The Mission of Authority and Obedience

Frans Dokman
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Frans Dokman: Radboud University

Chapter 43 in The Palgrave Handbook of Servant Leadership, 2023, pp 1039-1060 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter analyzes the relation between Faciem Tuam and Servant Leadership within the context of Catholic missionary orders and congregations. Members of Roman Catholic orders and congregations make their vows to accept leadership according to the service of authority and obedience. “The Service of Authority and Obedience” (Faciem Tuam, Domine requiram) is established by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which is a dicastery, department, of the Vatican Curia. While following as good as possible the guidelines for management of Faciem Tuam, missionary orders and congregations have also been working at the same time worldwide with Servant Leadership. This leadership model was created by Robert K. Greenleaf, a Quaker from his middle age. Inspired by the Judeo-Christian ethic, this Servant Leadership model is meant for people of all faiths and all organizations, secular and spiritual (Greenleaf, 1977). One of the effects of Catholicism as a world religion is that missionary orders and congregations are composed of members with diverse spiritual values about leadership. The French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1986) speaks here about spiritual habitus. The spiritual habitus are internalized at a young age and reveal how we relate, among others, to leadership. People act on the basis of their habitus, but they are also able to transcend it once they feel safe. The main question addressed here is how does the diversity of spiritual habitus affect Faciem Tuam and Servant Leadership within Catholic missionary orders and congregations? The purpose of both Faciem Tuam and Servant Leadership as leadership styles is to create, as best as it can, circumstances in which missionaries can explore their spirituality and feel seen and safe. I argue that safety on personal and institutional level is pre-conditional for both leadership models and a necessity to transcend the diverse spiritual habitus from members from the Africa, Asia, and Latin America as opposed to the West.

Keywords: Spiritual habitus; Safety; Missionary orders and congregations; Authority and obedience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-01323-2_61

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