A Stranger Amidst the Strange: Pastoral Leadership in Disorienting Times
Abstract
“A Stranger Amidst the Strange: Pastoral Leadership in Disorienting Times”Embracing the perspective of a stranger on a pilgrimage of faith, a Filipino immigrant priest, serving as pastor of a Catholic parish in Southern California, recounts his journey of making sense of the unfamiliar ministerial terrain of a global pandemic coupled with a contentious U.S. presidential election cycle. Employing the method of autoethnography, particularly to illustrate sense-making processes, the thesis begins with a narration of the author’s encounters with the “strange” that has bearing on his faith community such as political division, racial injustice, and Catholic religious fundamentalism. Cognizant of having a migrant’s figurative baggage of culture and faith, the author examines the journey that shaped his pastoral aesthetic. This aesthetic sheds light as to why these “strange” issues matter to the author as a pastor. With the contours of the unfamiliar defined and armed with a better understanding of the minister himself, the sense-making process closes with the author’s attempts to identify transformational practices by exploring the relational and empathetic facets of the Filipino psyche to make a case for a catholic church of fellow strangers. As a thesis on practical theology, the final chapter is a show and tell of an attempt at transformative practice with a sample of a homily that addressed a troubling episode in recent national history, the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and concluding with a reflection on the importance of articulacy in pastoral leadership.
Subject Area
Theology|Religion|Asian Studies|Educational leadership
Recommended Citation
Cordero, Ernesto Roxas, "A Stranger Amidst the Strange: Pastoral Leadership in Disorienting Times" (2022). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI29059755.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI29059755
