Last week, Fr. Jhobany Orduz, CSV, and Fr. John Eustice, CSV, began a special yearlong leadership program with younger religious from other men’s communities.
The Young Religious Leadership Development Program is offered by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. CMSM is a Vatican-recognized organization that brings together over 200 communities in the US – comprised of over 16,000 religious men – to provide a common voice and primary resource for men’s religious life.
Fr. Jhobany and Fr. John will spend the next year walking with two dozen peers from other men’s religious communities.
As CMSM members, Provincial Superior Fr. Mark Francis, CSV, and Provincial Councilor Br. Michael Gosch, CSV, encouraged our younger religious to attend, and Fr. Jhobany and Fr. John signed up. They began with a three-day gathering in Baltimore last week. The yearlong program continues with monthly videoconference discussions and an end-of-year gathering to synthesize their experience.
“I’m looking forward to exploring the wisdom that’s shared by presenters and the wisdom provided through discussion among the men in the cohort,” Fr. John said. “There’s a great variety of religious institutes – habited and non-habited, brothers and priests, big and small communities.”
Even in the initial presentations, Fr. Jhobany has found much to reflect upon. “Leadership roles could sometimes disorient expectations or dreams about religious life. The fear of losing who we are and the identity we embrace as religious could be one of the main tensions between living out our mission and desires and moving into administrative roles,” Fr. Jhobany said.
In this program with CMSM, participants receive specialized training and formation specific to religious life. “Leadership in religious communities has unique demands: it must maintain the Christocentric and communal focuses of religious life while leading ministries and communities yet still learn and adapt leadership skills from both the secular and ecclesial worlds,” CMSM stated in the course description. “[This is a] year-long journey through three key areas: the interior life of the leader, collaboration skills with community members and partners, and preparing for adaptive leadership challenges.”
This in-person opening gathering was held at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, MD.
Participants returned home with new connections, a curriculum of readings, and planned videoconferences for the months to come. “They emphasized to us that we should focus on getting to know each other over meals and coffees and breaks,” Fr. John said. “It was very helpful to meet each other, share experiences, and bring those connections into our upcoming online work.”
The program makes intentional space for younger religious who have professed perpetual vows or received Holy Orders in the last ten years. Fr. John professed perpetual vows in 2008, but he was included since he was ordained to the diaconate in 2023 and the priesthood in 2024; Fr. Jhobany professed perpetual vows in 2018 and was ordained to the diaconate in 2024 and the priesthood in 2025.
“By next summer, I hope I will not simply have learned more about leadership,” Fr. Jhobany said. “I hope I will have become more conscious of the kind of religious leader I am becoming and of the kind of leader God is inviting me to be.”