Shepherd-leaders like Charles Borromeo profoundly needed

Politics is inveighing against religion. The New Yorker has boldly predicted that President Biden may “save American Catholicism from the far right.” Bishops are fighting bishops. The Vatican seems to be spreading confusion. The government is crushing the freedom to worship. Morality remains in the never-never land of relativism. Men and women are no longer men and women. Pandemic experts have received death threats. Philosophy appears to be both archaic and irrelevant. We now live under an established state, what political commentator John O’Sullivan has described as an “odd syncretic blend of paganism, sexual polyversity, and scientism.” What is critically needed is leadership, a word that inspires hope but remains elusive.
Mortimer Adler was America’s premier educator and philosopher. Following Aristotle, he taught that leadership is comprised of three factors: ethos, pathos, and logos. With regard to a good leader, ethos refers to his moral character, which would include courage, rectitude, and determination. Pathos refers to his ability to touch people emotionally. Logos is his ability to give solid reasons for his thoughts and actions, to be able to move people intellectually. It may be rare to find all three of these factors in the same person, but so is true leadership.

If the type of leader that Aristotle and Adler outline do not seem readily available, it is nonetheless important to understand what true leadership is, so that potential leaders can aspire to the role. It is also helpful to learn of great leaders of the past who were able to answer a crisis. We may think of Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Churchill, Pope Pius XII, and Pope St. John Paul II. Yet these heroic figures were not called to deal with a plague.

Let us recall to mind St. Charles Borromeo, a heroic leader who responded to the challenges of the plague that broke out in Milan, Italy, in the year 1577. Saint Charles was out of town when the plague began, but hastened back to Milan to inspire confidence in his beleaguered citizens. He was convinced that God had sent the plague as a chastisement for sin. Therefore, he sought all the more to give himself over to prayer.

He prepared himself for death, made out his will, and gave himself entirely to his people. He made personal visits to plague-stricken homes and to hospitals where the worst cases were to be found. It was at this time that this courageous bishop walked in procession, barefooted, with a thick penitential cord around his neck, at one time bearing in his hand the relic of the Holy Nail. His example and his actions proved effective as a powerful Christian witness for many of his fellow citizens. Saint Charles later wrote his Memoriale recalling the lessons given by the cessation of the plague.
The parallels between the plague that ravaged northern Italy in the 16th century and the current situation in the United States are striking. Will another Charles Borromeo emerge to provide the courage and leadership needed to bring people back to God? Presently, Americans seem to be relying more than they should on politics and science, and less than they should on prayer and fasting.

DR. DONALD DEMARCO is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest five books include How to Navigate through Life; Apostles of the Culture of Life; Reflections on the COVID-10 Pandemic: A Search for Understanding; The War Against Civility ; and A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion.