Innovation in an Unforgiving Church
Daniel J. Cellucci – Catholic Leadership Institute
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the angry priest said as I barely finished answering the phone with “Hello, this is Dan.” The priest’s diocese was participating in one of our pilots and at 70 years old, he was not interested in my innovative plans. “Do you think any of this crap is going to change me at 70?” He lamented about how over his more than 40 years of priesthood, the diocese had tried countless projects with no follow through and no success. “We tried this same stupid thing 30 years ago and it didn’t go anywhere then, and it won’t go anywhere now.” I didn’t think it would help the situation to highlight that the last attempt he referenced happened when I was nine years old. So, I just listened. His feedback wasn’t all off base. There were a couple of items in the pilot that I knew needed changing and during his tirade, he hit most of them squarely on the head. As the conversation continued, I could feel Satan, “the Great Accuser” start to whisper in my ear. “He’s right. It’s not worth it. Failure is inevitable. Just stop doing this work.”
After 15 years of full-time service to the Church, I find myself uncovering a disappointing truth about many clergy and lay leaders, including and especially myself. For a faith tradition that is unique in its offering of divine sacramental forgiveness, “in the family” we can be incredibly unforgiving of failure. I see it everywhere. The parish tries something, and the attendance is disappointing. The concept is banned for no less than a generation. A first diocesan synod generates no impact. The second diocesan synod 27 years later is condemned to the same fate before it even begins. A program didn’t magically change the world. “Program” is now a dirty word. Redemptive suffering is our mantra as long as we don’t apply it to anything related to our plans.
Experience can make us wise, but it can also make us scared. As a Church called to “go and make disciples of all nations,” it is fear, not failure, that is our biggest enemy. Risk mitigation may position insurance companies well, however, it is poison to a people called to be on mission. The more our experiences tell us not to try, the less we experience failure. The less we experience failure, the scarier failure becomes, and the less we want to try. The less we try, the more we wait. The more we wait, the more they leave.
We should always strive for excellence and continuous improvement. We should avoid stupid mistakes and learn from the past, but what my grumpy priest friend was offering was not a debrief of the present, but a dump of the past. We often want to save people from frustration. We want to tell them that it didn’t work so they won’t make the same mistake or waste their time and effort. But what if the effort in 2021, what if this time’s mistake, what if today’s pain is what leads to the breakthrough? What if Providence has designed it so that the second or the fourth or the tenth attempt is what creates the conditions for encounter?
We need more innovation in the Church, not only to help solve our problems. We need more innovation in the Church to remember how to fail and how to forgive. Failing fast, learning from the failure, and trying again with the benefit of insight is not only good design thinking, it’s good disciple thinking. We need innovation to grow in humility and to retrain our minds to believe that the energy devoted to trying, and to risking, and to fighting for the Gospel is of such better use of energy than the energy required to “play not to lose.”
After several minutes of listening to my frustrated priest friend, I finally asked, “Father, will you forgive me? I didn’t mean to frustrate you so much.” He stopped. “You don’t need my forgiveness,” he said, “At my age, I just don’t need to believe anything will change.” There was silence. “And at my age,” I said, “I just do. And Father, I think you want me to.” He agreed and offered to give me a blessing for me and my stupid project which I was grateful to receive.
We still have so much life in front of us as a Church. There are so many mistakes yet to make but more importantly so many more lessons still to learn. It is those lessons that will ultimately help us to grow in faith. It is those attempts that will teach us that whatever gifts we have been given to innovate, they ultimately come from the Great Creator, and He wants us to use them to our very best potential. I have always appreciated a frequently repeated mantra at Catholic Leadership Institute, “God’s gift to us is our potential. What we do with it is our gift back to God.” Let’s give God what is His.
What if They Don’t Come Back?
An unspoken fear looms over Catholics this year: “What if things don’t go back to normal?” In his OSV Talk, Dan Cellucci proposes a much-needed response: What if that’s a good thing? What if God is calling us to be much greater than the “old normal”? In this stirring talk, Cellucci reminds us that Christianity is not about meeting a bare minimum. It’s about seeking more abundant life—in every time and in every place.
Find more about Dan Cellucci, watch his OSV Conversation, and learn more about OSV Talks at – osvtalks.com/cellucci
