Some thoughts on leadership and vision...

Dear friends,

I'd like to draw attention to two interesting articles I've come across in the last 48 hours that provide interesting further perspectives on matters I have raised in recent commentaries.

	Professor Robert Manne Photo Source: Brisbane Institute

The first article is from a speech given by Dr Robert Manne to the National Civil Society Dialogue held in Parliament House, Canberra last week which was published in The Age under the title "In search of Howard's end" on 9 October.

I feel an empathy or synergy with Dr Manne as the two of us have in some ways made a similar journey from the right of politics to a more centrist position. In the early 1980s we were in fact on first name terms and fellow members of a number of conservative political groups in Melbourne. I have not been in touch with him since those days.

The thrust of Robert Manne's argument is that "during the past 10 years Australia has undergone a profound conservative-populist transformation" and he sets out to provide some analysis of how this has come about. It is one of the most intelligent analyses I've read anywhere in recent years.

It is not only an excellent analysis of what has been going on in the more conservative realms of national politics he also spends time looking at how the opposition has fared. He writes: "No account of the conservative-populist transformation would be complete without some reference to the most important failure of Labor since 1996, its incapacity to construct an attractive, alternative vision of the future of Australia that is capable of discrediting the neo-liberal, neo-conservative, patriotic story the Prime Minister has so successfully told."

Interestingly, Manne seems of the view that Howard is beginning to lose his touch and draws parallels with the closing years of the long reign of the first Liberal Prime Minister in Australia, Sir Robert Menzies. For those interested in politics, and how political parties both capture the imagination of a nation and engage in this fascinating tap dance that goes on between providing vision and leadership and yet, at the same time, responding to the hope and collective vision of the people, this relatively short address is well worth the read no matter what your own politics might happen to be.

I'd be interested at some time to get Dr Manne's views on how he explains the complete demise of the conservative political parties as a force in State politics around Australia. It seems paradoxical that a party can dominate the national scene for such a long period of time yet be as completely "on the nose" as it has now become with electors at the State level.

The aspect of Dr Manne's address that particularly interests me in the context of our discussions here on Catholica though is his discussion of the matter of the visions put forward by John Howard and the Opposition Leader Kim Beazley. I think vision is terribly important for any community of people be it a family, a local community, a parish, a church or a nation. I think one of the things missing in the Catholic Church at the moment is anyone with the capacity to articulate a clear vision of both who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has to offer to the world. Rather than vision at the moment we have a confusion of a number of competing visions and the broad body of the faithful have become confused and opted out.

Competing visions...

What are these competing "visions"? I think at the lay level of the institution we have this debilitating stand-off today between those who see Jesus in a very childish picture that is no more intellectually sophisticated than the understandings that are able to be conveyed to children at primary school level, and the rest of the population who reject that. While the intellectual understanding in the first group might be unsophisticated this vision is held with an emotional attachment that verges on zealotry and in many cases is zealotry. It is very difficult to have any form of discussion or conversation with that sector of the population. There are various individual bishops and groupings within the Church who do provide leadership to that sector of the population and who themselves seem to share and provide the leadership who can articulate that vision. I do not believe there is any evidence that that vision is shared though either by the majority of bishops and other ecclesial leaders nor is it accepted by the vast majority of the baptised population.

Unfortunately, part of the problem at the moment, and in recent decades, is that there is no clear group, or individual leader with the charism to articulate any strong alternative vision that might challenge the zealotry of the first group. Rather, it seems to me we have this large mass of people all earnestly searching either for some alternative vision of what the Jesus objective in life is, or they are searching for some bishop, cardinal or pope who can articulate some alternative picture that can supplant the picture so passionately held by the zealots but which the larger mass in the population no longer accept (even if they don't yet have anything better to replace it with).

Just as the lay Church today I think is seriously split — and, I would argue, actually split in ways that are unbridgeable at the level of the fundamental vision — so also is the ecclesial leadership. In Australia today I would argue we have a stand-off between what is basically a small group of ultra-conservative bishops under the leadership of the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney and a much larger group of bishops who would almost totally reject the vision of the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney were they able to really speak their minds. Unfortunately the late Pope John Paul imposed this situation on Australia and it is going to take some time for any change in the status quo to emerge. Basically today, I would argue we have what is effectively "a leadership standoff" spiritually in this nation with effectively no one in charge at the moment and no one providing any clear vision as to what this entire Jesus quest is about or why it ought be important in our lives.

At both the national and international levels of the institution I think we have two further problems that need to be overlaid on this general picture I have just endeavoured to paint. These are to do with a culture of clericalism and simply "bureaucratic inertia" and the particular problem of both loss of confidence and loss of respect that has been brought to a head by the institutional response to the abuse scandals. Institutionally the communication of the entire institution today is directed inwards and upwards with everyone constantly looking over their shoulders to see if they are going to get into trouble with the person at the next higher position of responsibility up the hierarchical ladder.

I would argue that the massive exodus away from participation in the sacramental life of the Church reflects an almost catastophic loss of confidence in our spiritual leaders. We no longer believe or trust our spiritual leaders. I know in the circles in which I move there is an un-articulated sense among many that they seem to comes across as little boys perpetually locked in a game of playing prefects in Year 12. They basically live a comfortable life far removed from the challenges and mind-view of the populations which they serve. Their mind-view I would argue, in many cases has been far removed from that of the average baptised person who ought be sitting in the pews. And that is another reason why so many of those "baptised people" are no longer sitting there.

As I have argued in earlier commentaries, there is actually very little communication today downward and outward to the vast mass of the population in the Western world, who, other indicators are suggesting, are actually more interested in the spiritual dimension of their lives than at perhaps any earlier epoch in the whole of human history. The communication that emanates from the Church is not actually about Jesus, nor what he has to offer the world, or the individual human person, virtually all of the communication (in net effect) is seeking to preserve the status of the institution and its leaders using the rhetoric of honouring Jesus but its real purpose is to try and preserve the power, the influence, the status and respect in which the institution and its rulers are held. Ironically that respect in which our spiritual leaders were once held is seaping away from the institution in almost inverse proportion to the effort they put into the present communication agenda.

I would argue our recent Pope was an actor more than a true statesman and leader. This is reflected in the fact that his pontificate was a disaster, for all the forests that it caused to be cut down and turned into newsprint, in that more people dropped out of regular sacramental participation year for year than at any earlier period of the 20th century. All the adulation and chanting of "Santo Subito (Saint Now!)" at his passing are going to count for zilch when the only evaluation of his pontificate that really matters is judged — how many individuals were helped through the pearly gates by the communication agenda and policies of that leader? Of course the insecure elements are going to get upset with any person spelling the story out in the stark reality that I have just spelled it out. Let them get upset. At the end of the day it is not going to be just John Paul II who stands judged on what has happened. We are all going to be called to account ourselves for what has been allowed to happen during our term of stewardship of the Church.

An alternative vision...

Let me turn now to the second article I would like to direct your attention to. In part I see it as part of the new quest that seems to be emerging in a more articulate lay Church now beginning to demand, and themselves paint an alternative vision of what Jesus Christ can truly offer the world, and each of its individual inhabitants.

Don't be put off by the title or the subtitle. The article is the lead story this week in OnLine Catholics. It's title and subtitle is: "Lost anarchism — Jesus, the anarchist, is the founder of our faith but where is the Church's revolutionary nature today?". It has been written by Fred Jansohn "a former lawyer turned qualified community services worker who is a case management coordinator in Surry Hills, Sydney". I am not pointing to Jansohn's article suggesting that he articulates the definitive alternative vision for what the Jesus story and objective is. I point to it as yet another indicator that the lay Church is getting pretty peed off with waiting for the ecclesial leadership and are beginning to take self-responsibility today in endeavouring to articulate a fresh and relevant vision of who Jesus Christ is and why he continues to be the most relevant figure both within history, and outside of history, as the only leader who really does matter in the totality of the here and now and the hereafter combined. This lay articulation cuts through all the kindergarten level vision, all the bureaucratic public relations crap trying to prove that the institution never makes mistakes, never changes it opinions, or never re-articulates the core vision of what Jesus Christ offers to the world, and most importantly of all, it seeks to speak from within the mindspace that the educated and socially sophisticated populations of the Western world use in their analysis of the other dimensions of life.

Jesus was apolitical!

What is ironic in Jansohn's argument is that despite the headline his principal argument is that "above all [Jesus] was apolitical". This seems to be one of the things the insecure and conservative sectors of the Church are unable to get their heads around. It seems ironic when so much of my own arguments are constantly using the words "politics" and "political" and yet the heart of my own arguments is that we have to lift Jesus, and our whole consideration of religion and spirituality "above politics". I am not arguing in my propositions for some new vision, more accessible to the ordinary folk of the Western world, that envisages some "left-wing" Jesus to counter the very conservative, social conformist Jesus so loved by the insecure and conservative sectors of the Church. The heart of my argument, if one listens carefully, is also for an apolitical Jesus. Jesus is the one figure in history who is ultimately able to transcend all political and psychological labels and, I submit, interestingly of all the persons of the Trinity seems most able to even transcend all the discord in society over gender labels. I don't really understand how this operates but in some way Jesus seems to be as accessible to women as to men and no-one seems to get upset about inclusive language when it comes to the particular person of Jesus.

I think one of the major systemic reasons that explains the enormous drift away from sacramental participation in the life of the Church has been that people have had a gutful of Jesus being presented as some kind of social conformist and embodiment of the status quo, political conservatism, and defender of the establishment — whether ecclesial or political. Fred Jansohn uses far more provocative language than myself but, I would argue, somewhere within this mix is to be found a fresh vision that the intelligent, educated and socially sophisticated Church are today sensing is closer to the true vision of Jesus Christ and his message than the strained Heinz baby mash the institutional leadership and the remnant have been endeavouring to force down the gullets of a baptised population who have simply refused any longer to take it.

I commend both articles as accessible and written in a style that ought be accessible to the readership of Catholica.

Blessings, Tom

Links:
Robert Manne's article: In search of Howard's end. The Age, 9 Oct 2006.
URL: www.theage.com.au/news/robert-manne/in-search-of-howards-end/2006/10/08/1160246008367.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
Fred Jansohn's article: Lost anarchism - Jesus, the anarchist, is the founder of our faith but where is the Church's revolutionary nature today? OnLine Catholics, Issue 126, 18 Oct 2006.
URL: www.onlinecatholics.com.au/issue126/news1.php

Tom Scott is the pen name of the editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne.

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