The Working Catholic: Disabling Help by Bill Droel

 

Generally, those in education, health care, ministry, civil service and more want to do good through their daily work. However, the outcome of their efforts often produces the opposite of what they intend. Schools produce too many uncultured young adults. Frustration among patients and health professionals is a major side-effect of health care delivery. Churches reinforce individualistic attitudes. The civil service system, top to bottom, often delivers dependency and/or corruption.

The bad side-effects come from the nature of our bureaucratic system in which transactions supersede personal attention. Students relate to teachers by way of grade sheets. Patients relate to doctors and nurses through charts and test results. A business simply counts an employee as a debit on the expense sheet, rather than as a unique individual.

Some time ago, Msgr. Ivan Illich (1926-2002) gave a talk to seminarians, titled “To Hell With Good Intentions.”  These North American seminarians were about to spend a summer helping people in Mexico. Illich told them to discard their unacknowledged pretention that You people will be better because I know better.  Those who desire to help, said Illich, have “enormous good will [but] an abysmal lack of intuitive delicacy.”

 L.M. Sacasas, writing in The Convivial Society, summarizes Illich’s challenge and gives it current application, including to those involved with artificial intelligence. How deeply do computer engineers reflect on the harm that their programs cause, Sacasas asks? All our tools and devices come along with “a perspective on the world.” The devices subtly encourage their users to adopt an individualistic attitude, he continues.

Too often unexamined helping behavior results in “a loss of personal potency,” says Sacasas. The more that nice people apply their notion of helpfulness and forsake “critical self-awareness,” the more that patients, students, parishioners, employees and citizens lose agency.

In this talk to seminarians and in his other writing, Illich delivers a stern warning. The warning does not, however, support the neoconservative position that all government assistance (Medicare, food stamps, disaster relief, etc.) should end. Illich’s positive advice to the seminarians and to us is a “silence of deep interest.” At prayer each evening, consider the question: Whom did I really help today?

Pope Francis preaches the same when he urges Christians to develop a “culture of encounter.” Go to the peripheries and look squarely at others. Listen to them with an unbiased heart. Programs, notebooks, handouts and bandages can be appropriate. But the genuine helper is skilled in the art of active listening. Lo and behold, the helper who listens can discover something about herself. So too, each true exchange between people is an encounter with God, our God who is Unified Community, a Blessed Trinity.

 

Droel edits a free, printed newsletter, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

The Lost Factor of Production

 The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, D.C. says we need to be concerned about the least among us.  The least among us are innumerable in our world economy. Trump’s disregard for immigrants is just the beginning.  We are all vulnerable. 

Economists say there are 4 factors of production:  land, labor, capitol, and entrepreneurship.  But what is it all for?  If AI is substituted for ‘labor’ and ‘entrepreneurship, ’what is the reason for an economy?  Massive wealth is created for the few. 

If there is no need for labor, why be concerned about social justice for immigrants?  Why be concerned about social justice?  The rationale for an economic system is lost.

But if the reason for an economic system is human survival and happiness, the factors of production have to be adjusted to serve this goal.  This is the lost factor of production.

Where are we going?  Is humanity evolving towards a sincere awareness of the mandate, ‘Love God and love your neighbor’ or do we face an apocalypse of destruction and we have to start all over again? 

                              Robot standing in the lobby of the Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada

Bishop Speaks Out

Thank you, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, D.C., for speaking in support of working people, migrants, and their families at the traditional prayer service at the National Cathedral Tuesday.  Her words remind us of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Laborem Exercens, that labor is prior to capital.  The purpose of the economic system is the service of people, not capital. 

Bishop Budde is a spiritual warrior.  She is a leader of the Faith community whose concern is people, not money.  Will other Faith leaders have the courage to speak out in defense of those who need protection from exploitation?  Bishop Budde asked for mercy, justice.

Another area that deserves attention in the faith communities’ struggle for justice is to look at U.S. foreign policy as a cause for people having to leave their homes. 

It is the Faith communities’ awareness that the world does not belong to those who claim it with military might.  God’s creation is the heritage of all.  Faith leaders who do not speak out for justice, are supporting the new president’s attack on working people and their families.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY

 

How Martin Luther King got his name

Charles King, Martin Luther King’s father went to Germany for a conference on Martin Luther and was so impressed with Martin Luther’s life and teachings that he officially changed his own name to Martin Luther King.  And he also changed the name of his young son, Charles King, Jr., to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Non-violence :  the struggle for freedom

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an advocate of non-violence in the struggle for freedom for African Americans in the U.S.  His insistence on non-violence conflicted with many members in the civil rights movement, including Malcom X and Medgar Evers.  Mayor Richard J. Daley had strong objections to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of freedom for African Americans.  Ralph Metcalf, Marquette University and Olympic medal winner and part of the Daley political machine in Chicago, left the Daley machine and followed his own judgments as an alderperson in Chicago as a result of Daley’s opposition to King.

Non-violence:  the Viet Nam war

In opposition to the United States’ political consensus, King was opposed to the Viet Nam war.

Barbershop quotes – ‘He had courage.’  (Courage to Be by Paul Tillich)

I go to the Sherman Phoenix Black Barbershop here in Milwaukee for my haircuts and I feel comfortable talking there with the people in the shop about Martin Luther King.  They summed up their feeling about him with the words, ‘He had courage.’  King knew his life was in danger, yet he joined the garbage workers’ strike in 1968. He was murdered in Memphis where he was speaking to support them. 

Let us celebrate this day dedicated to the spiritual warrior, Martin Luther King, imitating his compassion and service!

Marquette Rejects Catholic Social Teaching

 

Marquette University has rejected the requests of professors and workers to organize a union to bargain collectively.  In doing this, Marquette has rejected Catholic Social Teaching which has been a backbone for workers’ rights.

This is some of what Marquette has rejected:  the 1892 encyclical of Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, which declares the right of workers to organize; the 1919 statement by the U.S. Catholic Bishops, supporting the Popes’ Encyclicals on workers’ rights authored by Monsignor John Ryan; the 1931 encyclical by Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, defining the social structures of solidarity and subsidiarity; the 1965 document from Vatican II, Church in the Modern World, declaring workers’ right to independence and their right to strike; the 1981 encyclical by Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, explaining how  labor unions are a necessity and that labor is prior to capital; and, finally, the 1986 Pastoral Letter by the U. S. Catholic Bishops, “Economic Justice for All,” saying that Roman Catholic institutions are obligated to respect workers’ rights as presented in Catholic Social teaching.

Currently there are new unions formed in various industries:  the baristas working for Starbucks and the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization (MASH).  Martin Luther King, Jr. supported the garbage workers in their fight for workers’ rights in 1968.  The support for workers’ rights is in Catholic Social Teaching.  Where do we look now for the backbone for workers’ rights? 

Marquette University professors and workers have a right to form a union.