President's Message

Society of Vincent de Paul Annual Meeting Keynote Address August 31, 2006
Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.

THE LIVING RULE

I’m honored to be with you this morning. You do amazing and holy work, and I’m deeply humbled to stand among you. I’m also happy to finally meet all of you. I’ve heard about you for a long time. It’s true that I’m a Vincentian priest, a member of the Congregation of the Mission founded by St. Vincent. But that’s not how I came to understand St. Vincent. It’s also true that I went to a Vincentian University - Niagara University - as a college student. But that’s not how I came to know about St. Vincent either.

No, I first learned about St. Vincent from my grandfather, John Holtschneider. From my earliest years, I remember the stories he’d tell. He was a member of the Society, belonging to the conference at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Cape Coral Florida from 1966 to 1988 – some of those years as its president. Like many of you, he joined his parish conference and became active soon after he retired, in his case from Westinghouse in the Pittsburgh area. He and my grandmother moved to Cape Coral and started a new life. She volunteered extensively in her own way, but my Grandpa joined Vincent DePaul (he never called it “The Society,” just Vincent DePaul) for 22 years, until his health turned poor in the final years of his life. But it was the stories, not the years of service, that captured my imagination. I was four years old in 1966, so I had the advantage of hearing the stories from him well into my adulthood.

They were stories of going out – always in pairs – to assess the situation of those in need and then see what could be done to help them. He never mentioned their names, but I heard about:

• Retirees whose benefits had stopped for whatever reason;
• Women whose husbands had abandoned them;
• People recently released from jail;
• Fires where the family was left with nothing;
• Migrant workers;
• Young people without an education, who couldn’t seem to pull it together;
• Young mothers who were trying to get themselves and their children set up.
• Retirees cutting their pills in half because they couldn’t afford the full dose;
• men who were living in cars, and needed money to get back home.
• “Repeaters”
• People who were trying to scam the system
• And especially, people who used air conditioning and had cable tv.
  

Air conditioning and cable TV were issues for my grandfather. He had left Westinghouse with a modest retirement. My grandparents weren’t poor, but they lived simply in order to stretch their dollars. Each day, my grandfather would open all the windows to let in the cool breezes, and then close the windows and lower the blinds in the heat of the day to keep out the heat. They had air conditioning, but they tried not to overuse it. When my grandfather would meet people asking for help who were heavily air conditioning their homes, or paying for cable tv when he himself didn’t have cable – he would find a way to gently suggest to those families that their were better ways to stretch a dollar.

There were other stories too.

• Stories about the various people he’s go visiting with. Those men became close friends over the years, and visited him to the end.
• Stories about women he was training when women were first welcomed into his conference. My grandfather just seemed to take it in stride.
• Stories about the condition of the places where they would meet people.
• Masses they would go to together
• Furniture and canned goods they would collect and distribute.
• Collections the parish would take up for their work, and their job in counting that collection and accounting for it to the parish.
  

When I read over this new Rule of yours, I was amazed. I think I could have written most of it just from the stories my grandfather would tell us about how the Society worked. I already knew about:

• Always visiting in pairs.
• Conference meetings ever two weeks
• Beginning each meeting with roll call, prayer, a reading, and reflection, all the reports, and “the secret collection.”
• Meeting for certain masses each year – though I couldn’t have told you which ones.
• Commissioning of new members
• I knew there was a larger structure, because my grandfather would have to go to a meeting in Fort Meyers or up in Sarasota every once in a while. I didn’t know they were called councils, but I knew about the meetings.
• I knew also about the rule that visits were always to be non-judgmental and full of respect.
• I knew that Vincent de Paul charity was for everyone, not just Catholics.
• I knew there was a spiritual advisor – though the pastor Fr. Murphy seemed a bit more directive than your Rule seems to indicate. He served more like a central clearinghouse. The poor would call him for help, and he would call the Society members to go check it out. Sometimes my grandfather would get a call late at night. He’d tell us that the retirees got those calls, because the younger men had to stay with their families. So I knew that family responsibilities come first in your organization.
  

Why am I telling you all this? Because of the great “Rules” of the Catholic Church.

You’ve heard of St. Basil, St. Benedict, St. Scholastica, St. Augustine, St. Francis, St. Clare, St. Dominic, St. Vincent, St. Louise…. What did they all have in common. They were all founders of religious orders. Every one of them wrote a “Rule” for their fledgling orders.

And every one of them taught – in one form or another – of the idea of the “Living Rule.”

What’s a “Living Rule?” The idea is very simple. Before the invention of the printing press, documents like your printed Rule were rare, for they had to be hand-copied. Monasteries would have limited copies of the scriptures, a copy or two of the writings of the saints, etc… That was also true of the Rule. So, the sainted founders used this situation to teach their followers about the idea of the “Living Rule.” In short, if the Rule itself were ever to be lost or destroyed, anybody who visited the monastery should be able to re-write it just by looking at the way the monks and the nuns lived their lives. There were “Printed Rules” and “Living Rules,” and ideally they should match up.

I won’t make a saint out of my grandfather, but that’s how I learned about the Society. I watched him. I listened to his stories. And then, when I read your Rule earlier this year, I chuckled out loud. I already knew it. I knew it, because I knew him. He was a “Living Rule” for me. Just as many of you are “Living Rules” for one another.

I’ll come back to that in a few minutes.

THE RULE HAS ITS REASONS

In fairness, I was asked to speak today about your printed Rule. So, let me take a moment to tell you why I think your Rule is such an extraordinary document.

Rules like this one give an odd gift: Structure. Yes, structure’s a gift. Your Rule tells us:

• Who does what
• How often you meet
• Who will be in charge
• How people get elected
• How the meetings are conducted
• How the charity is conducted
• What you do and what you don’t do.

That way, each conference and each council operates similarly, so people can work together well, and so that the poor are served in a similar fashion everywhere in the world. If every council went off in its own direction, or spent all its time arguing about structure, the organization would unravel.

That way, each conference and each council operates similarly, so people can work together well, and so that the poor are served in a similar fashion everywhere in the world. If every council went off in its own direction, or spent all its time arguing about structure, the organization would unravel.

Clark Kerr, the former and long-serving president of the University of California, observed in his book, The Uses of the University, that since the year 1520, only about 85 institutions have remained continuously in existence. They include the Swiss cantons, the parliaments of the Great Britain, Iceland, and the Isle of Man, about 70 universities, and perhaps the best known of all, the Catholic Church. That’s it. 85 institutions in nearly 500 years have survived. The truth is, institutions and organizations go out of business all the time. Even religious orders of priests and nuns go out of existence. I won’t argue that the reason they survive is always structure, but I will argue that no organization survives without a strong structure. Clear rules. Clear purpose. Clear identity. Clear ways of operating. Clear lines of authority. Clear provision for the change of authority over time. Structure is a gift to an organization, and we should be grateful for good structure. Yours is both clear and blessedly simple. It’s easy to understand, and yet anticipates many of the challenges you are likely to face. Structure’s a gift.

And yet, Rules like this one provide more than just structure. The thing about Founders is that they want something to last. It’s not enough to do good NOW; they want to set up the conditions so that the good continues.

Let me give you an example from the arts. Have any of you ever seen the Broadway musical “Les Miserables?” On any given night, there were often ten productions of that musical showing on various stages across the world. The musical itself ran on Broadway for over ten years. Night after night. City after city. Constantly changing actors and actresses. Different directors. Difference sizes and shapes of theaters. Different languages. But every night, that show had to be exactly the same as the show the night before. Exactly the same as the show ten years ago. Exactly the same as the show in London, and Australia, and Germany… How did they do it? A script. A musical score. And a central leadership of directors who traveled all over the world and inspected the shows and gave directions to the actors whenever anything wasn’t perfect. Three things. A script. A score. A central group of leaders. That’s what you have in this Rule and in this room. The purpose of a Rule is to make sure that the good that started in 1822 continues happening – and that it keeps happening in a way that’s faithful to the founding inspiration.

But, that doesn’t mean that you never change. The very first page of your Rule says this:

Faithful to the spirit of its founders, the Society constantly strives for renewal, adapting to changing world conditions. It seeks to be ever aware of the changes that occur in human society and the new types of poverty that may be identified or anticipated. It priority to the poorest of the poor and to those who are most rejected by society. (1.6)

Organizations suffer when the members simply follow the Rule blindly, without looking to what their corner of the world needs. Organizations thrive when members know and understand the heart and founding inspiration of the organization, when they understand the reasons for the specific rules, and when they can faithfully adapt their actions to better meet the stated purpose. That’s what your Rule asks for. It asks you to adapt for the needs of the poor in your region. Listen …

The Society embraces the Principle of Subsidiarity as its basic standard of operation. Decisions are made as close as possible to the area of activity to ensure that the local environment and circumstances (cultural, social, political, etc.) are taken into consideration. In the way, the Society promotes local initiatives within its spirit. The freedom of action of conferences and councils, which has been kept faithfully since the origins of the Society, enables them to help the poor spontaneously and more effectively, free from excessive bureaucracy. (3.9)

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