This blog seeks to explore issues around Faith and the Labor Movement historically and presently.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
The Working Catholic: See, Judge, Act by Bill Droel
Mount
St. Joseph University in Cincinnati was the setting for a recent conference about
young adult Catholics. It was a positive conference because no one complained
about bishops, priests or Vatican policy. And no one faulted young adults for
disaffection from worship or for their lifestyle. By design, several conference
presentations were about bygone people and events. But the event was not a
nostalgia trip. The conversation was forward-looking. The tone of the
conference was directed outward toward work, family and neighborhood. The participants
drew upon past experience, but only to emphasize the importance of listening to
the real experience of today’s young adults. The conference was unanimous: Talking
is worthless without organizing.
The
Cincinnati conference was dedicated to a person who died more than 50 years
ago: Cardinal Joseph Cardijn (1882-1967), the originator of the specialized
Catholic Action method and the inspiration for several groups (Christian Family
Movement, Young Christian Workers, Young Christian Students and more). The Cardijn method and specialized Catholic
Action mostly faded by the late-1960s--at least in the United States. There are
Cardijn-inspired groups percolating in Latin America and Africa, conference
participants learned. The Cincinnati gathering included representatives from
the Republic of Guinea, El Salvador and Chile. Plus, there were representatives
from Australia.
Catholic
leaders in the United States want to attract and retain young adults to our
faith tradition. They sometimes use the term new evangelization. What Catholic leaders usually mean (and here I
employ a big generalization) is attracting young adults into the church. The strategies include social events, vibrant
liturgies, reverent pieties, service projects, inspiring talks and more. Many
programs for young adult Catholics are worthwhile.
The
basic premise for Cardijn was different, however. He did not start from the
notion of bringing people into the church. In fact, he worried that young adult
ministry can unwittingly reinforce individualism by conveying the impression
that the church is separate from young adult environments. Instead, Cardijn and
his movements sought to bring Christianity to young adults in their workplaces
and schools and family settings. The basic unit is not the individual who
searches for meaning or faith. The basic unit is a small group, formed among
people who work together or study together or live near one another. Thus, ministry
is not something done for young
adults; it is done by young adults
with an emphasis on their own formation. Like a chorus, participants in
Cincinnati repeatedly mentioned public
friendship, relationships and the
agency of the Holy Spirit.
Success in
Cardijn’s method is measured not by how many new people are recruited for parish
committees or by how many get involved in liturgical functions. Success is when
a Catholic Action group achieves a small improvement in workplace policy or
neighborhood relations or school settings.
Several
presenters at the Cincinnati conference made the point that talk, talk, talk is
not formation. A book club that considers pastoral theology, a speakers’ series
during Lent, an intensive RCIA curriculum, a summer theology update program, or
a monthly discussion group about Catholic topics is OK. But these do not really
form or retain young adults. The secret ingredient is action. Not run-around
activity with only vague goals in mind. No, the key is small focused action directed
at a subpar policy or practice in the school, neighborhood or workplace. And
then… now this must occur… a reflection on the action by the entire small
group.
The
Cardijn method is a tad sophisticated, yet it can be implemented by ordinary
people in workaday settings. It requires patience, but it doesn’t have to be
perfect all the time top-to-bottom, beginning-to-end. Katie Sellers, for
example, tried a little Cardijn among her high school students at DePaul Cristo
Rey in Cincinnati. She was teaching Catholic morality. But the students,
Sellers admitted to the conference participants, were snoozing. So she
introduced a case study about a woman in jail. Then the students went through
the Cardijn steps: Look at this situation carefully; judge the situation in
light of our own experience and our Catholic principles; act in some way.
Amazingly, the students interviewed lawyers and others in criminal justice,
they read Catholic documents, they collected supplies and eventually arranged a
tele-meeting with the prisoner. She, in turn, encouraged the students to
continue their study and their actions.
Frank
Ardito from Illinois, a veteran of Catholic Action, also provided the
conference with examples. Sure, he admitted, one or another small group session
might fizzle. Maybe the guidebook wasn’t clear that week. Maybe the group
leader misinterprets the prevailing mood. But over time the process does form
people in the faith. They want to belong to the group and they want to make a
difference back in their workplace or school.
Bob
Pennington is a young parent and a teacher. He was responsible for the details
of the Cincinnati conference. He has a young colleague in New York and they are
in touch with others their age around the country, in addition to some international
contacts. They do not intend to put the enthusiasm from their conference back
up on a bookshelf. For them, what was past is the prologue. They want more
action. Interested? Contact Pennington (robert.pennington@msj.edu).
-Bill
Droel edits a print newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102,
Chicago, IL 60629).
Saturday, August 4, 2018
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT REVISITED
Remember the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Plot
It is an event that should not be
forgot
Trump’s nomination of Jesuit-trained Brett
Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court is a reminder for me of the 1605 “Gunpowder
Plot” in England. English Roman
Catholics attempted to blow up Parliament, the King and his family, with an
explosion at Westminster Palace. They
were caught and executed for their attempted crime.
The conspirators were ready for the
interrogation they expected. Jesuit
sympathizers prepared a document on ‘equivocation’ which explained how to lie and
then die with a clear conscience. With
the help of confessions, elicited by torture, the conspirators and Jesuit
advisors were convicted of treason and executed. The defeat of the treason plot is celebrated
in England on November 5th, a National Holiday with fireworks,
called Guy Fawkes Day.
We can expect Jesuit-trained Supreme Court
nominee Brett Kavanaugh to use the tactic of ‘equivocation’ in his hearing
before the Senate. The goal is to deceive with double-meaning statements. A guide to ‘equivocation’ includes four
important points: Choose ambiguous
words; omit information; interplay words and gestures: and employ mental
reservation.*
Common
sense would indicate that ‘equivocation’ is sometimes necessary and moral but
in Kavanaugh’s case the deception will be Roman Catholic, as defined by the extreme
right of the Hierarchy, and be borderline treasonous. Basic human rights for all is the U.S. American
Credo, but Kavanaugh’s writings and statements do not indicate that he stands,
without equivocation, for basic rights
for women, gays, workers and freedom of religion.
Kavanaugh has indicated that he does not
believe that the U.S. President is subject to the law but, as Nixon believed,
the President is a law unto himself. Catholic Social teaching can be twisted to
support such fascist views. Pius XI
supported fascist dictators Salazar of Portugal and Dollfuss of Austria. He had a working relationship with Benito
Mussolini and approved a Concordat
with Adolf Hitler. The Concordat removed the Church from Third
Reich politics for the guarantee of Roman Catholic Church existence in Germany.
Pope
Pius XII supported Franco the Spanish dictator.*
In the end, the United State Senate will
determine whether Kavanaugh is appointed to the Supreme Court. Is it possible, in the “post truth” epoch,
for the U.S. Senate to be a light in the Washington dark night of the soul and
reject Kavanaugh?
*Shakespeare
was fascinated by the Jesuit tactic called equivocation. See: James Shapiro. 1606: William
Shakespeare and the Year of the Lear, Faber & Faber, London, 2015. Also, the play “Equivocation” by Jesuit Bill
Cain with an appearance by Shakespeare himself.
*David I.
Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini, the secret history of Pius XI and the
rise of Fascism in Europe. Random House, 2014
Saturday, July 28, 2018
The Working Catholic: Forgotten Organizer by Bill Droel
Most grammar school and high school
students encounter Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) in one or another textbook. He is
heralded as a pioneer in organizing agricultural workers and as a champion of
Mexican-Americans. So in September 1965 who were those farm workers who went on
strike and whose action launched a boycott that brought Chavez to national
attention? The workers were Filipino-Americans.
Today’s students and others probably
assume that farm worker unions hardly existed until Chavez and others created
the National Farm Workers Association in September 1962, writes David Bacon in Dollars
& Sense (June/18). Not true. Larry Itliong (1913-1977), a
Filipino-American, walked his first picket line in 1930, and even he did not
invent farm worker organizing. The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and
Allied Workers, affiliated with the CIO, was long active in the State of
Washington, Alaska and California. Itliong was involved with UCAPAW and in the
late 1940s he led strikes among asparagus pickers, Bacon details. In 1959 an
Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee was formed in the merged AFL-CIO. In
the summer of 1965 Itliong led a successful AWOC strike in the Coachella
Valley.
On September 8, 1965 Itliong gathered
hundreds of workers into Filipino Community Hall in Delano, California for a
vote to strike the area’s grape growers. It was a bold move and Itliong
realized he needed help. As is common with ethnic groups, Filipino-Americans
and Mexican-Americans did not easily mingle in the community. Plus the two
ethnic groups competed for jobs. Yet Itliong approached Chavez to join in the
strike. Until then, Chavez was spending his time building the base and
lobbying; he had yet to launch any job action; only 200 workers were paying
dues to his NFWA. But Chavez realized his opportunity and within two weeks
joined forces with the Filipino-Americans. Thus began the now famous Delano
Grape Strike and National Boycott. Four flags were prominent in the first
demonstration: the U.S. flag of course plus the flag of the Philippines, of
Mexico and the flag/banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In time the group’s named was changed
to United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and then to United Farm Workers
Union (www.ufw.org). Itliong served as an assistant to the new union, including
as director of national boycotts.
The efficacy of organizing requires
some oiled hinges. For example, on one side there is hyperbole and some
boastfulness. On the other there is thoughtful compromise. On one side the
organizer agitates hesitant people. On the other side the organizer affirms
people, even as they belatedly take small steps. On one side of the door the
organizer fosters fierce loyalty within the group, enough to withstand external
criticism. On the other side of internal fidelity the organizer must create
openness to wider society, a commitment to inclusiveness and dispel tribalism.
On one side the organizer must
project confident charismatic qualities to attract busy and creative leaders.
On the other side the organizer must stay out of the limelight, nurture
collective leadership and dampen personality factions. For Chavez, “loyalty to
Chavez” often superseded the development of leaders and the external mission of
the organization, as Mirian Pawel details in her sympathetic biography The
Crusades of Cesar Chavez (Bloomsbury, 2014). His style was too often
arbitrary. In fact, over time Chavez imported the cult-like techniques of
Synanon into the UFW. Like all of us, Itliong had faults. But he spoke against
Chavez’ authoritarianism. The problem, Chavez replied to Itliong, is that “you
won’t obey my orders.” Thus in October 1971, Itliong resigned from UFW.
Organizing farm workers is still
difficult. It is probably more difficult than in the mid-1960s. A new strategy,
called worker centers, shows promise.
These are not unions and cannot directly have labor contracts. This restriction
is advantageous in some situations, though worker centers have shortcomings.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
(www.ciw-online) is the best-known worker center. One-by-one CIW cajoles a
major food outlet to join its Fair Food Program. The outlet agrees to purchase
only from Fair Food certified vegetable growers. Those growers, in turn, have
agreed to pay a couple pennies more to farm workers for each bushel of, let’s
say, picked tomatoes. Burger King, Taco Bell and more are participating. The
CIW cajoling, you already suspect, includes national boycotts, demonstrations
and more.
There are also unions of farm
workers. Farm Labor Organizing Committee (www.floc.com), based in Toledo, Ohio
and affiliated with AFL-CIO, has a respectable history. Along the turf where
Itliong once tread, is recently formed Familias Unidas por la Justicia
(www.familiasunidasjusticia.org), an independent union. It brokered a positive
relationship between berry pickers and Sakuma Farms. First though Familias
Unidas had to wage a national boycott of Driscoll Berries and Haagen-Dazs ice
cream—both of whom purchase from Sakuma Farms.
Our National Park Service has a Cesar
Chavez Monument in Keene, California. Johnny Itliong, Larry’s son, and others
want the Park Service to expand with perhaps a site in Delano, California and
to honor Itliong, Filipino-American farm workers and all those who act for
agricultural justice.
Droel’s
booklet, What Is Social Justice, can be obtained from National Center
for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $5)
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
The Working Catholic: Economic Class, Part IV by William Droel
Go to the barbershop and get a hold
of The Atlantic (June/18). Its cover features a baby in a Yale
University outfit. Matthew Stewart contributes a 14-page article that gives
fresh perspective to our economic scene. In recent years the class divide has
been termed the 99% and the 1%. Years ago it was called bourgeois and
proletariat. I’ve also heard it called the upper crust and the working
stiffs, or the big shots and the rest of us.
The really rich (You-Can’t
Touch-This) are the top, top 1/10%. Amazingly, there are only 160,000
households in this category. They currently hold 22% of U.S. wealth—about the
same percentage as they held in the 1930s. Stewart’s story is about the next
9.9%. In dollars, it takes $1.2million net worth to enter the 9.9%. To get
midway into that group takes $2.4million and its top echelon has $10million in
wealth. If you have over $10million sitting around, you are entering the top,
top group.
It is tempting to call this 9.9%
group the nouveau riche. Stewart explains, however, that those in the
9.9% do not suddenly come into money. Yet, they are a new aristocracy
because they inherit important advantages. Specifically, Stewart with
fascinating details says those in the 9.9% inherit a model of stable family
life and also inherit enough of what it takes (money, connections and more) to
obtain a degree.
Stewart, a Princeton-educated
philosopher, goes beyond a straight economic analysis to unpack a difficult
dynamic. There is a “difference between a social critique and a personal
insult,” he writes. But all of us are prone to reject that difference. We do
not possess enough objectivity to leave personalities out of it. And even if we
grasp the difference, we feign powerlessness over the social reality. Those in
the 9.9% justifiably believe they have done something proper by using the
institution of marriage. They see their college degree as evidence of
intelligence, persistent study, an encouraging family and more. In other words,
the 9.9% (like all of us) make the implicit presumption that blameless
(moreover virtuous) actions must add up to a good society. It is hard for all
of us to grasp that seemingly innocuous behavior can scatter obstacles around
society, causing inequality to harden, mobility to stall and democracy to
languish.
This point is all the more difficult
to make without getting trapped into identity politics, righteousness,
resentful feelings, victim posturing or sloganeering. The trap is disguised
within many uttered or unexpressed phrases like, “It is my hard-earned money.”
“It is your lazy lifestyle.” “The best people get into the best college.”
“Don’t act on your privilege.”
Catholicism has a corresponding
concept that recognizes that systems can be unjust, even if individuals are
well-meaning and blameless on one level. Catholicism says, for example, that
poverty is a social sin or a structural evil. This obviously does
not mean that being poor is sinful. Nor does it mean that being rich is sinful.
(Catholicism by the way has never had the prosperity gospel notion that being
rich is a sign of virtue.) Structural sin means that the original aspirations
of an institution or a system have greatly departed from God’s plan. A sinful
or unjust institution or system makes it harder for people to be holy—poor
people and rich people. By contrast, a healthy institution makes it easier for
people to be whole and holy.
Catholicism has no better luck at
explaining the “difference between a social critique and a personal insult.” A
Catholic homilist, for example, almost never mentions racism or sexism. It
would be counterproductive because the congregation immediately goes into
default position. Catholicism, which is eager to increase participation in the
sacrament of reconciliation, has no ritual for dealing with exclusionary school
systems, with an unfair wage structure or with closed housing patterns. Who
would confess what to whom? And how do any of us make amends?
It is easy to moralize. It is hard
to devise realistic change. Start though with Stewart’s Atlantic
article. If a 14-page article is too long for one haircut, ask your barber to
loan you the magazine for a couple days.
Droel edits a free newsletter on
faith and work; INITIATIVES, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
The Working Catholic: Theology of Work by Bill Droel
It was in post-World War
II Poland that a positive turn occurred in the theology of work.
For
centuries Catholicism, with some important exceptions, gave pride of place to
worldly abandonment, including a degree of disdain for normal work. In the
prevailing Catholic understanding a saint-worthy spirituality meant intense
contemplation which required a retreat from ordinary workaday obligations. This
attitude was derived in part from Hellenistic and Gnostic influences. It was
also partially a byproduct of too close an association between the church’s
princes and royalty.
Poland was in ruins following World War
II—industries destroyed, cities demolished. During six years of war, over six
million people died. Poland, with a long history of aristocracy, was now
receptive to a Marxist ideology of work. In this context Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski
(1901-1981) wrote a remarkable retreat manual, Duch Pracy Ludzkiej (The
Spirit of People’s Work). This relatively unknown book was translated into
English in 1960 and published in Dublin, simply titled Work. In 1995 a New Hampshire publisher released it as All You Who Labor and also as Working Your Way into Heaven. This year
it appears again in the United States by way of EWTN Publishing in Alabama,
titled Sanctify Your Daily Life.
In
recent months several U.S. Catholic bishops have launched a program or campaign
to revitalize the church in their area. These efforts focus on under-utilized
buildings, a relative shortage of clergy, low participation of young adults in
liturgy and insufficient funds to maintain important ministries, especially
Catholic grammar schools. Wyszynski approaches the revitalization project
differently. Instead of starting with the church’s own internal difficulties,
he mulls over the rebuilding society by way of a Christian vision of work. (As
an aside: The U.S. publishers of Wyszynski’s book reflect our country’s
individualistic self-help culture with titles and subtitles like Your Way and Your Life. The original thrust is more about improving society or
perhaps the synergy between social renewal and virtuous Christians.)
To develop his theme Wyszynski must first
heave aside a common but mistaken reading of Genesis that says work is a punishment for original sin. “Even
before the fall,” he writes, “people had to work, for they had to dress
paradise. Work is therefore the duty of people from the first day of life. It
is not the result of original sin; it is not a punishment for disobedience.”
Work is
participation in God’s ongoing creation. God’s command in Genesis to “fill the earth and subdue it,” is a call to
mobilization, Wyszynski writes. “When God announced the summons He saw the
earth as it would become through work. God saw [all of us] who would go through
the world in submissive service to Him, adding ever more perfection wrought by
His power in work, to what God had made.”
And then
Wyszynski gives brilliant insight into a new theology of work. The perfection
of things through work perfects the person doing the work, he details. Embedded
in the very process of work itself is a prior plan. Workers can find a set of
virtues in the work process, varying with the type of work. Thus good work
requires that we follow and respect work’s own strict and binding rules. It
takes the practice of various virtues to “bring our will into conformity with
the laws and techniques of work,” Wyszynski concludes. All work has an interior
spiritual aspect.
Wyszynski’s
book includes meditations on several work virtues. Work well-done perfects
society and each worker. Good intentions or exquisite management theories do
not somehow spiritualize shoddy work,
much less exploitation.
In
summary: Work serves as a mirror to our true self and to the real character of
society. “Without external work, we could not know ourselves fully,” says
Wyszynski. In our work “we discover the good and evil in ourselves” and in
itself work is a spirituality.
U.S.
Catholicism has challenges. Absent a thorough theology of work that relates to
real jobs, to actual family life and to neighborhood sidewalks there will be
insufficient attraction between Catholicism and young adults. Repositioning
parishes and adopting new pastoral language is not enough. A spirituality of
work that is accompanied by methods for social improvement has a chance of
displacing our culture’s vacuous sloganeering, its impersonal work environments
and its mistreatment of so-called economic
losers. Is anyone thinking about a U.S. Catholic theology for work? Does
anyone have a pastoral program for young workers?
Droel is the editor of Pope John
Paul II’s Gospel of Work (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102,
Chicago, IL 60629; $5). It continues this consideration of Poland’s
contribution to work theology.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
G.P.S. TO JUSTICE – DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
In 1945 Lutheran
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged for participating in a plot to assassinate
Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer went to the
gallows as his final act of Faith for Justice in a world engulfed by evil.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Faith led him to
believe in the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth – day laborer - crucified by the Romans
and later symbolized as the Christ of the second coming.
This
belief did not restrict his Faith in salvation but expanded it to salvation and
justice for all. He wrote poetry from the German jail:
God goes to every man when sore
bestead, Feeds body and spirit with his bread; For Christians, pagans alike he hangs
dead, And both alike forgiving. (Prayers, p. 26)
Belief in
the Christ also did not relieve Lutheran Pastor Bonhoeffer, member of an
aristocratic German family, of connection with the community or from
responsibility. He wrote:
…a human being necessarily lives in
encounter with other human beings and this encounter entails being charged, in
ever so many ways, with responsibility for the other human being. (Ethics, p. 220)
Where did Bonhoeffer find hope? Founder of Liberation Theology Gustavo
Gutierrez in his book - The Power of the Poor in History
(p. 231) quotes the Lutheran Pastor:
It is an experience of in comparable
value to have learned to see the great events of history of the world from
beneath: from the viewpoint of the useless, the suspect, the abused, the
powerless, the oppressed, the despised – in a word, from the viewpoint of those
who suffer.”
Before the
war and after receiving his doctorate in Theology, Bonhoeffer spent time at
Union Theological Seminary in New York.
The liberal theology of Barth, Tillich and Bultman were in vogue, but
the modern bourgeois understanding of Faith did not impress Doctor Bonhoeffer.
At the suggestion of a colleague Bonhoeffer
attended the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The preaching, and the music nourished his
Faith. Can you hear the choir?
When Israel was in Egypt land – oppressed so
hard they could not stand – Let my people go. Go down Moses – way down to
Egypt land – tell old Pharaoh Let my people go.
Pastor
Bonhoeffer recognized his responsibility to return to Germany and join the
resistance against Hitler.
READING LIST
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 2005, Augsburg Fortress
Bonhoeffer, Prayers from Prison, 1978, Fortress
Press
Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in
History, 1983, Orbis Books
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