of prophet speaking to him that President Lyndon Johnson had in Martin Luther King, Jr.” The priest went on to detail several areas which Dr. King would point out to Mr. Obama as needing urgent and radical attention: immigration, Afghanistan, torture, poverty, and bombing civilian population with drones.

Taking our brother Jesuit’s observations a few steps further, I believe that our Catholic Church – and other Christian churches, as well as synagogues and mosques in this country – also need to hear the Prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., today. Listen to his words directed at the churches 50 years ago and again apply them to the Church of our time and place:

“So often the contemporary Church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo.” [Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963]
“The Church must be reminded that it is not the master or the slave of the State, but rather the conscience of the State. It must be the guide and the critic of the State, and never its tool.” [Strength To Love, 1963]
“Called to be the moral guardian of the community, the Church at times has preserved that which is immoral and unethical. Called to combat social evils, it has remained silent behind stained glass windows.” [Ibid.]

Our Catholic Church in America has become what Dr. King called a “weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound”. We are known primarily for our opposition to abortion, stem cell research and same-sex marriage. At the same time the enormous issues of national and global poverty, war making, and the destruction of our planet go unnoticed or surely unaddressed by most of our bishops, especially in the exercise of their diocesan pastoral ministries. We are known as a Church of the Republican Party, when we should stand over against all political parties as their conscience.

I believe that the Catholic Church – that is, all of us who are the Church in the United States – together with our Protestant, Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers, are called at this time in history to be the kind of prophetic presence we celebrate on this inauguration and M.L. King Jr. holiday weekend. Let us pray fervently that we might bring to life, as Dr. King did in his life, the words of the great New Testament hymn, the Benedictus: “You shall be called the prophet of the Most High to go before the Lord to prepare his ways”.

We can be no less at this moment in our national life if we wish to receive a favorable judgment from history, and ever more importantly, a merciful judgment from God.

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Archbishop Roberto González, OFM, celebrates 25th anniversary of episcopal ordination

10/12/2013

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NOTE: This story originally appeared in the October 9, 2013 issue of HNP Today, the newsletter of the Holy Name Province.

By Jocelyn Thomas

SAN JUAN. Puerto Rico — A New Jersey native and Siena College graduate, who has served Catholic communities in the Bronx, Boston, Texas and Puerto Rico, was honored last week for his 25th anniversary since he became bishop. Archbishop Roberto González, OFM, archbishop of San Juan, is known as a “champion to the people of this island, of their culture and language, of their neighborhood,” according to the National Catholic Reporter. The archbishop celebrated with clergy and with the public at a variety of commemorations on Oct. 2 and 3.

It was “a very happy occasion” for the people of Puerto Rico, where Archbishop Roberto was installed as archbishop of San Juan in 1999, according to the Oct. 3 article.

Provincial Minister John O’Connor, OFM, participated in the festivities that included meals and liturgies in varied settings.

Being able to celebrate his anniversary with a representative of the Province meant a great deal to Archbishop Rorberto, who said: "The celebration was a very moving experience for me. I am particularly grateful for the presence of Fr. John, our Provincial Minister. I felt the solidarity and love of the entire Province at a time of great trial which has now concluded due to the Lord's merciful compassion toward me.

"The friars of Holy Name Province have always been a source of tremendous solidarity, understanding, support and affection," he added.

Commemorations of Anniversary

The milestone gave Archbishop Roberto a feeling of “profound gratitude to the Lord for his infinite and unconditional mercy and love,” he said. The events were covered in depth by the local newspaper, El Visitante PR, which published a special issue about the Archbishop and his anniversary celebration. Among the articles was one by Alfonso Guzmán, OFM, (Holy Name Province) secretary to the archbishop, titled "Friend, Brother and Boss" when translated from Spanish.

The main festivities were held on Oct. 3 — the date that Archbishop Roberto was ordained a bishop, as auxiliary of Boston in 1988. The day began with an 11 a.m. prayer service for the clergy of the diocese followed by a “very nice meal in a beautiful parish hall,” Fr. John said. That evening, a 7:30 p.m. Mass for the public was celebrated at St. Teresita Church.

Fr. John and the other visitors were taken by police escort to the church by the ocean, where the “major liturgy took place with the governor, members of the legislature, the mayors of San Juan and surrounding jurisdictions, and the public,” Fr. John said.

“After the liturgy, about 80 of us — visiting clergy, representatives of the Vatican, government leaders and ‘special invited guests’ — dined at a local restaurant,” said Fr. John, who enjoyed the local culture.

“The entertainment consisted of men and women in the national dress doing music and dances celebrating the different periods of Puerto Rican history,” Fr. John said. “The music and dancing were superb. They also unveiled a beautiful portrait of Roberto.”

The Provincial Minister began his visit the previous day at lunch with Archbishop Roberto, two bishops, and Cardinal William Levada, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Fr. John enjoyed the conversations, he said, recalling that “Cardinal Levada spoke of the great ministry that the Franciscans do in the United States. He also said what a great compliment it was to the Order that the pope took the name Francis of Assisi.”

On Wednesday, described as “brutally hot,” Fr. John and other visiting clergy members participated in several less public events.

That evening, he concelebrated a private Mass at 7 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Cathedral with Cardinal Levada and Bishop Álvaro Corrada del Río, S.J., former auxiliary in Washington. Afterward, the visitors attended a dinner hosted by Archbishop Roberto at the archbishop’s residence. Two cardinals were present, Fr. John said, “the other being Cardinal Amico Vallejo, OFM, archbishop emeritus of Seville, Spain. Bishop Corrada and several chancery officials and the representatives of the Apostolic Nuncio’s office were also present.”

“Roberto is really emphasizing his ties to our Province and is obviously proud to be a member of Holy Name Province,” Fr. John said. “I’m glad I came to the celebration, as Roberto was very appreciative. Several local clergy told me how honored they are that the Provincial would attend this celebration.”

The commemoration gave Archbishop Roberto “a unique opportunity to begin an entirely new chapter in my life,” he said, adding that he has “a much deeper awareness of the giftedness of brothers.”

Early Years

The archbishop was born Roberto Octavio González Nieves in 1950 in Elizabeth, N.J. But when he was a child, his family returned to San Juan, where he grew up in a parish staffed by the friars of the Province. He describes himself as "a child of the Puerto Rican diaspora, my emotional and primary homeland."

He received his elementary education in San Juan, where he remembers first reading about St. Francis in a book called "Las Florecitas de San Francisco." Attracted to being a friar, he enrolled in St. Joseph Seminary in Callicoon, N.Y., and then entered the Province's formation program at Siena College, graduating in 1972.

Archbishop Roberto entered the Order that year and was ordained in 1977, serving mainly at the Province's former parish, Holy Cross, in the Bronx, N.Y. Besides his theology degree from the Washington Theological Union, he holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Fordham University. He was made auxiliary bishop of Boston in 1988, becoming the youngest bishop in the country at that time at the age of 38.

In 1995, he became coadjutor bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas, succeeding as ordinary in 1997. Two years later, he was named archbishop of San Juan. In 2009, Roberto was recognized by Fordham with its Sapientia et Doctrina award, honoring his contributions to Hispanic ministry.

— Jocelyn Thomas is director of communication for Holy Name Province.

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Cardinal McCarrick: "We are all equal in the love of God"

8/29/2013

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NOTE: This article originally appeared in the August 28 issue of HNP Today, the newsletter of the Holy Name of Jesus Province.

By Sheila Read

RALEIGH, N.C. — The most basic reason the U.S. bishops have come out so strongly in favor of revising immigration policies is the belief in the dignity of the human person, said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., in an Aug. 18 talk at the Catholic Community of St. Francis of Assisi in Raleigh.

"Anything that takes away from the dignity of the human person takes away from the Gospel," said McCarrick. "The Gospel teaches us that we are all brothers and sisters of one human family and that we are all equal in the love of God.”

The parish hosted Cardinal McCarrick for a talk on faith and immigration as the first in a series of Community Conversations on Faith, the Common Good and the Role of Government taking place in August and September. St. Francis' Justice & Peace Office is sponsoring the conversations in an effort to create a space for constructive political dialogue based on faith and common values, especially the commitment to serving the common good.

In the talk, Cardinal McCarrick highlighted a number of problems of our current system. The number one problem is it "can destroy families," according to Cardinal McCarrick who said that during his priesthood he had seen the breaking up of families when law enforcement officers sometimes abruptly removed a father who had not been born in this country.

Living Jesus' call to love our neighbor is "not easy," Cardinal McCarrick said. He acknowledged that undocumented immigrants may have made mistakes or broken the law. But he asked us to look at ourselves and how Jesus loves us despite "the stupid, dumb things we do." He continued, "You know, if we were not like the Lord and never forgave anybody anything, we would be in terrible shape."

Another major reason to reform the system, Cardinal McCarrick said, is that it divides society and creates two classes of people, with some people being denied rights. "The breaking up of families, the denigrating of some people ... That's not what the Lord Jesus gave us," the cardinal said.

The bishops have not endorsed any particular version of the immigration legislation under debate in Congress. Rather, they have outlined six broad themes that they would like to see in the new legislation, including a path to citizenship, promotion of family unity, and addressing root causes of migration.

Pastor Mark Reamer, OFM, said of Cardinal McCarrick's visit, "It was great to have him here. We enjoyed his company." In addition to giving the talk, Cardinal McCarrick presided at two Masses. "I think his presence was well received by the parish and informative as to the church's position on immigration," Mark said.

There were also members of other ministries at the event. They included Provincial Minister John O’Connor, OFM, of New York City and Louis Camino, OFM, and a busload of roughly 40 secular Franciscans from the Greensboro area of North Carolina. Cardinal McCarrick has been an affiliate of Holy Name Province since 2006. He received an honorary degree from St. Bonaventure University, Allegany, N.Y., in 2011.

— Sheila Read is justice and peace administrative specialist at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Raleigh.

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Friars, parishioners march to commemorate MLK's Dream

8/29/2013

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NOTE: This article originally appeared in the August 28, 2013 issue of HNP Today, the newsletter of the Holy Name of Jesus Province.

By Maria Hayes

WASHINGTON — Friars and laypeople from St. Camillus Parish and Holy Name College in Silver Spring, Md., were among the tens of thousands of people who gathered Saturday, August 24, on the National Mall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream" speech given at the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. John Aherne, OFM, George Camacho, OFM, Gerald Hopeck, OFM, Jacek Orzechowski, OFM, and Ramon Razon, OFM, took part in the rally that drew attention to the racial inequality still faced by many Americans.

“I participated in Saturday’s event because of the profound effect that a 1965 photograph had on me,” John said. “The photograph was taken during the March for Voting Rights in Selma, Ala. In the photograph, nuns and religious are linked arm-in-arm with their African-American brothers and sisters as they march for justice. When I saw that photograph … I immediately thought ‘this is where religious belong. This is what we should be doing.’ So when my brother Gerald mentioned he was gathering people to attend the event, I didn’t think twice.”

Washington March

The Aug. 24 rally began at the Lincoln Memorial, where Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Attorney General Eric Holder, Martin Luther King III, Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia — the sole surviving person who spoke at the 1963 march — gave speeches before the crowds marched east to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. From there, the participants proceeded to the Washington Memorial.

“On one hand, it was a little sad. So many of the problems that Martin Luther King Jr. hoped to call attention to with the 1963 march are still major issues 50 years later,” said John, who, as the other friars who participated on Saturday, was born after the first march. “On the other hand, there was such a tremendous sense of hope, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment from the participants at the march and rally that it was impossible not to feel optimistic about the future.

“I was also struck by the tremendous variety of people at the march,” he continued. “There was such a wide variety of ages, races, culture, beliefs, political inclinations and the like. It was a truly panoramic view of the wide, deep and multifaceted kingdom of God.”

Though the younger members of the St. Camillus Parish community hadn't been born before the 1963 march, John believes they still drew meaning from the 2013 rally.

“Although they may not have understood exactly what the event was about, they couldn’t have missed the positive energy surrounding the march,” John said. “I kept thinking how wonderful it was that these kids were growing up with such an acute awareness of justice, peace and social awareness. In 50 years, they’ll be able to look back at this march and say, ‘I was there!’”

Neil O’Connell, OFM, a member of the HNP Ancestry Committee, is trying to gather friar memories of the 1963 march.

“Edward Flanagan, OFM, commented that his participation in the original march will remain a ‘special memory’ for him,” Neil said. “I recall watching the march with about 100 other ‘clerics’ on a television located in the lounge between Falconio and Robinson halls at St. Bonaventure University, where we were staying for a three-week vacation at the end of our summer studies. At the end of King’s speech, there seemed to be an air in the room that we had just witnessed something powerful and transforming for the nation and the world."

In a reflection written for the December 1995 Anthonian, Benedict Taylor, OFM, who had not attended King's marches, recalled meeting King when the Secular Franciscans awarded him the St. Francis Peace Medal in New York City.

"As a spiritual assistant of the Seculars, I participated at that award dinner," he said. "I expressed my regret to King that I hadn't taken part in his work. He responded that the work of peace and justice must also be done within the community, and this is the more lasting and difficult part."

— Maria Hayes is communications coordinator for Holy Name Province. Jocelyn Thomas contributed research to this story. The friars shown in the photo on the newsletter's cover are John Aherne, OFM, Gerald Hopeck, OFM, Ramon Razon, OFM, George Camacho, OFM, and Jacek Orzechowski, OFM.

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Postulants finish "Camp Bonaventure" at Franciscan Institute

8/1/2013

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This originally appeared in the July 31, 2013 issue of HNP Today, newsletter of the Holy Name Province.

By Jocelyn Thomas

ALLEGANY, N.Y. — A dozen men in formation from around the country have returned to their home provinces after spending five weeks at a summer study program hosted at St. Bonaventure University in Western New York, sometimes referred to as "Camp Bonaventure."

The 12 postulants from the seven U.S. Provinces participated in courses, prayer and other activities as part of their program at SBU in Allegany, Holy Name Province’s sponsored college.

From June 24 to July 26, the men, ages 20 to 52, prepared for their novitiate year in a scenic setting in what is often endearingly referred to by locals as the “Enchanted Mountains." They took their classes at SBU’s Franciscan Institute.

“This summer experience provided more reasons to love the Franciscan family in general,” said Abraham Joseph of Holy Name Province. “I am very grateful for this wonderful collaboration among the provinces."

The program has several purposes, said Ronald Pecci, OFM, the Holy Name's postulancy director, who with Fr. Carl Langenderfer, OFM, of St. John the Baptist Province, based in Ohio, coordinated the program that precedes reception into the Franciscan Interprovincial Novitiate in Burlington, Wisconsin.

“For the first time since we joined the Franciscan Interprovincial Novitiate in 2011, postulants from all seven U.S. provinces participated." HNP formation students have attended summer courses at the Franciscan Institute for nearly four decades — since the 1970s. In those years, they were novices. After the reception of novices was moved from June to August, the program became one for postulants — men about to begin their novitiate year.

Learning and Sharing

In addition to taking two courses — “Francis: His Life and Charism,” taught by Mary Meany, and “Survey of Franciscan History,” led by Dominic Monti, OFM — the students participated in community prayer as well as activities around the campus.

Because courses are condensed into short time frames, classes are fairly intense. For example, Dominic's classes were held all morning. A full semester's worth of coursework is condensed into just three weeks.

“Besides participating in the liturgical schedule of the Franciscan Institute, we also had prayer and Mass together in the garden apartment where we stayed,” said Ronald. “We also had meals together at least once a day in our apartment. The postulants sign up to lead prayer, prepare meals and do house cleaning. The program has turned out to be the most significant one for the interprovincial postulancy program and perhaps for all of our individual postulancy programs.”

The program also allows postulants to get to know each other, and the men enjoyed the opportunity to sit and talk.

“We had them here for study but also to allow them to come to know one another and begin to bond as a class before they get to the novitiate. The novitiate team has told us that getting the postulants together as we do has been a big help to them. It allows more substantial elements to be present in the novitiate a month sooner than before,” said Ron.

Abraham, a native of Haiti, said the summer was rewarding from many perspectives.

“As important as the courses, the life in fraternity with the other postulants, under the mentorship of Fr. Carl and Fr. Ron, was a source of enrichment for my vocation,” said Abraham, who spent the past year in Wilmington, Del. “We shared with each other our personal experiences. We expressed our visions, our hopes, and also our concerns. We learned to work, pray, and study together. We also have interactions with members of different branches of the family: Capuchins, Conventuals, and Third Order Regular, who are also students at the institute.”

"I started my journey into the way of life of St. Francis with a few questions in mind. What exactly is the Franciscan family, its history and members? What is its mission? The SBU summer session answered these questions."

Before classes began, the student friars had an orientation to the area. “It included volunteering at the Allegany Sisters’ Canticle Farm, and doing some sightseeing,” said Ron.

The postulants also got to know the Franciscan spirit of fraternity. Many of the men attended Mass together and visited the Mt. Irenaeus Franciscan Mountain Retreat.

Festivities and Fraternity

On July 4, the postulants were invited to a holiday cookout at the friary, also attended by the Franciscan Institute staff, and later enjoyed watching the fireworks. On July 15, the group celebrated the feast of St. Bonaventure with a festive Mass and dinner sponsored by the institute.

“We celebrated the feast with a special liturgy, followed by a delicious banquet in Doyle Hall for all the professors, staff, and students,” said Fr. Carl. “Dominic presided at the Mass, and F. Edward Coughlin, OFM, preached on St. Bonaventure's love of wisdom, and challenged us in our pursuit of wisdom.”

“There is a very good spirit of volunteerism in the group. They are good about washing dishes, volunteering to lead and aid the liturgical celebrations and a few are even willing to cook,” said Ron in one of the updates that he and Fr. Carl emailed every week to the postulant directors of the participating provinces. "They seem to be accepting of each other and, when we have our weekly 'house meetings,' most are exceptional in their sharing and honesty.”

In addition, the group had several parties. “We in the postulant house hosted the sisters on campus for supper one Saturday evening for approximately 25 people,” said Fr. Carl. “On Thursday evening, there was an impromptu party on our front lawn, with refreshments, singing and games.”

Fr. Carl provided several updates in a column that was titled "Letters From Camp" and published in the SJB News Notes newsletter. "Camp Bonaventure is our tongue-in-cheek name for summer school at St. Bonaventure University," he said. "It's like an extension of postulancy from the various provinces, except that all the postulants from the U.S. provinces are here with Ron and myself."

“We had Wednesday night 'community meetings' and I have to commend the guys on how honest and transparent they have been. I admire their honesty and see it as a great sign for their future in community.”

On Aug. 15, the men will be officially welcomed into the Franciscan Interprovincial Novitiate.

— Jocelyn Thomas is director of communication for Holy Name Province

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Challenges in Franciscan Leadership | Fr. Bill Beaudin, OFM

6/26/2013

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On Tuesday, June 25, Fr. William Beaudin, OFM, friar of the Holy Name Province gave the keynote address for the Provincial Chapter of the Immaculate Conception Province (USA) on challenges in Franciscan leadership. The talk was based on an earlier address he had given to the gathered friars of the Provincial Administrations of the U.S. Provinces during a retreat in 2012.

By Fr. William Beaudin, OFM

WAPPINGERS FALLS, NY - Francis gives us a model of leadership, a model that is deeply rooted in the gospel and utterly consistent with our profession to follow in the footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ. Francis calls upon those who would lead the friars minor, first and foremost, to BE friars minor: to be lesser brothers, humble brothers, servant siblings.   Francis never speaks of those who hold positions of authority in the brotherhood as “superiors,” “abbots” or “priors.”    Indeed, in chapter 6 of the Earlier Rule, he expressly forbids the use of those terms. The leaders of the fraternity are simply “ministers and servants,” brothers who never forget that their Lord came not to be served, but to serve, and to humbly wash the feet of his disciples. On those rare occasions when Francis does add a parental dimension to the leader’s fundamentally fraternal role, he never refers to him as the father of the brothers but, rather, as a mother who, like our Sister Mother Earth, sustains and governs by creating the proper conditions for human flourishing. Francis himself adopts this maternal role in his Letter to Br. Leo when he writes: “I speak to you, my son, as a mother.” And then notice what Francis does and what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t issue orders. He doesn’t tell Leo how to run his own life. He says: “In whatever way it seems best to you to please the Lord God and to follow His footprints and His poverty, do this with the blessing of God and my obedience.” What Francis does issue is a standing invitation to his brother: “If you believe it necessary for the well-being of your soul, or to find comfort, and you wish to come to me, Leo, then come,” he says. By emphasizing the fraternal and maternal aspects of leadership, Francis was consciously turning away from the notion of authority as "power over" people and was returning, instead, to a gospel understanding of leadership as humble and hospitable service.

So much for the Franciscan model of leadership. What are its challenges in these, the first decades of the 21st century? Needless to say, my answer to this question is circumscribed by my very limited experience as well as by my predilection for the idiosyncratic, if not the totally bizarre.

It seems to me that the challenges facing Franciscan leaders today can neatly be divided between those that come from within the leader himself and those that come from outside him, and that the latter category can be somewhat less neatly divided between those challenges that come from the brothers in the fraternity, from our social and cultural context, and from the current state of our Church.

(1)   Challenges to a Franciscan style of leadership that come from within the leader himself:

The first internal obstacle to being a Franciscan servant leader is gross insecurity. Toward the end of chapter 7 of St. Matthew’s gospel, the chapter whose verses we heard in this morning’s mass, Jesus contrasts those who build their houses on rock and those who build their houses on sand. In the setting of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is contrasting those who accept his authoritative teaching on God’s law with those who follow the opinions of the rabbis. But I’d like to remove the image from its biblical context for a moment and suggest that a Franciscan leader needs to build the house of his self-worth on the rock-solid foundation of God’s overwhelming and enduring love for him, and NOT on the shifting sands of other people’s opinions of him. If, in his own mind, a friar leader is only as good as his rec room reviews, or if his worth can only be measured by the size of his office or the length of his title, then he will constantly be currying the favor of his bosses and seeking the approval of his brothers. He will incessantly ask the late Ed Koch’s persistent question: How am I doing? Am I doing a good job? Do you like what I’m doing? Aren’t I doing great and aren’t I terrific? The insecure leader, regardless of his job performance and regardless of his best intentions, is ultimately focused on himself, and instead of serving his brothers, his brothers end up serving him, his fragile ego and his insatiable need for affirmation.

A second internal obstacle to Franciscan leadership is self-delusion. I am overly fond of certain expressions, one of my favorites is the proverb:   “Self-awareness is the rarest of gifts.” Few people are totally in touch with the bounty of their gifts, the penury of their short suits, or the precise nature of their motives. But if a Franciscan leader doesn’t have at least some sense of what he brings to his office by way of strengths and weaknesses, then he won’t have a clue how best to serve his brothers, nor will he know how desperately he needs their complementary talents and insights for the proper governance of our life together. He will mistakenly believe that he has to know it all and do it all, at which point he will have ceased to be the servant of his brothers and will have become that most tedious and laughable of leaders: the father-knows-best who always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room.

In the Franciscan lexicon, there is a word for the kind of self-awareness and self-assessment that is a potent antidote to the insecurity and cluelessness I’m talking about, and that word is humility. Some think of humility as a code-word for low self-esteem. Others think of it as a synonym for false modesty. But St. Francis understood humility to be a sober and stable sense of oneself. Franciscan humility could be defined as: honest self-awareness rooted in God's love. In his 19th Admonition, Francis writes: "Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple, and despicable; for what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more. That last phrase is the key line: “what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more.” Francis forgot to add: “and nothing less.”

A third internal obstacle to fraternal, servant leadership is perfectionism. Let me state the obvious: the friars do not constitute a perfect society. I learned this shocking truth on the second day of postulancy. Now, you might be thinking to yourself: what took him so long? I was hurrying out the back door of the friary when an older friar, a major in the Air Force and a major pain in the ass, was coming the other way. When I raced past him with a curt “hey,” he said, “Listen, you little bastard. If you ever speak to me that way again, I’ll deck you.” Perhaps, I was being overly sensitive, but in that moment, I detected a certain disconnect between that friar’s threat to do me bodily harm and the words of our holy father, St. Francis, when he said:   “If a mother loves and cares for her son according to the flesh, how much more diligently must someone love and care for his brother according to the Spirit!”

Anyone who has been around this outfit for more than 24 hours knows how grossly imperfect we are, and anyone who has sat around a Provincial Council table for more than 24 minutes knows that we are not just imperfect; we are an incredibly fragile group of men. Such fragility demands great delicacy, compassion, patience and understanding if it is to be handled with fraternal care, something the sledge hammer of perfectionism is ill-equipped to accomplish. A truly Franciscan leader could do far worse than be guided by Blessed John XXIII’s wise counsel: “see everything, change a little, overlook a lot.” This maxim is hardly a recipe for managerial perfection, but it is sage advice for a “minister and servant” of the fraternity.

So much for the challenges to Franciscan leadership that come from within the friar leader. Now, for those that come from without.

(2)   Challenges to a Franciscan style of leadership that come from outside the friar leader:

a.      Those that come from our brothers in the fraternity

For the past year or so, at regional gatherings of your brothers in Holy Name Province, yours truly and his duly elected fellow councilors have been playing the role of the bad news bears. It has been our job (and here I’m quoting Sr. Meg Guider’s felicitous turn of phrase) to “disabuse our brothers of dearly held falsehoods.” We’ve been the myth-busters who had to break the news to the brethren that the days of wine and roses are over. The province of 1967 that was 994 friars strong, 3 % of whom were over the age of 70, has been whittled down to slightly over 300 friars, half of whom are over 70. At the same time that traditional sources of income have dwindled, the cost of caring for the sick, aged and retired friars has mushroomed. No doubt, Fr. John O’Connor isn’t the only provincial in the United States who routinely peruses depressing statistics, grim actuarial studies and less than encouraging financial reports.

As the golden age of expansion gives way to the tin era of downsizing and diminishment, some of the friars would like their leaders to be something other than their servant-brothers. They want them to be their magicians and saviors. They want them to be wizards who miraculously make the pain go away. They want them to spare the friars the tough choices that need to be made in the face of declining human and financial resources. They want them to shield the brothers from the harsh reality that the society in which we live as an evangelical brotherhood has changed; that the place of religion and denominational affiliation within that society has changed; that family life and family size have changed; that the pool of possible religious vocations has changed and shrunk dramatically; that the Church has changed (but please don’t tell the Vatican); and that, by virtue of aging, gravity and Sister Death, our provinces have changed.

It’s an oxymoron to say that we elect leaders to lead. We choose them with the hope that they will “have a vision,” “be creative,” “do something different,” “think outside the box” and enact all the other clichés for blazing a brand new trail to a bright blue future. Certainly, the leaders we pick will need to confront our provinces’ respective challenges with all the creativity, all the wisdom and all the daring they can muster. But they also need to resist the bait of those friars who want them to be messiahs, to be something other than humble, limited, servant-siblings who seek to discern with their brothers, and not instead of their brothers, a viable path forward.

Related to the issue of diminishing resources and the denial it seems to engender, is one of the biggest questions facing Franciscan leaders today: how do we care for our aged and infirm brothers without losing our evangelical thrust? In one sense, this challenge is nothing new. It has been with us since the earliest days of the brotherhood. Consider chapter 10 of the Earlier Rule which, like the rest of that remarkable document, is the fruit of a decade’s worth of experience in living the fraternal life.   The chapter begins: “If any of the brothers falls ill, wherever he may be, let the other brothers not leave him behind unless one of the brothers, or even several of them, if necessary, is designated to serve him as they would wish to be served themselves.” Now, please note both the explicit and implicit messages contained in that passage. The explicit message is: some of the brothers will get sick sometimes, and it is the responsibility of the other friars to care for their sick brothers either personally or by proxy. But the hypothetical situation of a sick brother’s being left behind implies that the other brothers keep moving. The momentum of the fraternity’s evangelical mission doesn’t stop for the sick.

So, our leaders need to ask themselves: how do we tend to the needs of our aged and infirm friars whose number keeps growing and the cost of whose health care keeps rising, and still direct the lion’s share of our limited resources of money, manpower and time to the work of evangelization? How do we stay behind with the sick, and be brothers and servants to them while, simultaneously, being brothers and servants to the hale and the hearty at the vanguard of our mission? This, it seems to me, is one of the greatest challenges facing Franciscan leadership today.

b.      Challenges that come from our society and culture

As my beloved confrere and fellow provincial councilor, Joe Nangle, will tell you, trenchant social analysis is hardly the sharpest tool in my skill set. While Joe was down in Peru promoting the theory and practice of liberation theology, I was up in Boston complaining that my gin gimlet was insufficiently chilled. What can I say? This is not the stuff of which prophets, seers and sages, let alone martyrs, are made.

Nevertheless, I would like to suggest that a major if not the major cultural challenge facing Franciscan leaders today is secularism. A few years ago, the Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, penned an 800-page book set in miniscule type and entitled, A Secular Age. Like Moby Dick, it is a classic that’s badly in need of an editor. But, for all its frequent digressions and far-flung peregrinations, Taylor’s weighty tome is a magisterial analysis of how we got to where we are in the Western World. Taylor sets out to answer the question: how is it that, at the time of St. Francis say, it was virtually impossible NOT to be a believer, while today atheism, agnosticism or a vague, ill-defined, non-ecclesial spirituality seem to be the default positions in Europe and, increasingly, in North America? What happened in those intervening centuries—socially, politically, religiously, economically—that caused this sea change? If you want to feel like you have actually, personally slogged your way through every last one of those eight hundred years, I suggest you read the book. But suffice it to say that for all the benefits which liberal democracy and free-market capitalism have bequeathed to us, they have had a devastating effect on the religious commonwealth. Now, faith is no longer the air we breathe or the glue that binds the body politic together. The rhythms of religious practice no longer mark the passage of time in civil society.   Belief itself has become one option among many, and whatever external form that belief or unbelief may take, is—like the apps on your i-phone or the apples in your fruit bowl, purely a matter of personal taste.

How is secularism a challenge to Franciscan leadership? Well, it certainly has a profound effect on the size of our provinces for the foreseeable future. While the sex abuse crisis in the Church has hardly been a boon to our vocation directors, I think we deceive ourselves if we think that the recruitment picture will markedly improve once the crisis is behind us. In a secular age bereft of the social and cultural supports to committed faith, the pool of young men who are willing to forgo a lifetime of reversible choices for the sake of the one, irreversible choice of living “in obedience, without anything of one’s own, and in chastity” will, I suspect, remain shallow. And secularism has and will continue to have a no less dramatic and deleterious effect on our traditional sources of financial support. When Michael Bloomberg was asked if he would be willing to donate to the renovation of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, since it was a landmark building and a major tourist attraction in his city, the billionaire mayor said no. He said he would contribute to education and to social outreach programs, but he would not contribute to the renovation of a church building. Of course, Michael Bloomberg is a secular Jew, but I doubt his response would have been any different had he been a secular Catholic. It is the secularism, and not the denominational affiliation, that will more and more direct the charitable largesse of our contemporaries. And that will have a huge impact on how our leaders provide for and minister to the legitimate needs of their brothers.

But just as secularism is a challenge for Franciscan leadership, it is also an evangelical opportunity, if only we view it through the lens of chapter 16 of the Earlier Rule. For, whether we like it or not, all of us are “living among the Saracens and other unbelievers.” We are no longer embraced by the protective arms of Christendom. Increasingly, we are becoming resident aliens in our own culture. As Giacomo Bini once noted, whether our Franciscan life is significant in this new context or merely curious will largely depend on the quality of our fraternal witness and on our ability to engage the wider culture in meaningful conversation. The job of Franciscan leaders vis-à-vis our secular age isn’t to flee from the clutches of the big, bad world and gather their brothers into a hermetically sealed cloister; that is the luxury of abbots. The job of Franciscan leaders isn’t to condemn the world and consign it to the fiery depths of Gehenna; that is the luxury of the doomsday prophets who vent their spleens on the religious airwaves. A Franciscan leader’s job is to help his brothers adopt and adapt the strategy put forth by Francis himself in his chapter on the missions: “The brothers     . . . can live spiritually among the Saracens and nonbelievers in two ways. One way is not to engage in arguments or disputes but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake and to acknowledge that they are Christian. The other way is to announce the word of God, when they see it pleases the Lord in order that unbelievers may believe.” Secularism affords us the graced opportunity to become true friars minor, lesser brothers, Franciscan ministers who are humble, unarmed, undefended, on no particular crusade, but who are authentic witnesses to the vitality of the gospel, the joy of life in Christ and the promise of God’s just and peaceable reign.

The other cultural challenge to Franciscan leadership I want to mention this morning is more subtle than secularism. It is our society’s equation of leadership with power, and power with the trappings of perks and privileges. As we are reminded several times in History of the World, Part 1, by a bewigged and besotted Mel Brooks: “It’s good to be the king.” We take it as a matter of course that the person at the top of the organizational flow chart has the grandest office, the biggest desk, the largest salary, the most expansive expense account and the most extensive staff, not to mention the most coveted parking space. Of course, none of this squares with Francis’s understanding of leadership. As we know, Francis equated leadership not with power and perks but with humility and selfless service after the example of Christ who stripped himself of privilege.    Francis insisted that the friars scrupulously avoid even the appearance of pre-eminence. No one was to be called “prior,” and those who were the “ministers and servants of the other brothers” were to consider themselves no more exalted than domestic help.

But our cultural models of leadership are cut from very different cloth than the fabric of the gospel from which Francis spun his ideal, and those models can be insidious and seductive. It takes a conscious asceticism on the part of a Franciscan leader to resist the allure of executive privilege and extraordinary compensation—whether overt or occult. Such asceticism is essential, however, because the minute I believe that my brothers owe me for my service to them, or that I deserve more than they do because I have a title and they don’t, or that somehow the friary I share with them is more my house than theirs—at that moment I have betrayed the only titles that should really matter in my life—Christian and friar minor.

c.       Challenges that come from our church

Finally (and you’re probably saying to yourself, “thank you, Jesus”), we come to the last challenge to Franciscan leadership that I wish to mention this morning. I suspect I’m not alone here in finding the strong restorationist tide currently flowing through the baptismal fonts of Holy Mother Church somewhat disconcerting, if not downright depressing. Those of us who received our ministerial training back in the late 60s and 70s were once of the opinion that dogmatism and triumphalism, authoritarianism and patriarchy, pastoral rigidity and theological ossification were rapidly falling into desuetude along with buskins, birettas and buggia bearers. How wrong we were! They are in the ascendancy today who long for the glory days of Pius XII; who, in the name of Jesus, regularly indulge their blessed rage for order and their craven lust for certitude; and who delight in ecclesiastical fashion shows that would seem over the top even by the baroque standards of Frederico Fellini. It is we who were weaned on the wellsprings of the Second Vatican Council who may very well be going the way of the dodo bird. You know there’s something amiss when the leadership of one diocesan seminary was recently criticized by church authorities for teaching a servant model of ministry, supposedly at the expense of the “ontological change” that transforms the ordained into an “alter Christus.” Of course, if a priest really were an “alter Christus” he would be a servant, wouldn’t he? but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to the seminary’s silk-swathed critics.

I’m reminded of a homily I heard some years ago at a friar’s 25th anniversary of ordination. The preacher of that sermon had many gifts, but theological subtlety wasn’t one of them nor, for that matter, was preaching. At some point in his homily he said: “Power literally drips from the hands of a priest.” Now, I suppose one could argue that power metaphorically drips from the hands of a priest, but if anything is literally dripping from those hands, I’m moving to the other communion line! Of course, if priestly power drips from anyone’s hands, those hands belong to the high priest, Jesus Christ. And his power is a most peculiar kind of power. It is the power that relinquished power, the power that took the form of an obedient slave. It is the power of the “Most High” who became “Most Low,” the power of the “Almighty” who became powerless and vulnerable, the power of the One who is “all our riches” yet who became poor for our sake. In short, it is the power of kenosis, the power of humble, self-effacing, self-emptying love. That is the power whose humble instruments the Church’s ministers are meant to be, but, as I suggested, this seems to be increasingly a minority opinion, although I am happy and hopeful to say that Pope Francis is a card-carrying member of that minority.

So what do we do? How do Franciscan leaders respond to the swelling ranks of mitered eminences and their lacy-surpliced acolytes who think that the Church went to hell in a hand basket the day we did away with the maniple? I can think of several ways NOT to respond: with public condemnations of the hierarchy, with self-serving talk of being or becoming an alternative church, with Gnostic claims that we are somehow better than everyone else. Why are these responses unacceptable? Because they betray our vocation as lesser brothers. Because they further divide a church in which we are called to be ministers of reconciliation. Because they are so blatantly and profoundly un-Franciscan. Francis never set himself over against the institutional, hierarchical church. Instead, he made the deliberate choice to remain “always submissive and subject at the feet of the same Holy Church and steadfast in the Catholic Faith.” ( Later Rule, 12:4) He did so not because he was blind to the Church’s faults, but because, in his view, those who rejected the Church in the name of Jesus violated the logic of his Incarnation. The humble love of the humble God reveals itself in humble forms: a manger, a cross, simple elements like bread and wine, a disfigured leper, a sinful priest, a blowhard bishop, a blemished institution.   In and through the humble flesh of a poor 1st century Galilean Jew, in and through the humble flesh of the community which, however imperfectly, struggles to follow in his footprints, in and through the humble forms of that community’s self-defining moments, particularly its Eucharist, in and through that community’s humble and sometimes bumbling pastoral ministers--in and through them all, the humble God reveals Himself in humility, offers Himself, gives Himself away to all who are open to the gift and who are themselves humble enough to accept it. The glory of the Lord is manifest not in a perfect Church we can all be proud of, but in the willingness of divine love to abase itself, to empty itself of glory, and to abide in and work through the inglorious institution of that grossly imperfect Church we sometimes find embarrassing.

Franciscan leaders, both within the fraternity and beyond it, both within the Church and in society at large, have a common vocation: to be credible witnesses to the humility of God. And they cannot be such witnesses if they are arrogant in their opposition to arrogance, or power-hungry in their critique of power, or divisive in the name of love. It seems to me that the best response of Franciscan leaders to the resurgent clericalism in the Church today is to shun the role of hierarch and its attendant trappings within the fraternity, and to foster inclusion, collaboration and lay empowerment in the Christian communities they serve.   And if, by doing so, they manage to create within the Church spiritual oases where the humility, hospitality and compassion of God are celebrated and embodied, then they will have followed the death-bed wish of St. Francis: they will have done what was theirs to do.

Thank you for your kind attention and your always generous hospitality. As it has been for the past 30 years of my friar life, it’s been a privilege and a pleasure to be with you this morning. May God bless your province, this chapter and the brothers you elect to walk with you along the humble path of fraternal love.

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