“To bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, this is the mission statement for the Church that Jesus offers,” presenter Jeff Korgen began the March 30 webinar on Building God’s Kingdom on a Tight Budget: The Importance of Pastoral Planning.

“The question, then,” he continued, “is how do we do this mission in this place, and this time?” He cited Dr. William Pickett’s definition of pastoral planning as “praying and thinking about the actions of the Body of Christ in a given place and time.” To begin pastoral planning for their offices, social action directors should think about their own office’s contribution to this mission.

Jeff invited participants to imagine their office winning the Oak of Justice Prize, then jot down a response to the question, “What makes your office worthy of this prize?” The answer, he contends, is a vision statement. It is the naming of an “ideal future,” for your office. In addition to visioning, Jeff challenged participants to think about goals for their office that could “change everything” if they were achieved. Game-changing goals, Jeff said, alter the way an office approaches their planning.

Jeff lifted up the example of the Diocese of Tucson, where the social action director realized that justice on the border would be a “game-changer,” since so many other life and justice issues emanate from that one. This type of focus “gives single-issue politics a good name,” Jeff said.

Objectives are the next step of the planning process and should be concrete and measureable; they are the “rungs on the ladder to get us to our goals,” goals which should address challenges related to the Church’s social mission.

Engaging new leaders in social action work is often the biggest challenge that diocesan directors face. Jeff raised the example from his book My Lord and My God: Engaging Catholics in Social Ministry of Bertha, a woman at the fringe of her parish who took on all the social justice work and used “operational” tactics like bulletin announcements to try to recruit new volunteers.

To overcome this challenge, leadership development should be a goal for every social action office. Using the principles of community organizing, new leaders are developed through relationship building via 1:1 meetings. A pastoral plan’s concrete objectives should include numbers on how many 1:1 meetings with pastors, deacons, religious and lay persons will be completed each week. Jeff critiqued the “operational style” of recruitment via e-blasts and bulletin announcements, reminding participants that Jesus invited people to follow him by calling them by name.

After budget cuts and loss of social action staff in the Diocese of Davenport, the diocesan director had to discover new ways to build capacity in the office. The leaders that the director had developed over the years were willing to help, and he was able to engage ten volunteers, alongside the two paid staff, who worked weekly in the office, each with their own space and each working on a specific program. In exchange for their labor, the diocesan director’s responsibility was to ensure that these volunteers were growing as leaders.

Recognizing that this type of leadership development is time-intensive, Jeff recommended that priority be put on meeting with pastors who weren’t already engaged in justice work but were pastoral leaders who could be engaged and invited to participate. He also recommended that when seeking to collaborate with other diocesan offices, to actively listen to their needs and self-interests. He offered the example of a diocesan Catholic education office that did not feel they had the capacity to take on new justice education initiatives that the social action office wanted them to undertake. However, they were delighted when the social action office took the time to learn that they were in need of speakers at the teachers’ continuing education seminars, and offered to provide speakers on educating about Catholic social teaching. Through relationship building, creative solutions emerge which help to achieve those “game-changing” goals.

The ample time for discussion during the webinar surfaced a number of specific questions about how to do this work in various pastoral situations. Roundtable members who missed the webinar and would like to view the recording can login to the Virtual Roundtable to see it and download the presentation slides.

For those interested in learning even more about using principles of community organizing to build relationships and enhance the capacity of your office, please join us for our upcoming webinar on May 31, which will build on these ideas. Details to follow!

Don’t miss an important opportunity to honor Jan Benton & the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, recipient of the 2012 Roundtable Harry A. Fagan Award, as well as Msgr. Marvin Mottet, of the Diocese of Davenport, recipient of the 2012 Roundtable Servant of Justice Award.

Please see the information below and share it with anyone who you believe might like to honor our 2012 awardees.

On February 11, 2012 The Roundtable will honor Ms. Benton and Msgr. Mottet in Washington, D.C. with our highest awards, The Harry A. Fagan Award (for national‐ or international‐level leaders) and the Servant of Justice Award (for current or former Roundtable members). We will honor them and their exemplary service with spoken tributes during the award banquet, but you may also honor them with an advertisement in the program for the evening.

Each page of the program is 8.5 x 11 inches (portrait orientation, so please design ads accordingly). Ads should use 1/4 inch margins and be emailed to coordinator@catholicroundtable.org. The best format to send the ad in is a high-resolution JPEG image file. Please do not send an Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word document unless you don’t mind it being scanned.
Please send a file created in black & white only. File conversion by printer to grayscale may result in an unfavorable change to the image.
If you use special fonts not installed in Windows XP, send them along too (if I don’t have them, a substitute font will automatically be used by the page layout program).

The prices are as follows:
¼ page: $110 (4” x 5.5”)
½ page: $190 (8” x 5.5”)
Full page: $325 (10.5” x 8”)
Inside Cover: $800 (10.5” x 8”)
Back Cover: $1,100 (10.5” x 8”)

Please make checks out to “Catholic Charities Diocese of Houma‐Thibodaux” and send them to:
The Roundtable
1225 Otis Street NE
Washington, DC 20017

The deadline to submit an advertisement is January 10, 2012.

Thank you for helping us to acknowledge the great contribution our Fagan and Servant of Justice Award winners have made to the social justice mission of the Church.

In early July, the Catholic Messenger of the Diocese of Davenport featured an article on our announcement that Msgr. Marv Mottet will be the 2012 Roundtable Servant of Justice Award recipient. Read the original article.

The Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors has announced Msgr. Marvin Mottet of the Diocese of Davenport as the 2012 recipient of the Roundtable Servant of Justice Award for his exemplary contributions to the achievement of the Catholic vision of social justice for more than 50 years.

The Servant of Justice Award is given by the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors to a member or former member whose work, through the tradition of Catholic social teaching, has led to significant progress towards greater social justice and dignity for all members of society.

Msgr. Mottet was ordained to the priesthood in 1956 and a year later helped form the Catholic Interracial Council to address widespread racial discrimination and segregation in Davenport. Out of this organization came the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award that has honored 40 recipients, including Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day and Msgr. Mottet.

After receiving an MSW degree and directing Catholic Charities of Davenport, Msgr. Mottet developed the “Two Feet of Social Action” approach, and Catholic Charities merged with Family Resources to become one of the first diocesan social action offices in the country. The “Two Feet” approach continues to be a model used by social action directors today.

In 1978, Msgr. Mottet was appointed executive director of the national Campaign for Human Development, a post he held until 1985. Afterward, he returned to his home diocese of Davenport and was a founding leader of Quad Cities Interfaith congregation‐based organization to address the causes of poverty locally.

At age 81, Msgr. Mottet continues to put into practice the Gospel’s preferential option for the poor as an advocate and an example. He will receive the Roundtable Servant of Justice Award during the Roundtable’s Award banquet on Feb. 11, 2012, at the beginning of the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, D.C.

For the first 25 years of its existence, the Roundtable was a program of the National Pastoral Life Center in New York City before transitioning to an independent organization.

“The two founders were Harry Fagan and Msgr. Phil Murnion. They were good friends of mine,” Msgr. Mottet said. “In the social action world, they are two giants.”

The priest said he feels honored to be named recipient of the Roundtable award. “I admire the group very much.”

Dear Roundtable,

In the last Report, we first announced the theme of the 25^th Annual Social Action Summer Institute – Focus on the Worker: “New Things” in Labor 120 Years after Rerum Novarum. Now we’re only days away from the gathering when many of us will come together for learning, prayer and fellowship. As we prepare for the event, please keep all the presenters and participants in your prayers – that the event may inspire us to be more Spirit-led, effective laborers working to share God’s justice in the world.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Bishop Gabino Zavala of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and co-president of Interfaith Worker Justice will be offering the opening keynote. In anticipation of that address, we’re reprinting Bishop Zavala’s 2010 Labor Day Message, “Enduring Principles of Catholic Social Teaching.”

Some of you know I’m currently pursuing a theology degree, and, inspired by the Church’s support of workers organizing across the country this spring, I wrote an essay for a Church history class on the context and impetuses for Rerum Novarum. I’ve adapted it for the Roundtable Report so that perhaps it might also serve as some background reading for the 2011 SASI.

In addition to planning for SASI, this summer the Roundtable board met via conference call for the first of a two-part summer meeting. Thoughtful conversations and important planning for the upcoming year took place – the most exciting being determining the 2012 Award Recipients and the theme for the 2012 Symposium. Jan Benton was selected to receive the 2012 Harry A. Fagan Award, and Monsignor Marvin Mottet was selected as the 2012 Servant of Justice Award recipient.

The 2012 Symposium will feature Catholic University of America political science professor Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love. She will offer food for thought around the shared and dissonant values of the American Constitution and those of Catholic social teaching.
Save the Dates: the Symposium and Awards Dinner will take place February 11-12, 2012 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park in Washington DC. More information will be coming soon.

And while you have your calendar open, save the dates for the 2012 Social Action Summer Institute, which will take place July 29-Aug 1, 2012 at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. We are pleased that JustFaith Ministries will be a major planning partner for the event.

The Roundtable board continues to work this summer for the good of the Roundtable. They will meet again in-person directly after SASI for the second part of the summer board meeting. They are also currently engaged in annual calls to all of you – if you haven’t heard from a Roundtable board member yet, expect a call soon! These calls are an opportunity to share your joys and challenges with a peer eager to listen. They are also an occasion to share suggestions on how the Roundtable can be of better service – so please share your ideas! We appreciate your feedback, and we will take it to the July board meeting planning sessions.

We do put your suggestions into action; in the past year, several Roundtable members expressed a desire to receive more content and training around respecting human life and dignity. In May, Tricia Hoyt of the Diocese of Phoenix offered a webinar training for Roundtable members providing a New Framework for Sharing Teaching on Respect for Life. It was our most popular discussion call to date – if you missed it, be sure to check out the feature article & her powerpoint slides!
And as we plan for a fall webinar, please email me your suggestions of topics and speakers.

Responding to the brokenness they see around them, Catholic young people have heart to serve and change the world – and putting this desire into action can be a prime opportunity to learn about and reflect on Catholic social teaching and unite their faith with the world’s realities. Diocesan directors and young adult ministers gathered in May in the Diocese of Camden to reflect on “Integrating Faith, Service, and Justice”; check out the top three takeaways from the conference. Seventh graders in the Archdiocese of St. Louis also recently put their faith in action by hosting a Social Justice Festival; read about the learning and planning process they participated in – and share it with staff in your own dioceses!

As always, the Roundtable Roundup offers news of social action office transitions, the good work that you are doing, and upcoming initiatives from the Roundtable’s national partners.

In order to continue all of the Roundtable’s work, we depend on your support. Many of you have opted to wait until the start of a new fiscal year to pay your 2011 membership dues. If the new fiscal year has begun, please don’t hesitate – mail in your membership form and dues payment today!

I hope this summer is a rejuvenating time for you – that you are able to create space to hear the Spirit’s call as you plan for upcoming activities for the fall and beyond.

Grace & Peace,

Jenn Svetlik
Roundtable Coordinator

“Social Justice Rockstar” of Diocese of Davenport Honored for Contributions

The Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors has announced Monsignor Marvin Mottet, of the Diocese of Davenport, as the 2012 recipient of the Roundtable Servant of Justice Award for his exemplary contributions to the achievement of the Catholic vision of social justice. The Servant of Justice Award is given by the Roundtable to a member or former member whose work, through the tradition of Catholic social teaching, has led to significant progress towards greater social justice and dignity for all members of society.

For more than fifty years, Msgr. Mottet has been a leader with a profound commitment to social justice and an inspiration to many Roundtable members and others furthering the Church’s social mission.

Msgr. Mottet was ordained to the priesthood in 1956 and a year later helped form the Catholic Interracial Council to address widespread racial discrimination and segregation in Davenport, Iowa. Out of this organization came the Pacem in Terris Award that has honored 40 recipients, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, and eventually Msgr. Mottet himself.

After receiving an MSW degree and directing Catholic Charities of Davenport, Msgr. Mottet developed the “Two Feet of Social Action” approach, and Catholic Charities merged with Family Resources to become one of the first diocesan social action offices in the country. His “Two Feet” illustration remains relevant to this day as others seek linkages to current papal teaching.

In 1970, Msgr. Mottet helped establish the Eastside Center and additional neighbor centers that have become United Neighbors, an organization still serving low-income families and children. He was instrumental in the formation of Legal Aid, which is still a strong entity on behalf of poor people and recently celebrated its 40^th anniversary. In 1972, he was key in founding Project Renewal, which still operates in the same location organizing low income persons. His work became known through the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry (CCUM), and he was a major actor in that network.

In 1978, Msgr. Mottet was appointed the Executive Director of the Campaign for Human Development, a post he held until 1985. Afterward, he returned to his home diocese of Davenport and was a founding leader of Quad Cities Interfaith congregation‐based organization to address the causes of poverty locally. At age 81, Msgr. Mottet continues to put into practice the Gospel’s preferential option for the poor as an advocate and an example.

Msgr. Mottet will receive the Roundtable Servant of Justice Award during the Roundtable’s Award banquet on February 11, 2012 and will address participants at February 12, 2012 luncheon before the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington D.C.

Download the 2012 Servant of Justice press release.

In June, the Roundtable spoke with Dan Ebener, former Social Action Director (and Roundtable member) in the Diocese of Davenport, about his work and his latest book on Servant Leadership. Read their conversation here:

Roundtable Report:  You’ve had a long history working in ministry and education. You were a diocesan social action director for twenty years, you’ve taught in universities and workshops on leadership, non-profit management, and conflict resolution, among other topics, throughout the years. Now you are director for Stewardship and Planning for the Diocese of Davenport and have recently written a book on servant leadership. How did you find yourself where you are today?

Dan Ebener: One part of my story may be of particular interest to Roundtable members. Very early in my social action ministry, at one of my very first Roundtable meetings in the 1980s, [first Roundtable secretariat] Harry Fagan got up and said, “If you’re not developing leaders, you might as well get out of this business.” That particular statement changed my whole approach to ministry.

At that time I was guilty of trying to do too much myself. I was not delegating and creating structures for others to get involved in my ministry. But from Harry Fagan I learned that we shouldn’t be doing it ourselves, we should develop the people so that the people will do it. Lao Tzu once said, “of the best leader, the people will say when the job is finished, we did it ourselves.”

This experience first changed my ideas about leadership. And now, as you can probably tell, I am very passionate about servant leadership. I feel like it’s my next calling in life.

RR: What is servant leadership? And where in Scripture do you find the foundations for servant leadership?

DE: Servant leadership is teaching and leading the way that Jesus taught and led. It’s about welcoming people and their ideas, encouraging the initiative of all, and building greater trust, commitment and cohesion among people. It about building a greater sense of mission.

I’ve been rereading the Sermon on the Mount during the past few months. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is there also your heart will be.” And I think what I’ve come to realize about the Sermon on the Mount is that it’s all about the heart.

Where the heart is, that’s a question central to servant leadership. Is my heart with the people, the mission of the organization, with God? Or is it with selfish interests and selfish motives? Is it willing to step on anybody until I get what I want? These are the questions of servant leadership that can transform ourselves, our churches, as well as corporations and society at large.

RR: In March 2010, you published a new book entitled Servant Leadership Models for Your Parish. Tell me more about that. What models do you offer for parishes in the book?

DE: My book is about how servant leadership changes how we do church. The thing that’s great about teaching leadership is that it applies to all walks of life. I teach at the graduate level and I see nurses, teachers, social workers, pastors, business leaders, coaches in my classes. All these people create an incredible learning environment to talk about and apply to leadership, because it applies to all those fields. However, we often overlook the way that leadership applies to the way that we do church.

One of the primary ways servant leadership works in a parish is that this model brings out the best in people, it welcomes their physical presence, their ideas, initiative, participation and leadership. To be truly welcoming is to open oneself up to the full personhood of those entering the parish, not just their physical presence. If people feel like they should be “seen, not heard,” that’s not welcoming.

What my research showed too is that servant leadership increased participation in parish life. When that leadership structure is in place, people are going to take their role as follower of Christ more seriously and sharpen the saw, train themselves, and develop themselves as leaders for social action. Servant leaders guide and nurture parishioners in that process.

The beginning of the book defines servant leadership. The middle is lots of stories of what it looks like in a parish. The last section puts servant leadership into various different models that could work for  parishes.  One of the great strengths of the book is the stories about how and why servant leadership works.

Roundtable Report: Can you share an example of one of the stories in your book?

DE: One story from the smallest parish in the Davenport Diocese involves a guy who showed up for Mass 15 minutes early, and he noticed that the front door wasn’t swinging properly. So he went to his truck, pulled out a toolbox and fixed the door. He went to Mass and that was the end of it. But what’s significant about the story is that first, in a small parish, you can get things done smoothly and easily. Also, if the pastor of the church had seen him doing this, and asked him to stop and go through the building committee, see if it was in the budget, and fill out the paperwork, the guy would lose his initiative. A servant leadership model gives people a sense of ownership of their parish. That guy treated his church like his home. Of course, in a larger parish there are more rules. But the culture of a parish is contingent on the leadership of the pastor. It can either encourage or extinguish initiative. That story was just one simple story, but there are lots more in the book.

Roundtable Report: What are the trends you are seeing in the field of leadership, in our church and in our society?

DE: We’re in a kairos moment right now around servant leadership.  There is interest mounting from lots of directions.

Take, for example, one organization called “Lead Like Jesus,” which was formed out of the evangelical churches. There are lots of evangelical Christians who are CEOs of corporations who are now looking at how they can lead their companies like Jesus would. This group has spurred a lot of interest around servant leadership in the for-profit world. The CEOs of these companies are realizing that they can’t lead like Jesus without changing the workplace. And, of course, changing the workplace in a significant way like this creates an opportunity to make major transformations in our society toward social justice and human dignity, particularly around the dignity of the worker, one of the principles of Catholic social teaching.

One of the first things I say in my book is, “Every leadership situation offers an opportunity to put our faith into practice.” In every leadership situation, a CEO of an organization has an opportunity to say, “Am I going to put my corporate hat on and think only of the financial bottom line? Or am I going to go with my gut and lead like Jesus would?” They are asking themselves how they can be disciples in the workplace.

And it’s had a great impact so far on a growing number of CEOs and top organizational leaders in very large corporations. Some 40% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted servant leadership as their philosophy. Walmart has adopted servant leadership as a corporate philosophy. We have strong Christian leaders in that company, southern evangelicals who want to practice their faith at work.

People want to practice their faith while at work. If we spend the greatest number of our waking hours at work, then we should be practicing our religion there. If corporate leaders want to practice the Sermon on the Mount at work, this could be a major breakthrough for us who believe in Catholic social action.

RR: How do the ideas of servant leadership and stewardship speak to the work of diocesan social action directors? How can promoting models of servant leadership support their work?

DE: In social ministry, we’re not looking for charismatic leaders.  We are looking for transformational leaders who will create structures where people will do things themselves. We’re looking for leaders who will develop the people. As a diocesan staffperson, you can’t do it all yourself. If you try, you won’t be able to get as much done, and eventually you will burn out, but you’re also taking away the opportunity from others to get involved.

Leadership is about giving people an opportunity to practice discipleship. It’s not about work that needs to get done, it’s not about checking tasks off a “To Do” list, it’s a life that needs to be lived. The sooner we can all realize that social action ministry is a part of Christian discipleship, the sooner we will transform society.

As diocesan staffpeople, our role is to empower, enhance, and enable. Sometimes we think, “If I can just have this meeting, conference, dinner, then our social action ministry is going to excel.”  But it’s not about that. It’s about the people. It’s about creating an environment where everyone practices social action ministry because it’s a part of discipleship.

When you go to community organizing school, we talk about the iron rule, which says, “don’t do unto others what they can do unto themselves.” Our role as social action ministers is empowerment. Our role is organizing, it’s not to be the leader ourselves. The best measure of leadership is not how many followers you lead but how many leaders you develop. Social action ministry just flows throughout my latest book. Everything I learned as a diocesan social action director just flows through the book.

RR: Anything else you’d like to share with Roundtable members?

DE: My bishop sent a copy of Servant Leadership Models for Your Parish to every bishop in the country. To get a copy to every pastor in the country will take diocesan work. Every diocesan social action director should know that his or her bishop has a copy of my book.

RR: Thank you, Dan, for your time and for sharing your insights!

Purchase a copy of Dan’s book from Paulist Press.