Introduction by François Brassard, Ladysmith, BC

Tom Hassett has written a very pointed article on prophetic leadership. The Ottawa group, Le Manifeste, echoing the "Parallel Synod of Rome," has detailed the leadership failures of the present Canadian bishops and urges them to lead in responding to the practical and spiritual needs of the Christian community. Some of the bishops at the Synod of  Rome are talking about a more decentralized practice of collegiality, but it is with respect to local administrative decisions, which is good; how
ever, it still isn't concerned with gospel based prophetic leadership. That's unfortunate. Nevertheless, I see hope in the number of religious women who are, in fact, exercising pastoral, prophetic leadership in collaboration with the People of God in increasing numbers of priestless or circuit-rider priest parishes.

Like Mary, the mother of Jesus, whom Luke and John proclaim as the pre-eminent disciple of the Gospel, it is the women disciples of today who will bring the bishops kicking and screaming into the 21st century universal world of christian discipleship.

For many years I had been hearing gospel readings about shepherds and flocks but it was only when we moved to our small family farm in the Kootenays that I began to understand them. If you are moving sheep or cattle you must direct them in completely opposite ways. Sheep must be led by a shepherd. Sheep will go only where they can see someone ahead of them. Cattle must be driven by cowboys. Cattle will go only where they can see no one ahead of them. The result is that although you can drive cattle into a corral and lead sheep to green pastures, the reverse is not true.

In WW1, General Haig was a cowboy. Because he was so ignorant of the appalling conditions at his own front line, he directed his army from the rear in the disastrous campaign of the Somme.

In WW2, traveling in a tank from which he could see what his army was facing, Field Marshall Rommel directed his army like a shepherd - from the front - in his successful campaign in North Africa.

Unfortunately, for nearly two thousand years many Catholic Bishops have interpreted Christ  s analogy of the shepherd and his flock as justification for staggering about the sanctuary with a shepherd  s crook while treating people as a lower, rather stupid species of animal which is permitted to bleat only when it is being sheared. But their shepherd  s dress is a disguise, for almost without exception, our Bishops are cowboys, not shepherds. They issue their orders and teachings from the safety of the rear while trying to drive us into smaller and smaller corals. The result has been dispersal.

Celibates dictate how (and when) married people are to love one another.

The 3,000 Bishops of Vatican 2 prattled on (and on) about   reform  , the   grass roots   and the   community  . They talked the talk but since then, how many have walked the walk? Archbishop Romero? Bishop Belo of East Timor ?

So, how many of those 3,000 pastors have ordained women or appointed to parishes, those priests who have received the gift of the sacrament of marriage?

The Popes as well as the Bishops of Canada and the States have ever so bravely spoken out against the evils of capitalism, the immense corporate wealth of the multi nationals, the desperate plight of the poor and the need for   social justice.

So, how many Bishops and Popes have changed their   corporations sole   into co-ops, giving each Catholic an equal share in the ownership of Church property ?

After nearly 2000 years, I think it is time for our leaders to accept the fact that Jesus used the metaphor of the shepherd and the flock to exemplify the kind of compassionate concern they must have for every member of the Church, no matter how insignificant that member may be.

It is also time for our leaders to accept the fact that Jesus used the metaphor of the shepherd to exemplify the kind of leadership He wanted in His Church. He wanted  leadership by example, not words; leadership from the front, not from the rear.

In summary: in the Church today, we have far too many cowboys - and not nearly enough shepherds.