WHEN THE PEOPLE ARE READY, THE LEADER WILL ARRIVE! POPE FRANCIS I CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO THE ROMAN CURIA, 2014!

WHEN THE PEOPLE ARE READY, THE LEADER WILL ARRIVE!

POPE FRANCIS I CHRISTMAS MESSAGE TO THE ROMAN CURIA, 2014!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© December 23, 2014

The world is abuzz this Christmas Season for the startling Christmas message of Pope Francis I of the Roman Catholic Church.  Actually, it should be no surprise as Pope Francis is a Jesuit.

Jesuits through the centuries have not been known to follow the stultifying bureaucratic code of decorum either of the Roman Catholic Church or of society in general, especially when the mission of the church appeared to be compromised, or, indeed, lost on political and personal self-aggrandizement as Pope Francis sees the Roman Curia, the body politic of church governance reporting directly to him, which seems to have misplaced its moral compass. 

Pope Francis makes it clear that he is more concerned with moral psychology and ethical practices than political advantage in the short term.  Unlike previous popes, his Christmas message was not about the church agenda for the coming year.  Nor was it a tutorial on weighty lessons about how to think, but rather about what to think, and what to value.  

He limited his Christmas message to the bloated bureaucracy of the Roman Curia, its hubris, arrogance and bad faith, but he could just as well have been speaking to us all about the conduct of our lives and business interests.  He was leading by thinking inside and outside the box simultaneously.     

The Roman Curia is like the President of the United States, his Cabinet and direct reports, or an American CEO’s inner circle of obliging confederates and his equally obliging Board of Directors.  The nature of these established bureaucracies is to exercise power without apology, a derivative status rather than an earned one. 

Weak popes, weak presidents and weak CEO’s have produced the world that we live in today, a world often not engaged in real challenges, often ambivalent, out-of-touch with pressing issues, taking cover as apologists after disturbances, tragedies or catastrophes occur.  

This is a situation I have identified in my writing as leaderless leadership.   Pope Francis is not of this ilk

Jesuits, in the tradition of founder Ignatius Loyola, are “Soldiers of Christ,” showing little inclination to accept the status quo when it is the problem, or to sit idly by as power is corrupted without redress.   They bite the bullet and take a stand, popular or not.

For Jesuits the mission is the message.  

In the Roman Catholic Church’s two thousand year history, now having its first Jesuit as pope, it is finding out what that means in a pragmatic sense.   

The New York Times has published Pope Francis I’s complete remarks in today’s newspaper and on-line.  Suffice it here to highlight some of these remarks directed to the Roman Curia:

Pope Francis finds the Roman Curia feeling it is “immortal,” that it is beyond human taint or capacity to challenge its ubiquitous authority.  

In that sense, it fails to practice self-criticism, does not keep up to date with the sources of internal stress or accelerating external demands, and finds no need for self-improvement or self-development, feeling it has “arrived” and that is that!  

In a word, the Roman Curia is an infirm body loaded with debilitating social psychological disease.

Moreover, the pontiff informs us that the Roman Curia suffers from “spiritual Alzheimer’s disease.”  

This is demonstrated by declining spiritual faculties, which causes severe spiritual collateral damage to the people, disadvantaged in their quest for spiritual contentment and enlightenment.  

What makes it worse is that these people are programmed to cling to abstract or imagined views that results in a faulty spiritual dependency that brings little comfort to their souls.

The pope, crafting his message in philosophical terms, sees this disease of the Roman Curia resembling “existential schizophrenia,” or the dilution of a double life of hypocrisy on the one hand, and mediocrity on the other.

This promotes spiritual emptiness, the pope says, "which an assortment of academic titles cannot fill.”   

The Roman Curia is depicted here as being more interested in making an impression with its academic credentials than a difference with its performance.  This description has a lot in common with professionals everywhere today.  Moreover, in this context, the Roman Curia appears as if “Hollow Men” in T. S. Eliot's poem.

The pope reserved his greatest criticism for schadenfreude, which is displayed in the delight in other people’s troubles, better known as gossip.  

The sin of gossip is likened by the pope to “Satanic Gossip.”  

To show how emphatic he is on this propensity, he calls gossip “cold-blooded murder of other people’s reputations, the disease of cowards, who do not have the courage to speak up front.”

Since I write a great deal about these things in my books consistent with the message of His Holiness, I wish I had the courage to send him one of my books, but I don't.  Alas, I, too, am a coward!   

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