- svd-generalate
- / Leadership /
- June 26, 2026
New SVD Leaders Explore Synodal Transformation and Intercultural Leadership
Generalate Media Department
Embracing Transformation in a Changing World
The day’s first session, led by Fr. Yago Abeledo Madueño, M.Afr., invited participants to reflect on leadership in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. Describing today’s context as fragile, anxious, nonlinear, and often difficult to understand, he emphasized that leaders are called not to seek control, but to cultivate discernment.
Drawing on Richard Rohr’s “Wisdom Pattern,” Fr. Abeledo presented transformation as a journey through three stages: Order, Disorder, and Reorder. Genuine renewal, he explained, requires communities to move beyond the comfort of familiar structures and embrace periods of uncertainty that open the way to new possibilities.
Quoting Rohr’s well-known insight, “There is no nonstop flight to Reorder. You must go through the fire,” he challenged participants to recognize moments of disruption not as failures, but as opportunities for growth and conversion.
He contrasted this process with what he called the “Fear Pattern,” in which communities respond to uncertainty by rushing back to superficial stability. Such reactions, he warned, often create a false sense of order while leaving deeper issues unresolved.
Drawing on the thought of psychologist Carl Jung, Fr. Abeledo encouraged participants to see meaning within moments of confusion and transition: “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
Four Leadership Energies for Renewal
To accompany communities through change, Fr. Abeledo presented four complementary leadership archetypes:
- The Guardian, who preserves memory and tradition;
- The Prophet, who speaks uncomfortable truths and challenges complacency;
- The Midwife, who accompanies communities through transition and loss;
- The Weaver, who integrates new insights into sustainable structures and practices.
No leader embodies all four roles fully, he noted, highlighting the importance of collaboration, diversity of gifts, and shared leadership within provincial teams.
The session concluded by linking these leadership perspectives to the five synodal conversions identified in the Synod’s Final Document: spiritual, relational, procedural, institutional, and missionary. These dimensions, he explained, form an integrated path of renewal that begins with personal conversion and extends outward into the Church’s mission.
Interculturality: From Challenge to Mission
The next session focused on intercultural leadership, bringing together four SVD panelists from different continents who shared their experiences and insights on building communities across cultures.
Fr. Sergio Edwards, SVD, PANAM zone, reflected on the Society’s gradual journey toward interculturality. Recalling his missionary experience in Taiwan, he emphasized that genuine intercultural living is neither assimilation nor accommodation, but an ongoing process of dialogue, humility, and mutual learning.
Fr. Luvis Ronald Pereira, SVD, ASPAC zone, situated interculturality within Scripture and the SVD Constitutions, reminding participants that intercultural living is “not an option but a constitutive dimension” of the Society’s vocation. He proposed practical approaches such as jointly developed community agreements, regular cultural dialogue, and the intentional addressing of tensions before they become sources of division.
Representing the European Zone, Fr. Peter Dusicka, SVD, offered practical leadership wisdom through the acronym LEADER SVD, encouraging new superiors to cultivate delegation, relationships, vigilance, and servant leadership while avoiding the temptation to solve every problem alone. Echoing Pope St. John XXIII, he encouraged participants to lead “one day at a time,” trusting in God’s providence.
From an African perspective, Fr. William Odeke Owire, SVD, reflected on the values of Familia Dei and Ubuntu as foundations for synodal and intercultural living. At the same time, he acknowledged challenges such as excessive clerical authority, ethnic divisions, and generational tensions. Effective leadership, he stressed, requires listening, dialogue, and shared responsibility rather than command-and-control approaches.
Intercultural Community as Missionary Witness
Although each panelist approached the topic from a different perspective, a common message emerged: intercultural community is not merely a condition for mission—it is mission itself.
By learning to listen, collaborate, and be transformed by one another’s cultural experiences, missionary communities become living witnesses to the Gospel. As one speaker noted, echoing the SVD Constitutions, “the community itself is missionary.”
For the newly elected PRM Superiors gathered in Nemi, the day’s reflections reinforced a central conviction: authentic leadership begins with personal and communal conversion, while intercultural community remains one of the most powerful signs of missionary witness in today’s world.
The participants represent the Society’s four zones—AFRAM, ASPAC, EUROPA, and PANAM—and are joined by members of the General Council, Generalate officials, zone coordinators, resource persons, translators, and support staff. In total, sixty-nine participants are taking part in the program.
Organized by the Generalate, the Workshop for New PRM Leaders is being held from June 21 to July 4, 2026, at Centro Ad Gentes in Nemi, Italy, providing newly elected leaders with formation and support as they undertake their ministry of service and governance within the Society of the Divine Word.
