Religious leaders can make a huge difference to the people in their
communities- you have only to see how dearly Cardinal Heenan was loved, or Cardinal Hume, who become patron of many charities to do with homelessness and was loved within the Catholic Church and beyond.

Often, religious leaders themselves do not realize how much influence they have- they need to use it responsibly, and to inspire their communities, not to be dogmatic with them. I have myself been inspired by the leadership of people like Cardinal Hume, or by the two bishops of Derry in Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic, working together, Edward Daly and Jim Mehaffy, not to mention people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoeller. But these are exceptions. The question is really whether religious leaders look up to examples such as these, and try to emulate them, or whether they simply want to control and dominate their communities, which I regard as unsatisfactory in terms of leadership.

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