Committees are not the sum total nor most essential form of man’s sociality. That’s a rather large logical leap from my (admittedly flippant) comment.
The social doctrine of the Catholic Church does not mandate modern committees with members, bylaws, motions and procedural norms built for secular political advocacy and governance of commu…
Committees are not the sum total nor most essential form of man’s sociality. That’s a rather large logical leap from my (admittedly flippant) comment.
The social doctrine of the Catholic Church does not mandate modern committees with members, bylaws, motions and procedural norms built for secular political advocacy and governance of community organisations (I’ve read the whole thing, so try me.) It’s far too easy fool yourself into mistaking committee-verified groupthink for movement of the Holy Spirit. A tell tale sign of a committee going off piste is its treatment of dissent. Committees who (at best) blow off any dissenting opinion or passive aggressively drives questioning voices out of The organisation with procedural norms are not fun places to be. I’ve been on committees, and I’ve seem them be useful and functional as a means to a more important end. I’ve also seen them go to absolute pot with one or two highly motivated members with their pet issues and sit on multiple committees and aim to bend the organisation to their pet issues and drive out anyone who sees the committee as a means to a more important end.
I’ve been involved in Alinsky-style community organising and there is absolutely a type of person who is a chronic committee member. They sit on half a dozen at once and are generally extremely passive aggressive with the prodecural norms to get their way (which is usually more meetings) and seem to care very little about the actual work of the committee. They think they are doing ‘useful work’ by sitting on so many committees but actually manage to avoid doing any real work actioning items. The advice is avoid anyone who sits on more than two committees at a time just simply to get stuff done!
So there. You can dress it up as ‘synodaly’ as you like, but this German Committee is just that. A committee of people who think that committeies are the answer to the Church’s problems because they like committees. And they wonder why NO ONE else cares and why the Vatican keeps telling them to stop.
Committees are not the sum total nor most essential form of man’s sociality. That’s a rather large logical leap from my (admittedly flippant) comment.
The social doctrine of the Catholic Church does not mandate modern committees with members, bylaws, motions and procedural norms built for secular political advocacy and governance of community organisations (I’ve read the whole thing, so try me.) It’s far too easy fool yourself into mistaking committee-verified groupthink for movement of the Holy Spirit. A tell tale sign of a committee going off piste is its treatment of dissent. Committees who (at best) blow off any dissenting opinion or passive aggressively drives questioning voices out of The organisation with procedural norms are not fun places to be. I’ve been on committees, and I’ve seem them be useful and functional as a means to a more important end. I’ve also seen them go to absolute pot with one or two highly motivated members with their pet issues and sit on multiple committees and aim to bend the organisation to their pet issues and drive out anyone who sees the committee as a means to a more important end.
I’ve been involved in Alinsky-style community organising and there is absolutely a type of person who is a chronic committee member. They sit on half a dozen at once and are generally extremely passive aggressive with the prodecural norms to get their way (which is usually more meetings) and seem to care very little about the actual work of the committee. They think they are doing ‘useful work’ by sitting on so many committees but actually manage to avoid doing any real work actioning items. The advice is avoid anyone who sits on more than two committees at a time just simply to get stuff done!
So there. You can dress it up as ‘synodaly’ as you like, but this German Committee is just that. A committee of people who think that committeies are the answer to the Church’s problems because they like committees. And they wonder why NO ONE else cares and why the Vatican keeps telling them to stop.