Politics and Servant-Leadership
The mission of this blog is to discuss the role of servant-leadership in today's world. While we are not a political blog, nor do we choose to be, at times some very interesting stories develop that should be brought to light as they pertain to servant-leadership.
Today Powerline points out a story from the LA-Times Opinion page about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Not only is he a devout Catholic, but his wife is a strong pro-life activist. It seems that Sen. Durbin asked John Roberts last week during informal meetings about how he would rule on cases that the Catholic Church considers immoral. There are some great questions that this raises. Here are just a couple:
1) To what extent will politicans play the Catholic card when public hearings begin and question his ability to separate his faith from his constitutional obligations?;
2) Will Catholic bishops, a small minority of whom became very vocal during the 2004 election regarding politicians' voting records and their Catholic faith, also begin to question Catholic judges as well?; and
3) If Roberts is confirmed, how much pressure will he receive both before and after voting on such issues as abortion and the death penalty from the vocal Catholic activists as well as from Catholic bishops?
Servant-Leadership is a tough way to lead because it requires a great deal of listening, dialogue and the use of persuasion rather than edicts; things we are not used to seeing a lot of, at least publicly, from today's politicians. Let's hope that the confirmation hearings bring out these servant-leadership principles rather than simple closed-minded rhetoric.
Today Powerline points out a story from the LA-Times Opinion page about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Not only is he a devout Catholic, but his wife is a strong pro-life activist. It seems that Sen. Durbin asked John Roberts last week during informal meetings about how he would rule on cases that the Catholic Church considers immoral. There are some great questions that this raises. Here are just a couple:
1) To what extent will politicans play the Catholic card when public hearings begin and question his ability to separate his faith from his constitutional obligations?;
2) Will Catholic bishops, a small minority of whom became very vocal during the 2004 election regarding politicians' voting records and their Catholic faith, also begin to question Catholic judges as well?; and
3) If Roberts is confirmed, how much pressure will he receive both before and after voting on such issues as abortion and the death penalty from the vocal Catholic activists as well as from Catholic bishops?
Servant-Leadership is a tough way to lead because it requires a great deal of listening, dialogue and the use of persuasion rather than edicts; things we are not used to seeing a lot of, at least publicly, from today's politicians. Let's hope that the confirmation hearings bring out these servant-leadership principles rather than simple closed-minded rhetoric.
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