Father John Series #7

Chapter 7

Father John: Three Types of Community

Today Father John arrived at Bob’s office wearing a black suit and a clerical collar. As he walked in Bob’s office, Bob motioned him to the one seat, other than Bob’s, that was without a pile of papers.“How do you exist and get anything done working in the middle of all this debris?” Father John began.“I don’t think of it as debris,” Bob said. “It is not refuse to be thrown away. I think of myself as a nineteenth century newspaper man, like H. L. Menkin, who has everything he needs around him within arms reach on flat surfaces, floors, tables, desks, chairs, arranged in stacks. I know where everything is.”“This would not do for Sister Martha,” Father John said. “She is in charge of office files at the Nashville Diocese headquarters. She has a place for everything and everything is in its place.”“So do I,” Bob protested.“I will have to take your word for that,” Father John said.“I’ve never seen you dressed like that,” Bob observed, “What is this about?”“I’ve been asked to spend at least a month working in the central office of the diocese,” Father John said. “They are shorthanded after the death of the Bishop’s assistant. Sister Martha told me the first day that I had to dress like this if I was to work at the Diocese central office. The Bishop seems to think my parish needs me less than the other parishes need their priests, or he wants me to stop rousing my rabble or he wants to keep an eye on me.”“Or all the above,” Bob said. “The world is multi-determined.”“That’s right Mr. Three Positions,” Father John said. “There are at least three reasons for everything.”“So what do you want to talk about today?” Bob asked.“The Bishop has assigned me the responsibility to respond to a request from a militant right wing conservative Catholic group,” Father John said. “It is further to the right than Opus De is. You know that organization referred to in the book, The Davinci Code.”“What’s the request?” Bob asked.“They want to start a new Catholic school,” Father John answered. “They believe that Catholics from South America will immigrate into the United States and will have many children so that within the next 40 years the country will be over 50% Catholic. They want to prepare children to be part of a new Roman Catholic theocracy. They follow Pope Thomas X.* He thought all other religions were idolatry and that the Jews killed Jesus. He wanted the Catholic Church to become a world power. These people believe that creating a group of young people, educated in this philosophy, will prepare the Catholic Church to take over the government. They believe this will lead to making the United States of America the Kingdom of God, heaven on earth.”“This sounds crazy and dangerous,” Bob said.“It is,” Father John admitted. “It’s my mission to convince them that our current Catholic schools do a fine job educating and raising the children and that our plans for expansion of the Catholic schools in Nashville are adequate. I have to do this and not alienate them and see if we can attract their money to our schools.”“Is Pope Thomas X, a dead pope, really their leader?” Bob asked.“No,” Father John answered. “Their leader is an African American psychologist, John Fletcher. Race is the only thing they have an open mind about. Fletcher is further right than the black Oklahoma Congressman, J.C. Watts. They meet on Tuesday and Thursday morning after early mass. Their meeting usually consists of thirty-plus people. Fletcher gives a small talk about reinstituting confession in the church, protecting women, or going back to the Latin mass or preparing the next generation to build a Kingdom of God on earth. They have raised $200,000 for their new school and they already have pledges for one million more.”“And your job, given to you by the Bishop, is to basically talk them out of building a new school without losing their money.”“Yes,” Father John said. “And I hate this job. I am no polite diplomat. I think these people are idiots. I tend to say what I think. You know that.”“Yes I do,” Bob agreed.“And I hate working at the central office,” Father John said. “I hate working with the staff there. They are drones, experts with no personality. There is no laughter there. They are policy researchers, accountants, and keepers of lists. And Sister Martha, ‘Fill out this requisition if you want a pencil,’ ‘have your authorizations to use the car?’ ‘you can’t smoke in the building.’”“But you don’t smoke,” Bob said.“I know,” Father John said, “but it’s her constant nagging. She is the Bishop’s hatchet lady. I miss my parish, my cassock, my parishioners. Every day there I felt I could help someone. We laugh and we love each other. Juan needs a job. I call Diego and he gets him work. Maria needs a bus for a school trip. I call Roberto and he brings me two large vans. Our parish is like a family. I want to go back.”“Why don’t you?” Bob asked.“The Bishop’s orders,” Father John said. “I can’t go back until I get this problem solved.”“So what have you done to solve it?” Bob asked.“I started going to their meetings,” Father Johns said. “I haven’t said much. I go and I pray. Someone mentioned that John Fletcher meets with a planning committee. It costs $40,000 to be a member of that. I think this is where they got their $200,000. I stayed after a meeting one time to see if I could talk with Dr. Fletcher.“I approached him, introduced myself and I said, ‘I know a social worker and a psychiatrist who knew him.’ He replied, ‘It’s not who you know but what you believe’ and he starred intensely into my eyes as if staring into my soul. After an uncomfortable silence I said, ‘I am here organizing a new parish in the Nolensville Road area and I heard about this group and wanted to learn more.’ He said. ‘The world is our parish and we are about changing the world.’“I still didn’t know what to say or do. So I left. I think that’s how he works. He gets people off balance and takes a superior tone. Those that are insecure are then attracted to his confident, righteous pose. He gave me the creeps. I am really lost as to what to do next.”“You must understand the nature of the community that you are dealing with,” Bob said.“So there are different kinds of communities?” Father John asked innocently.“Yes,” Bob said. “There are three.”“I should have known,” Father John said. “Here we go again with the third position.”“Yes,” Bob admitted, “and no.”“What do you mean by that?” Father John said.“Well third position thinking would say,” Bob began, “that we cannot understand reality with only two categories. For a long time community psychology only had two types of community.”“What were they?” Father John asked.“They were gemeinschaft communities on one end,” Bob said, “and gesellschaft on the other.”“Oh God,” Father John exclaimed. “New big words and these are German words. What is it with you academics? Does it make you feel smarter to use big foreign words? Why can’t you find an English word?”“Okay,” Bob said. “I’ll use English words. But the reason we use German terms is because a German named Tonnies came up with this typology.”“I don’t give a damn about him Tonnies and his German typology,” Father John said. “What are the two types?”“Gemeinschaft or the theory of the village,” Bob began again.“English please,” Father John said.“Give me a break. I’ll get there,” Bob said. “Gemeinschaft is associated with rural tribal rooted-in-the-earth family oriented communities. So let’s call this type an organic community.”“That makes sense to me,” Father John said.“Gesellschaft is the theory of the city that refers to an urban, specialized technological, competitive, market-driven community. So let’s call this type a market community.”“Okay,” Father John said. “Market versus organic communities. What’s your third type?”“Well it’s important to note that no one has suggested a third type until now,” Bob said. “I have never been satisfied with just two categories, as you might imagine.”“Yes so what’s your third?” Father John said.“A colleague of mine found a third German word that ends in schaft,” Bob said.“Why can’t we use English?” Father John said. “I hate these big foreign words.”“That’s the academe and I’m it,” Bob said. “So you have to humor me. This third German word is gefolgschaft which means to obey or give one’s allegiance to. So a gefolgschaft community would be one with a charismatic leader with a mission.”“So give me an English word,” Father John said.“I think you might call this a mission community,” Bob said.“So then you have three types of communities,” Father John said. “One is the organic community the other is the market community and the third is the mission community.”“There you have passed the first part of the quiz,” Bob said.“So why should it matter which community I’m dealing with,” Bob said.“Because each one functions differently,” Bob said. “Each one serves a different purpose.”“It seems to me that the organic community would be the best one,” Father John opined.“That’s what most people say,” Bob acknowledged. “But that’s not necessarily so.”“Why isn’t that obvious?” Father John said.“Well let’s talk about the good things about an organic community,” Bob said. “This is a face to face world. Loyalty is the main value of this community. People govern, not laws. If you are a member, you have a place. The community takes care of its members. Whatever good fortune one member has is shared with others. Whatever pain one member has is shared as well. This conjures images of communal celebrations, e.g., church socials, weddings, Thanksgiving dinners and neighbors bringing food and drink to a wake. Such a community has clear boundaries and provides all its members with a sense of place and a sense of community.”“This all sounds good to me,” Father John said. “It’s like my parish and I love my parish. So what could be wrong with an organic community?”“Corruption is the primary problem,” Bob said. “Power, jobs, wealth, community roles all depend on who you know and where you came from. Power is connected to persons, not to an office. Wealth and status are inherited. If you are so and so’s son, you automatically have a job in the fire department. If a powerful man recommended you, then you get the job. This is why the mafia calls itself a family. The organic community justifies its corruption in the name of ‘the family.’ This is the world of the warlord, Western civilization before the Magna Carta, Somalia today and Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban.“In one small town in Arkansas during the 1930’s Depression the circuit court clerk choose the same thirty-six men for every jury panel for every case. One lawyer always won his cases in that county. Big verdicts were collected. The lawyer who won all his cases often ‘loaned’ money to the twelve men who sat on the jury for that trial. The loans were never repaid. Life in that small town was not about justice or fairness. It was about loyalty and who you knew. If you knew the clerk, you had a chance to be on the thirty-six-man jury panel. If you were loyal to the attorney, you could ‘borrow’ money that you never had to repay.”“I see,” Father John said. “If you don’t belong, you don’t count. That’s the problem that my people feel about being in the U.S.“So in my parish or any organic community the goal would be to keep its sense of community while holding doors open and giving opportunity to all comers. This is the job of all good churches.“So tell me what’s good about the market community? That type of community is impersonal and cold and uncaring to me as I imagine it.”“Well it can be,” Bob said. “And that would be one of the things its critics would say about it, but the best thing about a technological economy is that competency is king. This is not a face-to-face universe. It is a face to machine world. The machine doesn’t care who you are, only that you know how to make it work. The most qualified person gets the job. A successful market community cannot afford corruption. The market must be protected. The trading process must be open and transparent. Laws and procedures apply equally to everyone. Rules govern behavior not people. Power belongs to an office, not a person. Boundaries and rules are essential for order. There are clear job descriptions that define the limits of one’s power. Hard productive work is rewarded. Ideas that improve productivity are encouraged. Communication is free and open. Dissent is welcome. It is not about who you know. It’s about what you can do.”“Well that sounds much better than I thought,” Father John said. “So what’s the dark side of a market community?”“It can be cruel,” Bob said. “It is rigid and inflexible. In a market community it is about what you can do for me today. What you did yesterday no longer counts. It is bureaucratic. It has red tape. Decisions are made in a certain prescribed rule-based manner. Decisions take time. You are bound by precedents.”“This is beginning to sound like Sister Martha and the diocese central office,” Father John observed.“Yes,” Bob agreed. “I suppose it is. The diocese is about business. They run the whole Middle Tennessee church. They have to be a bureaucracy. They can’t play favorites.”“And Sister Martha fits perfectly in that world,” Father John said.“Yes,” Bob said, “I suspect she does.”“So the job of a good leader of a market community,” Father John said, “is to protect the process, of course, while at the same time developing compassion.”“Yes,” Bob said. “I think that’s an appropriate challenge to a market community.”“Yeah,” Father John said. “It’s to get Sister Martha to dance.”“Who knows,” Bob said. “Maybe back in her convent, an organic community, Sister Martha dances.”“So tell me about the mission community,” Father John said. “The gefolgschaft community.”“I’m amazed you remembered,” Bob said. “Well the mission community is often a spiritual or military community. It serves a higher purpose. This is not a face-to-face world or a face to machine universe. It is an idea-to-idea matched community. It answers the call of a prophet. It puts the prophet’s teachings into practice. These communities use the charismatic person as the organizing principle for the community. The leader often paints a picture of an emergency situation, often a life or death crisis. With a crisis mentality as a given and the mission community’s value as the answer, the leadership structure can quickly become autocratic.“Its purpose is to do good. It is organized around a certain value position. To be a member you must share the community’s values. Shared value is all that is required to belong. You do not have to know someone or be an expert. All you have to do is support the cause, and keep the faith. A mission community wants to change things. It appeals to what it believes to be the best human values. It wants to right wrongs.”“I think I can see the problems with this type of community,” Father John said.“Problems with mission communities are obvious,” Bob said. “Dissent is not tolerated. In fact dissent can be grounds for excommunication. Mission communities quickly can become personality cults. Often mission communities serve a small range of human values that marginalize its appeal and create extreme, sometimes dangerous positions. The cause can create an, ‘ends justify the means’ mentality. The mission can diminish the individual and encourage unreasonable personal sacrifice. Suicide bombings are examples of exploiting a member for the cause.”“So how can you help a mission community,” Father John said, “because that is obviously what John Fletcher is leading.”“Well,” Bob said. “The job here is to help members and leaders see the worthy values in the opposition. Help charismatic leaders be cautious with the power their charisma gives them. There should be some process for passing the authority to a new leader. Dissent within the community should be encouraged. Emergency myths should be discouraged.“The tension between the warlord king of the organic community and the priest of the church mission community was once the dominant theme in the history of the West. When the technological communities emerged, a third position was added to the two polar positions of the king vs. the church.”“So what do I do with John Fletcher?” Father John asked.“Remember what he said?” Bob asked.“What are you talking about?” Father John wondered.“He said, ‘it’s not who you know, it is what you believe. What beliefs do you and he share?”“Almost nothing,” Father John said, “or at least I hope that’s true.”“Well,” Bob said. “You had better find some. I think you might get closer to him in your robe and sandals than in your collar. Your robe symbolizes your shared militant values.”“But we are militant about different things,” Father John said.“You won’t get anywhere if you decide you are superior to him,” Bob observed. “That is what he is doing and it is what makes him easy to manipulate. Give him his superior position. He will take it and then be open to your influence.”“Well,” Father John replied. “There is the thing in the Bible about being all things to all people. And besides I have the advantage. He is a good catholic. That means he must obey the Bishop. He can’t build a Catholic school without the Bishop’s approval no matter how much money he has.”“Then what’s your problem?” Bob asked.“The Bishop wants that $200,000,” Father John answered. “And the Bishop wants to use John Fletcher’s talent for raising money for other missions of the church.”“Then you better find something else you agree with him about,” Bob said. “Remember it’s not who you know, but what you believe.”Father John returned to consult with Bob a month later.“This idea of three types of communities was really helpful,” Father John said. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since we talked. Different type communities do different things. An organic community is great to settle and farm land with a small number of good friends, because people always need help and every person’s help is useful in some way. Cooperation is required to raise a barn or to harvest a crop. Or to make a church run. Or in a school. Education is probably best done inside the caring and loyalty of an organic community.“But in the Diocese central office we need the best person to crunch the numbers, or to organize the office. The Bishop cannot afford to hire his best buddy. A crony-system won’t work here. The central office is a technological community.“And in John Fletcher’s group values matter most. To be a member you must follow the leader’s vision.”“I don’t think you should expect to make money from a financial investment in a mission community,” Bob said.“Or make friends in a technical community like the Diocese Central Office,” Father John said.“Or justice in an organic community,” Bob said. “By the way, how did it work out with John Fletcher?”“It went just like you said,” Father John said. “When I told him he was a smart man, he was eager to recruit me. It turns out he sees the Hispanic immigrant as the key to his vision. ‘They are a mixed race,’ he said. And that is what he wants the world to become. The Catholic Church provides the context for inter-racial marriages. The church can bless these unions. The church provides the moral values that will help these marriages last. Hispanics are truly a mixture of Indian, African and European bloodlines. When they become the dominant race and they join with other Catholics of different races under the banner of the church, the world will be a better place, according to John Fletcher.“He offered me a place in his inner circle. He wants to have stronger ties with our church and its men. (I don’t mean women. He’s not one to champion women’s rights.) He sees me as an important ally. I became the go-between Fletcher and the Bishop.”“So did you get his $200,000?” Bob asked.“Let me tell the story,” Father John said. “When I told John Fletcher that the Bishop was not going to approve the building of a new Catholic school for his movement. He was angry. He said, ‘I’ll burn the money if he won’t build my school.’ That’s when he overstepped. As charismatic as he was, it was not his money. Earlier I had suggested a fall back position to Fletcher and his group. I love Latin and I respect a Latin classically based education. John Fletcher also shared this value. The group seemed to resonate to it as well.When John Fletcher threatened to burn the money, one of the members reminded him it was not his money to burn. Another suggested supporting Latin education by providing scholarships to the top students in Latin classes at the Catholic high schools. The group liked this idea.John Fletcher was not happy. Speaking to the group he said, ‘You have betrayed me. You have betrayed the cause’ and he stormed out and did not return. The group has continued to meet as a men’s prayer group. Now it is more of a support group, what you call an organic community. Sometimes it holds a pancake breakfast for all Latin students in the high schools. Then it becomes an action group. Some members who have strong social skills who can encourage others well and pray easily are most active in the weekly prayer group. Other members who are less verbal and more take charge action people are most active in organizing and cooking the breakfasts. I guess you would call it a technical community when it is serving breakfasts. But it is much less of a mission community without John Fletcher.”“Communities evolve, don’t they,” Bob answered.“This seemed a healthy change to me,” Father John said.“I’m sure it was,” Bob agreed. “But sometime communities remain the same. I expect the dioceses office will remain a technical community, no matter who works there.”“That’s too bad,” Father John said.“Oh I don’t know,” Bob said. “We are not stuck in one community. We are all members of more than one community. We get various needs met in each community we belong to.”“Oh,” Father John said. “That makes me think of Sister Martha. How I hope she has some community where she dances.“You don’t know,” Bob said. “Maybe she does. At least you can imagine her singing in a nun’s choir.”“You have done a lot of thinking with these three categories,” Bob said.“Yes I have,” Father John acknowledged, “and if there were only two rather than three I would have had completely different notions.”“How so?” Bob asked.“I would have been caught in the trap of trying to decide which one was the best,” Father John answered. “Two types are not enough. We need at least three. Three positions help me understand the other positions better. They give me balance and perspective. Two positions give me the illusion that I can find the right choice versus the wrong choice, perfection/imperfection, and guilt/innocence. Two positions never tell the complete truth. A triangle is the strongest physical structure and mental structure as well. With only two position types I would never have seen that each type serves a different constructive purpose. With three types I can see that there are no pure types. Sometimes, not often, we laughed together at the central office. In my parish we advocate values and support missions. In my parish we need to have rules of procedure and a budget. And, of course, I see my people loving and supporting each other. So my parish is an organic community sometimes, a market community other times and a mission community as well. The three types help me understand what can be expected of my parish or other communities. Each type frames what is good or bad about the other type.”“And this is the point of having more than either or types,” Bob said. “We need at least three to give us perspective.”“This was so helpful to have this structure and these categories to think with,” Father John said. “I feel myself changing. Before I met you I would have taken pleasure in John Fletcher’s defeat. Now it gives me no comfort. I am sad to lose him as force in the church. He meant well. He had great passion. I wish he could have accepted his loss and found a way to use his gifts in the church. Well maybe latter. Somehow the third position has taught me the downside of winning. Thank you for all your help. I don’t know how to repay you for all the help you have given me. Your ideas have been useful, but the best part has been your friendship. I was afraid when I came here, but you gave me someone to trust. I’m sure you have done this for many people. But you have certainly done it for me. I wish there was something I could do to repay you.”“Well you paid me money,” Bob said. “That’s enough, but I could use some workers. I’m retiring and moving out of this office. If you have any members of your church who need the work, I could use some help moving this stuff to my home office.”

Ten truckloads later, Bob’s office was empty. Thank you Bob.* Pope Thomas X is a fictional character. We hope in reality there is and never has or will be such a Pope.