Mission, Purpose, and Service in the Catholic Church

Ep. 202 (Part 1 of 2) | In this rich, delightful, and profound conversation, Integral Theory informed Father David McCallum, SJ, currently serving the Catholic Church as executive director of the Program for Discerning Leadership, leads us into a world filled with mission, purpose, and service, foundational to which is the practice of discernment. David describes discernment as the capacity to exercise good judgment, hold complexity, and wait for clarity. This is not only a practice for individuals, he explains, but also a communal one, providing a way for communities to discern and design together the future they want to create—through listening, dialoguing, participating. Discernment is a way of knowing and making sense of reality, David continues, and especially important now in this era of changes and choices to be made.

David enlightens us as to the beautiful and far-sighted reforms proposed by the late Pope Francis, who was all for changing the balance of authority and participation in the Church; for people to have direct experience of Presence and the capacity to practice discernment; who also advocated for taking swift action on behalf of our planet, even calling out the part in the Bible that says man has dominion over the Earth. From David’s description of “the journey worth making”—surrendering, opening, accepting divine grace and love—to using Otto Scharmer’s U Process to help find the courage to change and simplify our lives for the benefit of all, to the Church’s relationship with A.I., David provides us with an extraordinarily mind-broadening, motivating, and spiritually fulfilling perspective. Recorded July 10, 2025.

“No secular, material, and empirical path is going to satisfy the longing we have for a transcendent purpose, for meaning, for existential belonging, in the ways that a healthy spirituality can.”

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing Fr. David McCallum, integrally informed Jesuit priest currently serving the Catholic Church as the executive director of the Program for Discerning Leadership (00:48)
• How did David come to devote his life to the Catholic Church? (01:48)
• The journey worth making: surrendering, opening, accepting grace (09:42)
• So many are disconnected from the deeper wellspring of spirituality (13:07)
• Pope Francis was a reformer, focused on changing the balance of authority and participation (16:46)
• Pope Francis also focused on the process of synodality, real dialogue, the importance of discernment & following where the spirit wants to lead us (19:31)
• Pope Leo XIV, self-effacing, generous, hard working, introspective, bringing balance and discipline (22:27)
• How does David’s understanding of developmental stages inform his work? (25:28)
• Using metatheories as a map to make sense of the change in era we are living through now (28:09)
• The rise of secularism; also burgeoning fundamentalism (31:26)
• Without faith, how can we make sense of suffering? (33:25)
• The temptation of ideology in these anxiety-producing times (36:07)
• What is discernment?
• Communal discernment: What is the future we want to create together? (40:39)

Resources & References – Part 1

• Father David McCallum, SJ, The Program for Discerning Leadership
• Graham Greene, English writer and journalist, one of the leading novelists of the 20th century
• Integral Christianity: Answering the Call to Evolve with Paul Smith and Ken Wilber (2011)
• Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer, committed to interfaith dialogue
• Ignatius of Loyola, co-founder of the religious order of the Society of Jesus, Ignatian spirituality
• Pope Francis, first Jesuit pope, serving 2013 – 2025
• Pope Leo XIV, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State, elected in 2025
• Robert Kegan, leading developmental psychologist, The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life
• Ken Wilber’s collected works
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit paleontologist, philosopher, mystic, and teacher
• George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory
• Quaker tradition of communal discernment

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Fr. David McCallum, S.J., Ed.D, is a Jesuit priest from the USA who serves as the founding Executive Director of the Program for Discerning Leadership, a special initiative of the Society of Jesus headquartered in Rome. The Program provides leadership formation and organizational development support for senior Vatican officials and major superiors of religious orders headquartered in Rome and internationally. From 2021 through 2024, Fr. McCallum has worked with the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops on the Commission on Methodology, as a member of the international group that developed the synthesis of the National and Regional Bishop’s Conferences reports at Frascati, and as a facilitator expert at the Synods in October 2023 and 2024. 

Formerly, Fr. McCallum served as faculty member and then the Dean of the Madden School of Business and as the VP of Mission Integration and Development at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. His doctoral research at Teachers College, Columbia University, focused on the implications of developmental diversity in meeting the leadership challenges of conflict, complexity, and ambiguity.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell