A STORY ABOUT HOW THE CHRISTMAS TALE WAS CONCIEIVED

   About 30 years after Pilate had Jesus of Nazareth crucified a group of Jesus’ friends gathered at a synagogue meal commemorating his life.  Several had changed careers since the time they knew Jesus.  Most were itinerant workers and belonged to the Galilee Laborer’s Union 777.  They found that as itinerant workers they could preach the Gospel of Jesus throughout the area.

   One of the younger members, named Luke who at one time was a Roman official, said that a written story of Jesus’ life would be useful to the preachers and the communities.  All agreed and there was a consensus that Jesus’ story would have to connect to the law and the prophets that Jesus knew so well and often quoted.  For example, he said the law insisted on loving God and neighbors including those that are strangers or enemies. Mary, the wife of Cleophas, interjected:  “Will it tell about how you guys ran from the crucifixion and we three women stayed?”  Matthew, Mark, and Luke said, “Ok, you were in the area.” And John said, “No, they were at the cross.  I was there also.”  James, Jesus’ brother responded, “Let’s not argue over details.”  Peter’s eyes moistened and he turned away.

   Then they all asked, where to begin?  Luke and Matthew said the story should be a contrast with Caesar Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor, whom Jesus refused to accept as divine.  Cornelius, a former Roman Army Officer, agreed.  “It’s at the core of Jesus’ message.”

   The Roman author Suetonius wrote that Caesar Augustus was born as the son of the divine with wealth and the inheritance of military power. Matthew and Luke insisted the story should begin with Jesus’ birth.  Two disagreed.  Mark thought the story should begin with the revolutionary, John the Baptist.  Mark wanted to distinguish John the Baptist from Jesus by showing Jesus to be the more radical.  John the Baptist preached the coming of the Lord while Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was here and demanded action to bring the Kingdom to completion.  John the Apostle thought the story should begin with a vision of the transcendent.  The two that wanted to write a Christmas story also differed; Luke wanted to emphasize the contrast with Rome; Matthew wanted to emphasize the relation of Jesus to the Law and the Prophets.  James the Just suggested that each write their own narrative.

   The Christmas stories that we celebrate are from Mathew and Luke.  Both say Jesus’ birth, like that of Caesar, was God’s miracle.  Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.  To relate it to the Prophets, Matthew changes the wording from a passage from the prophet Isaiah to say that the Savior would be born of a Virgin.  Jesus was probably born in Nazareth but both Luke and Mathew have Jesus born in Bethlehem to fulfill the Prophet Micah’s vision.

In order to get Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth, Luke has them comply with a census ordered by the Emperor.  Matthew inserts the Magi, the massacre of the Holy Innocents, and the flight into Egypt… all with a reference to the Prophets.

   Luke gets to the heart of the matter – the power of the poor.  The Roman Gospel or ‘good news’ was Peace through military conquest.  Luke’s angel proclaims the Gospel developed from the Law and Prophets, Peace through justice and non-violence.  At the top of the Christmas tree the angel proclaims, ‘Peace on Earth to all.’

   The challenge to all is to recognize the mythical nature of the Christmas stories and not lose the meaning intended.

The Working Catholic: Christmas Shopping Part II by Bill Droel

Clothes were once made in the U.S. Yes, labor abuses occurred in our domestic production--in cotton plantations, mills and factories. Conditions greatly improved, however, with the labor laws and reforms introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) and his Labor Secretary Frances Perkins (1880-1965).

Through the post-World War II years, New York City’s Garment District “had more apparel factories than anywhere else in the world,” Dana Thomas, a fashion expert based in Paris, writes in Fashionapolis (Penguin, 2019). From there production expanded to Bronx, Brooklyn, Rochester and Chicago; and in the 1970s to NYC’s Chinatown and to Los Angeles.

Starting in about 1980 two trends converged to create the apparel industry as we have it today. First, President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) encouraged free trade deals. It soon became more profitable for clothing companies to import from countries where wages are low and building standards are nearly nonexistent. Second, fast fashion became the new concept. U.S. consumers, even those with money, crave cheap clothes—everything from socks to formal wear. Consumers shop “off-the-rack” or expect “next day delivery” from retail outlets where wages are relatively low.

  How many clothing items per U.S. shopper? Jessica Iredale writes about blue jeans for Wall St. Journal (12/1/19). “Staying on trend can be an exhausting, not to mention expensive exercise in denim acrobatics,” she says. She has 18 pairs in her closet and a few more in storage bins under her bed. Of these, Iredale has three “in regular rotation.” The others are mostly out of fashion. By one estimate, the average number per U.S. adult (women plus men) is seven pairs in the closet. That adult regularly goes to the alley or resale shop because that adult buys four new pairs per year.  Each shopper (including those shopping for their children) buys 68 garments per year.

There are varying degrees of exploitation involved in the overseas production of each garment. The most harrowing production is in Bangladesh, Thomas details. There are thousands of apparel factories there, employing 40million workers. The doors are locked at many of those plants in order to keep workers from leaving during the day. The world learned of this inhumane practice in April 2013 when the Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 1,134 workers and injuring another 2,500. The Rana Plaza tragedy “is the impetus” for every subsequent improvement in Bangladesh manufacturing, says Thomas.

Thomas summarizes the reforms that occurred and didn’t occur after the Rana Plaza collapse. IndustriAll Global (54 bio Route des Acacias, Geneva, Switzerland; www.industriall-union.org) developed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety (www.bangladeshaccord.org). About 200 fashion lines and retail outlets signed up. Teams of engineers, including leaders from Canada, made the rounds of Bangladesh factories. The Accord participants were mostly European firms. The U.S. firms, spearheaded by Walmart, started the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, similar to the Accord. However, the U.S. Alliance is voluntary and uses in-house inspectors. Human rights activists believe it is deficient.  

President Donald Trump is interested in the U.S. trade deficit. The apparel industry which thrives on free trade and on consumers’ desire for fast fashion annually accounts for $77billion of the trade deficit, according to Thomas. Might Trump find ways to bring clothing manufacturing back to the U.S.?

His original MAGA hat was “assembled in the U.S.A.” (The hats could not say “made in the U.S.A.”) The MAGA hat is now a knockoff, selling for $6.99 from 16 importers. All the other items in Trump’s failed clothing line were foreign made, including in some sweatshops. White House advisor Ivanka Kushner’s apparel items, a line which went under in July 2018, were imported from China, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The Kushner subcontractors employed women toiling in sweatshops. Thomas begins her book with details about Melania Trump’s cynical jacket, worn on a 2018 visit to a detention center. It cost $39 from a Spanish manufacturer (unless our government overpaid for the item).

On short notice it will be difficult to buy completely clean clothes during this holy season. A donation to a human rights group is appropriate. I recommend International Labor Rights Forum (1634 I St. NW #1000, Washington, DC 20006; www.laborrights.org) and Worker Rights Consortium (5 Thomas Cr. NW #500, Washington, DC 20005; www.workersrights.org).

Social justice is a relatively new virtue in that it once was not possible to do anything about wrongdoing that occurred in remote locations or in complex systems. Today social justice, though difficult, is possible. Action on behalf of justly-made clothes is possible and, thanks to conscientious students, many consumers and a few sophisticated groups, there is momentum behind justice in the clothing industry.

Droel edits a newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

The Working Catholic: Christmas Shopping by Bill Droel

     Will your shopping for gifts this holy season include buying apparel? Be warned: It will be difficult to find clean clothes. Some are hopelessly stained with child labor, even slavery. Most have flaws like sweatshop wages, dangerous working conditions, wage theft, harassment and more.

     In recent years some consumers have shown interest in healthier food. The slow food movement has even reached the menus within the biggest fast food chains. Now a slow fashion movement is budding. For example, you can purchase clean jeans from Blue Delta in Oxford, Mississippi. There is an Ivy League educated woman in Tennessee who is doing well growing and selling indigo domestically. About 700 cotton farms in South Carolina practice re-shoring; that is, growing stateside and supplying manufacturers here. Even a few well-known apparel brands are gradually turning away from sweatshops.

It is likely too late to get into slow fashion purchasing before Wednesday, December 25, 2019. However, Advent (also called the Journey Outward) is an appropriate time for solid reading on the topic of clothing. In Beaten Down, Worked Up (Alfred Knopf, 2019) Steven Greenhouse gives two thorough chapters to the history of U.S. apparel manufacturing. 

In the early 1900s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a premier manufacturer of affordable women’s blouses. It occupied the top three floors of New York City’s Asch Building (now known as Brown Building and owned by N.Y. University). In November 1909 the women there and in other factories staged a strike. Aided by Women’s Trade Union League and by International Ladies Garment Worker Union and for a time by a few wealthy women called Mink Coat Brigade, the Triangle workers held out for over two months. Their demands were modest: Managers must stop “yelling at them, threatening them or harassing them” plus a change in the pay system--from a set amount per day, no matter the number of hours to an hourly wage. When they settled, the Triangle workers got a small raise and a 52-hour week. They did not get the first goal of every worker action: sole and exclusive bargaining rights. Nor was workplace safety part of the outcome.

Beaten Down, Worked Up profiles Clara Lemlich Shavelson (1886-1982). She was 23-years old in those last weeks of 1909. She emerged as a leader of the garment workers. At a crowded union meeting held in Cooper Union she pushed her way to the front and shouted: “I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms. I move that we go on a general strike.” Her activism continued through her life. She pioneered the tactic of consumer boycott and started tenants’ groups in her neighborhood. In her 80s Lemlich Shavelson lived in a senior facility. Sure enough, she organized the nurses and aides. With these working conditions “you’d be crazy not to join a union,” she told the workers.

Beaten Down, Worked Up goes on to detail a devastating fire at Triangle Company that occurred in March 1911. After just 18 minutes, 144 people were dead.

Before 1900, it might be noted, there was no such thing as fashion in our country; except among the elites in Virginia and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast who took cues from Europe. There was no “off the rack” shopping for working women and men (only standard issue uniforms or homemade clothes). Only with mass production of apparel and other products in the 20th century could working-class people have an interest in and be able to afford fashion. The Triangle Company, like many other shops, cut and assembled stylish shirts; the beginning of what today is called fast fashion. Of course, the main ingredient in the early 1900s as with nearly all garments today was cheap labor. An exploitative wage system was and is justified.  

Beaten Down, Worked Up then profiles a witness to the Triangle Company tragedy: Frances Perkins (1880-1965), an Episcopalian. She was in a nearby café, on break from her position with National Consumers League (www.nclnet.org). Her friend was Florence Kelley (1859-1932), a Quaker and the first general secretary of Co

If you have ever drawn overtime pay, ever collected an unemployment check, ever benefited from Social Security, ever been thankful for safety features at your job site, it is because of the tireless efforts of Perkins. After her time with the Consumers League, she worked for New York State and then became the first woman cabinet member, serving through all of President Franklin Roosevelt’s terms. She was compelled to improve conditions for working families by the imprint of the horrible Triangle Company tragedy.  

How is it that all our clothes come from Asia or Latin America? Might President Donald Trump revive apparel manufacturing in the U.S.? Is there something we can do about dirty clothing even during these short days before Christmas? To be continued with information drawn from Fashionapolis by Dana Thomas (Penguin, 2019).

Droel edits a print newsletter of faith and work for National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

From Colonialism to Benevolent Racism - a Re-interpretation of an Interpretation of Faith

St. Benedict the Moor Artwork & Architecture

Modern history and theology on display

What is said by artwork and architecture?  Churches indicate an understanding of Faith and history through art.  Questions prompted by the art work and history of St. Benedict the Moor Church suggest answers that may be troubling but help us look to the future.

   St. Benedict the Moor Church is located just west of downtown Milwaukee.  It is what is left of the St. Benedict the Moor Colored Mission founded in 1908 by Charles Lincoln Valle, an African American, and Spanish–American War veteran.  The Mission was named after St. Benedict the Moor (the Black) a 16^th century Franciscan Friar, son of Ethiopian slaves who worked for a wealthy Sicilian.

Charles Lincoln Valle

   Blacks were not welcome in Milwaukee Catholic Parishes so Valle set out to create a center of Faith for Black Catholics.  Eventually the Mission included the Church, a Hospital and Saint Benedict the Moor Boarding School.  Famous students include Red Fox, Lionel Hampton, and former Mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington.  The Church and the mission were served officially by the Capuchin order of Franciscans since 1911.  Archbishop Messmer was pressured by the Socialist Mayor Hoan not to allow the Mission to be located in the area so he shifted the responsibility to the Capuchin Franciscans.  Messmer’s brother was a Capuchin.  Was Hoan concerned about the movement of the African American community west?  Years later the area was known as ‘Bronzeville.’  Blacks were restricted to Bronzeville including well known celebrities.

Trinity Lutheran Church on 10th and Highland

       The Church is surrounded by other significant landmarks.  To the east is Trinity Lutheran Church built in 1878.  Funds for the landmark German Gothic church were provided by Pritzlaff Hardware baron John Pritzlaff. The inscription high up over the entrance is  DREIEINIGKEITS – Trinity; it was a German neighborhood.  Trinity Lutheran protested the location of the Mission across the street from their church.  

Pabst Brewery Bottling House

To the north is the Pabst Brewery built in 1880.  The buildings appear as medieval Rhineland castles with battlemented parapets.  South is the Milwaukee County Courthouse (built 1929 -1931) described by Frank Lloyd Wright as a million dollar rock pile.  His design for the building was rejected. On the west side is the freeway which took away the school and the neighborhood in the 1960’s.  The freeway was promoted by Socialist Mayor Frank Ziedler.  St. Benedict the Moor School closed in 1967.

Saint Benedict the Moor Church with Saint Stephen Eckert, OFMCap

   The Church:  excavation began June 1, 1923, cornerstone laid October 7, 1923.  The architect was Edward Brielmeier & Sons; the general contractor was H. Schmitt & Son.  The architectural style is Lombard Romanesque similar to the Capuchin Church St. Francis built in 1876.  It’s a small church sometimes called a chapel.  Dimensions are 50’ x 114’ with a seating capacity at that time of 400.  The entire cost was $63,000 donated by Ernest G. Miller, president of Miller Brewing.  Miller also provided funds in 1924 to purchase the adjoining property and buildings of Marquette College and Academy.  The College and Academy moved their schools to the south and west of the Mission.

The Artwork Restored by David Ingvoldstad in 2002

   The original artwork was covered over with a bronzed brown paint but was restored to the original colors in 2002 by David Ingvolstad with advice and direction of Capuchin Pastor John Celichowski. 

   Above the altar is a 10x12 foot carving that represents 22 Christian martyrs of Uganda (1885-1887) with St. Benedict the Moor in their midst wearing a Franciscan habit.  Above them is a goddess-like representation of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States.  Originally Mary had a very white face but the restoration has her looking more like the Virgin of Guadalupe.  The martyrs bear palms of martyrdom; angels bear lilies, a sign of purity.   The massacre is part of the sad story of the European colonization of Africa.  Christian missionaries played a role in the colonization process.

   The panel was carved from a block of pine by a noted Tyrolean artist, Signor Ermano Moroder.  It was done in his studio in the Italian sector of Tyrol.  Moroder’s brother, Alphonse, a wood sculptor, had studios at 910 3^rd Street in Milwaukee.  Suggestions from the Capuchin Provincial were relayed through Alphonse.  Between the altar table and the base are the four Fathers of the western church:   St. Augustine of Hippo, Africa whose face was darkened in the restoration to recognize his African ancestry (354-430),

 St. Gregory the Great with a triple crown (540-604), St. Jerome (347-420) and St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397).

   Emperor Constantine (272-337) called for the first Ecumenical Council to be held in Nicaea in 325.  The Council declared Jesus Christ to be divine – ‘co-substantial’ with the Father.  Would this be a surprise to Jesus the handy man from Galilee?  What would Jesus think of the re-interpretation of Faith by Augustine whose theology accommodated the Roman Empire and of Jerome who latinized Scripture?  What about Ambrose and Gregory who moved the Church to claim political authority?

   At the base of the altar are three reliefs carved by Moroder.  In deliberate reference to the Eucharist, at the left is the ancient priest Melchisedech offering bread and wine; in the center are deer at a fountain to symbolize our yearning for spiritual nourishment and to the right, Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac.  Christian theology teaches that God the Father sacrificed his Son for the sins of all, yet Abraham was stopped from sacrificing his son.   At the center is a tabernacle with a golden cross displaying a risen Christ; unusual in Roman Catholic art.

Other artwork:    There are two plaques on the wall to the left side of the altar:  St. Anthony of Padua with the Child Jesus and Saint Therese of Avila.  The adjoining hospital was named Saint Anthony of Padua.  Bronzeville resident and baseball great Henry Aaron’s first children were born there.  Saint Therese of Avila is alongside St. Anthony.  To the right of the altar are St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare who is depicting a famous legend.  St. Clare, special friend of Francis, holds a monstrance with the sacred host to frighten away Muslims who attacked her convent.

       At the right of the altar is a statue of the Peruvian mulatto, St. Martin de Porres, O.P.  The statue was salvaged from the Blessed Martin de Porres Church located a few blocks away that was torn down because of the freeway.  St. Benedict the Moor school gym was called the Blessed Martin de Porres gymnasium.  At the left of the altar is a statue of St. Conrad of Parzham, OFM Cap with an oversized key.  He was a porter in charge of the door, providing welcome and hospitality at the Priory.  He is said to have been eager to receive and help strangers.  St. Benedict the Moor Parish provided sanctuary in the 80’s for refugees from Central America.  During the current immigration crisis the Parish supported the New Sanctuary Movement but declined to offer sanctuary on the church grounds.

 Windows:  Painted glass windows filter a blue – green light into the Church.  The left side, the west wall, features women saints except for Aloysius Gonzaga S.J. who is the patron saint of students. He is at the front, closest to the altar.  Also are seen Native American, St. Catherine  Tekakwitha (or Kateri) and St. Rose of Lima, the first American saint (1586-1617) and neighbor in Lima of Martin de Porres (1579-1639).  In most Roman Catholic churches art work depicting male saints dominates.  But at St. Benedict the Moor, women saints are given close to equal attention in the Church.  Current parishioners pray to God – ‘our mother and father.’

Church window of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri

   The male saints in the windows on the right side or east wall of the church feature Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican saints.  Most notable is Bishop and congregation founder Alphonsus Ligouri (1690-1787) who is seen giving a blessing with his left hand.  This may have set the tone for the politics of the congregation. Medallions above the windows are of the twelve apostles.

 Other Carved reliefs:   Also featured in the church are hand-carved Stations of the Cross along with other bas relief carvings that look like stations.  The stations depict Jesus’ path to his crucifixion.  The ninth station shows a Jewish man happy about Jesus’ torturous path.  This is an example of the anti-Semitism found in Roman Catholic churches that led to the holocaust.  The Capuchin Chronicles printed an anti-Semitic comment about the Mission attempting to buy property in 1911.  They were outwitted by a ‘Jewess.’

    On the right side, the east wall in the front, are two bas relief carvings:  St. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8), and one of the Magi (Melchior?) visiting the Christ Child.  Also on the right side wall in the back of the church, St. Peter Claver, S.J. (1580 – 1654) is shown ministering to slaves brought in from Africa to Cartagena, Columbia about 1610.  

Saint Peter Claver administering to slaves in Cartegena, Columbia

The parish has a history of strongly supporting civil rights and immigrant rights.  On the west wall at the back of the church is a carved relief of the three branches of the Franciscan Order: St. Francis, First order, St. Clare, Second order, St. Louis of France (Louis IX), Third order.  At the front on the west wall is a carving of St. Benedict the Moor with his Franciscan brothers and a carving picturing Jesus with African children.   

The stations and other ‘bronzed’ bas relief pieces were not restored to the original coloring.

 Outside the church:  Over the entrance to the Church is a statue of St. Benedict the Moor and to the right is an overwhelmingly brilliant white statue of Stephen Eckert, OFM Cap., pastor from 1913 to 1921 – a monument to clericalism that has infected the Church since the Middle Ages.  

   No image, photo, painting, or statue of the African American layman, Spanish American War veteran, Lincoln Charles Valle, can be found at the Church.  Valle was dismissed from the mission in 1913 accused of improper drinking and misappropriation of funds, but the complaints were unsubstantiated.  Valle and his wife Julia moved back to Chicago to continue the work of evangelization.   He was appointed to a committee preparing for the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln.  Director of the Mission Stephen Eckert, OFM Cap, in 1914 wrote to the chancellor of the Archdiocese that Valle was “unworthy to represent Catholics.”

  As he saw it, Stephen Eckert focused on the best interests of the African American community in Milwaukee.  Eckert wrote, “They do not seek social equality in companionship with the white race but simply a square deal, equal rights as to life, liberty and protection and a fair chance to livelihood.”  However he was subject to the prejudice of the time and did promote the notion that African American families were incapable of taking care of their children hence the need for St. Benedict the Moor boarding school.  Dolores Williams, a former boarding school student, comments, “…immorality as defined by Catholic decision makers is subjective moralizing.”  

   At the request of the alumni, the Church of St. Benedict the Moor was designated as an historical landmark in 1998. This was opposed by the Capuchins.

Books Consulted

 St. Benedict the Moor, A Legacy Revisited, by Dolores A. Foster Williams, M.Ed.  Heritage Press, Racine2009

 The Heritage Guidebook, by Russell Zimmermann, Heritage Banks, Milwaukee, 1978

The Last Hero The Life of Henry Aaron, by Howard Bryant, Pantheon Books, New York, 2010               

The Working Catholic: Disabling Help by William Droel

Good intentions are not enough. 

Indeed, good intentions can be harmful.

Tarence Ray provides a case study of wasteful, ineffective and disabling social improvement programs in “Hollowed Out: Against the Sham Revitalization of Appalachia” for The Baffler (https://thebaffler.com/; 10/19). He assessed 15 organizations in his region that received money from Appalachian Regional Commission plus he looked at other economic development projects. ARC is a federal agency with state cooperation. It began in 1965 and is targeted to West Virginia and parts of a dozen other states. The particular funding arm that concerns Ray began during the administration of Barack Obama to create employment that would offset job loss from the coal industry.

“Wading into the bureaucratic refuse of these [15] organizations was exhausting,” Ray says. He was bounced from one employee’s phone extension to another; several groups didn’t respond to him at all. Only one located in southwest Pennsylvania supplied information.

The organizations are strong on narrative-building (i.e. verbiage) but never really do much, Ray discovered. It could be that leaders of these groups are sincere. They presume that enough high-sounding talk and writing will trickle down to Appalachian culture, will change mindsets and will somehow create prosperity. Some of their goals are simply impractical. For example, proposing a Silicon Holler or tech utopia in rural areas that lack adequate broadband infrastructure. Or in one of a handful of other examples, a program suggests that a former miner train as an elevator operator in a region that has only a few four-story buildings.

Ray’s essay is not a critique of government bungling, though that occurs. These same organizations get foundation grants, which encourages the government to renew funding, which attracts more grants. His target is the crucial fallacy of these and other Helping Interventions: The priority is never to help the underemployed help themselves. It is not a bottom-up agenda. It is top-down assistance always packaged with an “enduring faith in technology.” Developers and investors will acquire property, build facilities, install hardware and garner consulting contracts. College-educated planners, supervisors, technocrats, lawyers and others will oversee the project. Some of whom will be located on the scene but many of whom, after an initial visit, remain in an office with a high-grade computer in Boston or Washington. If a rationale is needed, the government and foundation leaders invoke “trickle-down.” And again, maybe they are sincere in their incorrect belief.

How can a responsible citizen, an ordinary worker avoid a government-sponsored, foundation-funded merry-go-round to nowhere? Run away from jargon. Ray supplies several terms associated with “sham” programs: entrepreneurship, business incubation, targeted, deployed, innovation ecosystem, business coach, sustainable infrastructure, feasibility study, cultural heritage assets, elevating awareness, opportunity zone and the like.

One word that doesn’t appear in all this is organize. The alternative to neoliberal paternalism or maternalism is organized citizens who through their church, their union, their precinct and their self-funded community organization tell big tech and big government what they want in their schools, their communities and their environment. And they say, “Let’s negotiate.”

On this topic of disabling help I recommend Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank (Picador, 2016). He is particularly good on the use of jargon to avoid genuine social change. Also read Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas (Knopf, 2018). And we would benefit from once again considering any of the books by Ivan Illich (1926-2002)

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Droel’s booklet, Public Friendship, is available from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $6)

The Working Catholic: Corporate Elections by Bill Droel

      New rules for electing players to the All Star teams were used this season. As in a presidential election, fans now vote in a primary and then in a conclusive election. The primary determines the top three players at each position for each league (each league’s top nine outfielders are grouped together). The fan’s conclusive vote determines the starters. Then MLB players have a ballot, plus the All Star managers and the commissioner have some discretion. Thus some players are All Stars by way of the fans, others by way of fellow-players and some by way of management.

New rules for electing corporate boards are needed. Currently, stockholders vote (including by proxy). Many of these stockholders are “the most uninvested, irresponsible parties involved” with the company, says David Ciepley in Hedgehog Review (Spring/19). “They have never contributed a dime to the corporations” because they acquire the stock on speculation in the secondary market, often in a bundled retirement fund. They hold a stock on average for four months. They are uninterested in “making improvements for long-term returns” but instead favor “quickly squeezing what they can out of the company.” A few people acquire a company’s stock in a different way, but they too are often fixated on the firm’s quarterly performance on the Nasdaq or another exchange. These people are the company’s executives who are paid in stock, not cash. At election time they nominate and vote for like-minded directors.

A crucial step “for reducing corporate misconduct and for reorienting the corporation to public purposes,” writes Ciepley, is “overthrowing the baleful notion, currently regnant in law schools, the business press and even the courts…that corporations are purely private associations and that their stockholders are [in any meaningful way] their members, owners or principals.” He admits that “there is no simple or obvious path to restoring the public purpose of the corporation.” Ciepley does though allude to co-determinism, a mechanism for including stakeholders in corporate governance.

This notion, which derives from Catholic doctrine, has long been advanced by theologians, public policy leaders and business executives, as Matt Mazewski, a student at Columbia University, details in Commonweal (3/22/19). There are examples from Great Britain and elsewhere, though he concentrates on Germany.

Catholic philosopher and mining engineer Franz von Baader (1765-1841) was among the first to develop sound arguments for worker participation in corporate governance, Mazewski finds. By 1891 Germany passed legislation for factory councils to advise management. The notion gained popularity after World War II. For example, Heinrich Dinkelbach (1891-1967), a Catholic and a steel manager, devised a plan for general input from trade unions for business direction. In 1951 Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), also Catholic, won legislative support for special co-determinism provisions.

The general concept appears in several Church documents. It is explicitly promoted by Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) in his 1931 encyclical Reconstructing the Social Order. His Latin phrase for co-determinism, collegia ordinum, is translated industry council plan in the U.S.  Pius XI and the others said that some form of this doctrine tempers adversarial feelings between workers and owners because both are participating in the company’s success. It puts an emphasis on self-regulation and thus makes government meddling in business less necessary. The temptation to absorb these stakeholder councils into one or another government agency must be resisted. Unions do not disappear; management does not disappear; stockholders remain and government retains a role. The council plan can be variously constituted and look differently in various sectors. With genuine and full cooperation a business grows because participation is enhanced through the plan.

Establishing a true community of work “will not be easy,” Mazewski concludes. But putting varied interests on corporate boards “would certainly be a good place to start.”

Droel is associated with National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629). NCL distributes Were You Born On the Wrong Continent by Tom Geoghegan ($20), which considers co-determinism in Germany.

THE PAPAL MONARCHY IN CONFLICT WITH THE DEFENDERS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

The Zapatista rebellion against NAFTA January 1, 1994 hit me front and center during our recent visit to family in Chiapas, Mexico.  I was also reminded of the role of the local Catholic Church struggling to bring justice and peace to the area. History records that the Pope in Rome significantly challenged these efforts in Chiapas ever since the ‘conquista.’  This article is a glimpse at the struggles of Bishops Samuel Ruiz (1924 - 2011) and Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484 - 1566), both considered as spokes persons for the indigenous people. 

   The Vatican II document on the Church, Lumen Gentium presents the faithful with a dilemma.  In the first chapter it states that the people of God are inspired by the Holy Spirit (The Spirit dwells in the church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple.) yet in the second chapter it insists that the people of God must obey the pope. (…the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible teaching authority, this sacred Synod again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful. … the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ).

Plaque in the main Plaza de San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

     Bartolomé de Las Casas, an early Bishop of Chiapas, was known as a defender of the indigenous people of America.  He was a secular priest and a landowner in Cuba. After a personal awakening he became an associate of the Dominican community in Hispanola that in 1511 condemned the Spanish ‘Conquista’ saying the ‘conquistadores’ had no legal right to subject the indigenous people to slavery and to take their land and treasure.  The response from the Church and Spain was swift and negative.  Las Casas joined the Dominicans in 1522.

   Las Casas challenged fellow Dominican friar Francisco de Vittoria who claimed that the Spanish had the right to wage war on the indigenous if they seemed to reject the Spanish quest for treasure and land.

   Popes of the ‘conquista’ refused to comprehend what Las Casas reported and failed to stop the violation of indigenous humanity in the Americas.  Following de Vittoria, they supported a theology of colonialism as a path to salvation for all.  From experience Las Casas saw it as hell itself for all.

Bishops Vera Lopez (left) and Ruiz (right)

    The controversial Bishop Samuel Ruiz García was appointed Bishop of the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas in 1959 by Pope John XXIII.  He was a delegate to Vatican II (1962 – 1965) and participated in the Latin American Bishops conference in Medellin, Columbia in 1968.  Vatican II emphasized peace through justice and the importance of recognizing the events of history as a determinant of understanding Faith (‘the signs of the times’).  Medellin proclaimed the ‘preferential option for the poor’.  The Vatican II – Medellin theology of Don Samuel was reminiscent of that of his predecessor Bartolomé de Las Casas the namesake of the diocese.

    Although the Medellin conference recognized the structural violence to the poor by the world economic system it rejected the option for violence in the quest for justice.  Bishop Ruiz was opposed to armed action.  He agreed with the Zapatista’s opposition to the neo-liberal trade agreement NAFTA and also their insistence on justice for the indigenous, but he opposed violence as a means.

   The colonial system of the 16^th century moved to free trade liberalism then to free trade neo-liberalism of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  All of these systems weighted the scale in favor of the wealthy and powerful and were a catalyst for war.

     Since Don Samuel opposed the economic and political system that oppressed the poor; he generated powerful enemies including the Vatican.  Auxiliary Bishop Raul Vera Lopez, O.P. who was strong supporter and collaborator of Bishop Ruiz was considered to be Don Samuel’s successor and would continue his work when Ruiz retired.  However when Bishop Ruiz retired, Rome sent Vera Lopez to another diocese.

    The ‘low intensity war’ of the recent past has moved to a fragile tranquility with some armed violence but still without justice for the indigenous people.  The resistant Mayan communities in Chiapas continue dialogue with the world but have maintained their culture, languages, and in some cases, their autonomy. Pastor of St. Dominic’s Parish in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Fray Pablo Iribarren, O.P. wrote,

   My respect and admiration go out for the people of Tzotzil, especially those of San Juan Chamula.  Their history is a synthesis of the expression     resistance’, resistance to diverse external pressures in their existence as  a community – resistance to military conquest, resistance to religious and cultural imposition, resistance to structural changes social, political and religious.  (Pablo Iribarren, O.P. Mision Chamula, Chiapas, 2016, p. 8.)

   The importance of the indigenous people at the present time cannot be overstated.  The world needs their missionaries to teach us reverence and care for the environment.

THE CARAVAN By Miguel Perez

Walking day and night

Even in the morning light,

How frigid I find myself

Here in this caravan.

Now from such a long walk

We are often shaking

Anything can be endured

But least of all hunger.

Photos from Tucson Samaritans *

At night I am frightened

To see my uncle trembling

How could he not?

If we don’t die from the cold..

To enliven the group of walkers

I sing a song of valor

But wait til they see how harsh

It is to fight the heat.

We will walk, we will walk

We will do what we have to do

Even if at the middle of the journey

We die then of thirst.

So sad, these people

That back there come walking

They are not criminals

They come seeking ‘life.’

Let’s go and give them a hand

And let’s support these people

That hardly matter to anyone,

That are unwanted by the President.

There are those who speak about this

They call it an ‘invasion’

I see it with different eyes

I believe it is a ‘benediction.’

Photos from Tucson Samaritans *

From miles away you can see they are

Peaceful and of different ages

So don’t confuse them

With those threatening security.

Help these people.

It is not rocket science

I remind all of you

That this is a question of conscience.

Worn down by weariness

I move to my left and to my right

To see if they will have pity on me

And if they will let me ride the ‘bestia.’

I feel like a very small creature

I was brought here by my parents

Senor Trump, don’t separate us

Or, is it that you never had a mother?

What a tremendous deception!

I feel so stupid,

Hearing  over and over, the President,

Repeating  ‘fake news.’

Finally we arrive at our goal

At a shady spot under a mesquite tree

I hope and pray that the President

Doesn’t take my children away.

Photos from Tucson Samaritans *

December,  2018

* Photos generously provided by 'Tucson Samaritans' in Tucson, Arizona, http://www.tucsonsamaritans.org