The Working Catholic: Pope’s Visit by Bill Droel

Is the pope a socialist? During this month’s papal visit to our country a few vocal critics raise the question.

Why would someone call Pope Francis a socialist?

First, there is still a strain of anti-Catholicism in corners of our society. Socialist conjures up abhorrent communism. The socialist label is thus a covert slur. In addition, there are a few disgruntled U.S. Catholics who over the past 40 years have not liked many Catholic leaders, including the current pope.

A further source of the socialist label is worth more comment. Many people in our society follow an ideology of individual liberty. They—be they moderately rich or be they working class--mostly think about life in relation to their individual situation, usually in monetary terms. Pope Francis is quite clear in condemning this individualism and this consumerism.

            For example, in his recent visit to South America Pope Francis condemned selfish individualism because it blocks any chance of peace, harmony and true happiness. A spirit of community must replace individual regard, he preached. This pervasive outlook is part of our so-called free market economy. The current economy, which has become an extreme type of capitalism, “promotes inordinate consumption, increases inequality, damages the social fabric and increases violence,” he writes.

Yet despite the evidence of the 2007-2008 economic collapse, many people still defend laissez-faire or nearly unregulated markets. Pope Francis challenges them in a frequently quoted section of Joy of the Gospel: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness.” This opinion “has never been confirmed by the facts… Meanwhile the excluded are still waiting.”

So, maybe this pope is a socialist? No. Let’s get real. No one becomes a Catholic bishop who is extremely liberal in the way that term is thrown about in our culture. “The Marxist ideology is wrong,” Pope Francis emphatically states. Catholic doctrine has always defended private property and opposed any total state system.

On the other hand, Catholic doctrine is not conservative in the way that term is used by the influential libertarian strain in our society, residing comfortably now within the Republican Party. Catholic doctrine is not, without a boxcar full of qualifiers, pro-capitalist in the way that term is now used by free market enthusiasts. Private market forces alone do not translate individual gain into socially efficient outcomes, says Catholicism. Yet, the same is true of government alone. Its prying regulations and accompanying bureaucracy stifle creativity and undermine families and local groups. Catholicism is not liberal on lifestyle. Catholicism is not conservative (libertarian) on economics. Catholicism does not want government to be the only responder to social problems. Catholicism does not want private enterprise to be the only means of advancement.

Even in anticipation of the papal visit, some commentators are sideling Pope Francis. They say he is out of step with his recent predecessors. This is inaccurate. Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), for example, was just as critical of consumerism and runaway capitalism. But he is remembered selectively. Some recall only one side of his economic critique: the opposition to communism.

Some commentators say Pope Francis is not scholarly like his predecessors. This is nonsense. Pope Francis uses more interesting idioms and provocative one-liners than previous popes. But his content is solidly and consistently mainstream Catholicism.

Where do Pope Francis and other Catholic teachers get their social doctrine?  To be continued….

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a free newsletter on social doctrine.

Solidarity: Two cups of cold water

Psalm 63:  O God, you are my God – For you I long!  For you my body yearns:  For you my soul thirsts.

Labor Day 2016, as usual, was an inspiring celebration for Joanne and me.  To march with fellow workers, to sense the enthusiasm of younger workers, enlivened hope in our hearts.  As old timers, we had attended many Labor Day celebrations, but this year was special.

   I was moved by talking to old friends who were in the battles beginning in the early 80’s.  The company we worked for, Briggs & Stratton, mounted a full blown attack on our union.  We went on strike, but were forced back to work.  Labor law as interpreted by the Reagan Administration left us with little voice.  Of course, since that time the situation for labor is worse.  Most now recognize the problem of income inequality, but few favor changing labor law so that workers’ demands for fair wages can be effective.  Where does Hilary Clinton stand on E.F.C.A., the Employee Free Choice Act? 

   After the parade and chatting with friends, we headed home.  We set out to walk to our car which was parked a couple of miles away near Zeidler Union Square where the march began.  Both of us were exhausted from parading in the heat and standing talking to friends.  At the gates of the festival grounds we met an African American woman with her CWA t-shirt who told us she was waiting for the bus that takes people back to their cars.  We waited, but decided to walk.  After a few blocks in the heat we wondered if we could continue.  The woman we met at the festival ground gate was right behind us.  After taking a look at us she advised us to sit down and rest, and we did.  She went on ahead, but soon came back with two cups of ice cold water.  It was emotional for us; we could only come out with a simple thank you.

Matthew 25:

Lord when did we see you thirsty and give you a drink? 

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you?

I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.

  

The Working Catholic: After Protest by Bill Droel

      This column is hardly ready to endorse Hillary in 16. But Clinton is correct in her reaction to Black Lives Matter activists with whom she had an off-stage exchange early in August. They probed her how she will change hearts to eliminate racism. “How do you actually feel that’s different,” they asked?

“You can get lip service” from some people, Clinton replied. Some people will respond to your protest and say: We get it. We are going to be nicer. “That’s not enough, at least in my book,” she asserted. “I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.” Her point, reports Maggie Haberman in New York Times (8/20/15), is that “deeply felt emotions” have to be translated into “meaningful lasting change” because “movement politics gets you only so far.” 

This same juncture was reached in the Occupy Wall Street movement. What is the specific goal and expected outcome of the protest? Is there anything more to this movement than dissipation of anger?

Some years ago a team of social scientists thoroughly studied ten cities to measure the “effectiveness of demand-protest strategies.” Their report is titled Protest Is Not Enough: the Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality by Rufus Browning et al. (University of California Press, 1984). Protest is frequently useful, they found. That is, when the protest supports “sustained and substantial” organizing.  Browning and his colleagues concentrate on access to and responsiveness from electoral politics. But their analysis can apply to justice within business, education, cultural institutions, civic arenas and more.

Admittedly, protest activists are often frustrated by the long march through institutions. They find that their idealism succumbs to cooption, especially when they are unaware of being used.

Cooption comes by way of grandstanders who are attracted to any event that makes it onto TV or into newspapers. These media hounds might emerge from within the ranks of the protesters or they might be national personalities who visit the scene of action.

There might also be well-meaning celebrities who donate money to the cause. This type of money, especially at the early stages of the protest, almost never builds a lasting constituency.

Then there is the matter of coalitions. They are absolutely necessary to aggregate more power, but the original fervor can get subsumed into a diffuse agenda or a bureaucracy.

And finally there is the cooption of tokenism. The protest group feels like they and their grievance are incorporated, but real decisions are in fact made elsewhere. There is no substantial policy change. For example, a protest leader or two is put on an oversight board or even into a public office. It appears like an achievement, but endless meetings sap their energy. This cooption is very subtle. For example, many politicians (including presumably Hillary Clinton) are adept at attracting activists to their campaign, but then ignore the activists’ cause.

The outcome of a protest greatly depends on critical choices made by some primary activists, say Browning and his colleagues. Can they get savvy political advice from people experienced in the ways and means of business, criminal justice, neighborhood development and the like? Not academic background on issues. Not distracting guidance about someone else’s agenda. Can the protest leaders find and accept direction from skilled organizers who have no other interest than building genuine, accountable power from the grassroots? It is not easy. Cooption is everywhere. Fatigue is the constant temptation.

Droel is the author of What Is Social Justice? (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $5.50)

‘Watchman by Harper Lee, A Review

Isaiah 21:6  For this is what the Lord has said to me, ‘Go and post the watchman, and let him report what he sees.’

           The recently published novel, Go Set a Watchman* by Harper Lee is an American classic about Justice.  John Rawls established an American philosophy of justice with his treatise, A Theory of Justice.**  Harper Lee wrote the novel;  both are insightful and provocative.  Harper Lee wrote her first novel with feeling and fascinating characters, presenting a personal understanding of justice.

           In the Watchman, Atticus Finch and his sister Alexandra represent the western heritage of Greco-Roman justice where slavery and suppression of women is acceptable. Finch’s daughter Scout, Jean Louise is able to see the overall battlefield in the struggle for human rights.  Jean Louise (her name rings of Joan of Arc, Jeanne d’Arc) represents a distinctly American concept of justice which, since Lincoln at Gettysburg, posits literally that ‘all are created equal.’ Despite dialogue in the book that indicates the South of the 50’s as rooted in fear and hatred of Koons, Kikes, Katholics and Komunists, the novel’s main characters eventually agree that equality is the goal and that it is a question of time and individual moral leadership.

          Religious services reflect the narrowness of the culture.  In contrast, Scout comments about the morning ‘service’ of the mockingbirds who sound the chirping of all birds.  Harper Lee’s prize winning novel To Kill a Mocking Bird*** was published in 1960, but the recently published Watchman was written before Mockingbird.

          The novel continues to resonate with current messages: the Black Lives Matter movement and the struggle over immigration reform.  A friend of African ancestry pointed out to me that the racism against immigrants is the same as that against Blacks.  “They believe that they are the good and we are the evil.” However, Jean Louise points out to her father Atticus, we are all human and therefore all have basic rights whether the law recognizes them or not.  There is justice and there is Justice.

    The fascinating characters in the prize winning romantic To Kill a Mockingbird originated in the long unpublished realistic Watchman.   Some may find the story of the Watchman difficult to imagine because the To Kill a Mockingbird paints Atticus Finch in the 30’s as a moral giant.  Go Set a Watchman, set in the 50’s, shows his racism.   Doesn’t this indicate an important truth?  Atticus Finch favored fairness, but with limits.  Aren’t we all like that?  There is racism and there is racism; it can be measured in degrees and it still dominates modern America.

              It is tempting to designate Calpurnia, the Finch’s African American maid, who raised Jean Louis, as the “Watchman.”(Calpurnia was Julius Ceasar’s wife who warned him not to go to the Senate where he was assassinated.)  But the ‘Watchman’ role is for each and every one of us.  Jean Louise’s Uncle Jack advises her of her destiny.  Atticus’ brother Dr. Jack Finch is an anglophile; he struggles with the burden of moving from the culture of Victorian England to the 50’s South and from the 50’s South into the modern age. Uncle Jack Americanizes a quote from the 17^th century English poet John Donne, “Every man’s an island," Jean Louise. "Every man’s watchman is his own conscience.”  With this advice Jean realizes her identity as a woman and as a moral force.  At the end of the story, she indicates she will stay in Macomb and fight for civil rights.

*Harper Lee, Go Set A Watchman, Harper Collins, New York, 2015

**John Rawls, A Theory Of Justice, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971

***Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Collins, New York, 1960

The Working Catholic: Rules Part II by Bill Droel

Chris Matthews supplies several rules for public life in Hardball: How Politics Is Played (Free Press, 1988).

One chapter explains why “it’s better to receive than give.” Such surprising rules make Matthews’ book a classic. “Contrary to what many people assume,” he writes, “the most effective way to gain a person’s loyalty is not to do him or her a favor, but to let that person do one for you.”

Take for example a college graduate’s job search. The typical approach is well-described in another classic, What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles (Ten Speed Press, 1972). The young adult makes a list of potential employers (probably using the Internet) and sends each a confidence-flavored resume and an assertive cover letter lightly peppered with exclamation marks. A few more preliminary research hours and a more supplicating approach are probably more effective. Is there someone in the young adult’s circles who might have a weak-link connection to the prospective employer? Might your research uncover that your dentist with whom admittedly your link is weak or maybe the neighborhood funeral director have some connection to a board member of the bank or hospital where you seek employment? Ask a favor of your dentist. Maybe she feels too remote from the bank officer to comply, but she is now invested in your search. The circle of weak-link contacts is growing.

Candidates for office often make the rounds of social clubs, churches, union halls and the like. They tell the citizens what they the candidate will do for them. Matthews describes a famous candidate who avoided the normal circuit. Instead, he and his many family members walked around asking for favors: Can you put John Kennedy’s sign in your window; can you host a house meeting on Kennedy’s behalf? This smart politician, Matthews says, “is not so much demanding a gift or service.” He or she understands that to make a friend, you ask a favor. The successful public person offers “the one thing he [or she also] wants: the opportunity to get involved.”

Matthews has an advantage in compiling his adages and examples. He travels in story-telling circles—in legislative halls, in reporters’ hangouts and more. Those circles are fewer these days. Instead, there is a fair amount of texting and social media exchange about superficialities—what I had for breakfast or where I am going this weekend with no moral or lesson included. Yet public savvy comes through sharing and reflecting on stories.

There’s a clerical grapevine in Chicago. It is, I suspect, withering or is mostly given to gossip. But at its best the clerical grapevine is another example of a story-telling culture that contains lessons for public life.

There’s the old story about a newly minted monsignor who gives a scheduled talk at a conference attended by the then cardinal. The monsignor mentions the desirability of ordaining women. Of course, he had to appear on the chancery carpet, but walks from the cardinal’s office out into the sunshine. This story yields the adage all Chicago priests know: It is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.

There’s the one about the newly ordained priests awaiting their assignments. All knew to dread one far away parish and its SOB pastor. The chancery bureaucracy announces the placements over the course of a week—six on Monday, a couple more each day thereafter. The dread increases down the alphabetical line, until on Friday Fr. Zimmer gets the news. He initially balks, but he goes to meet Fr. Tyrannical. After a week the pastor comes to him and says: “I’m not feeling great. OK with you if I go to Florida for a few months?” Sure enough, the pastor dies in Florida and the newly ordained, who handled matters superbly, is made pastor of that terrific parish with many leaders shedding few tears for the departed predecessor. The grapevine adage: The last shall be first. Or, take your lumps early; there’s a plum waiting.

To be continued….

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a print newsletter about faith and work.

The Working Catholic: No Rules by Bill Droel

       Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) could not tell less experienced organizers more loudly or more frequently: There are no rules. Creative life is for fluid people.

       Alinsky’s insistence caused cognitive dissonance in many of his novice disciples. They read his Rules for Radicals (Random House, 1971) and concluded there really are rules for public life. They memorized his adages: “The action is in the reaction,” or “Reconciliation means one side gets power and the other side gets reconciled to it,” or “Personalize the target and polarize the issue.” Each of Alinsky’s so-called rules was supported by examples from his reading of history, his contact with John L. Lewis (1880-1969) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations and his own pioneering organizing efforts.

Alinsky’s rules, properly understood, are more like manila folders (in his day) or e-folders (for today). That is, label the folder with bold marker. Then, as you read and particularly as you experience, put examples under the relevant rule or in the corresponding folder. Then use those folders to interpret additional reading and again especially additional experience. Without folders, so to speak, a body of reflection cannot develop and each new thing is just one more random fact or activity. In a sense, curious reading and creative action and deeper reflection quickly become a dynamic process—one not easily torn away from the others.

Business literature should be used in the same way. Yet many people glam onto the latest business book (or latest self-help book) and think it is a template for tomorrow’s day at the office. Unfortunately, many writers of popular how-to business books and self-help books are like their readers: There is too little sustained reflection that goes into their rules for success and the result is a hodgepodge of personal incidents that don’t contain too much wisdom. Perhaps that is why Warren Buffett, upon being asked to name his favorite business book, reached back for an oldie: Business Adventures: 12 Classic Tales by John Brooks (1920-1993). Originally a series in The New Yorker, each “tale” derives a lesson or rule from a specific company. Buffett was hardly looking for one-to-one matches from those 1960s situations. Buffett treasured the creative thinking and action—or lack thereof—in Brooks’ examples, not so much the precise situations.

Peter Drucker (1909-2005) wrote several business books that might appear to be how-to texts. They are loaded with adages and rules: “Abandon what one proposes,” or “Performance trumps conformance,” or, sounding like a Biblical commandment, “Know thy time.” Yet Drucker understood his rules to be like folders to sort and reflect on experience. Events in themselves reveal nothing, he wrote. The only method, he insisted, was one that allows someone to test their opinion against reality. His books were not from the how-to genre. In fact, his Drucker’s best books, like Management (Harper & Row, 1973), are akin to humanities texts.

Chris Matthews authored a classic on public life: Hardball: How Politics Is Played (Free Press, 1988). Each chapter title is an adage or rule derived from Matthews’ reading of history and his extensive experience around elected officials and in the media. Yet again, anyone who reads Hardball with the intention of following one or another rule in the week or month ahead will soon wash out of public life.

A subsequent column will feature some of Matthews’ rules and will consider morality in the hardball game of business, politics and community organizing. A column will also explain the process for acquiring one’s own rules for success in public.

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

AN EPISTOMOLOGICAL PROBLEM

A TASTE OF LINCOLN IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE ENCYCLICAL

(What is ousia – essence-taste? Aristotle 7^th book Metaphysics)

Although Pope Francis’ encyclical, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium) is addressed to Roman Catholics, it was widely read and drew favorable comments from every quarter.  It was not intended as a sectarian document urging Catholics to raid other faith groups for recruits.  The encyclical insists on dialogue to achieve the common good advocated by Jewish-Christian-Muslim Scripture. 

    Francis’ encyclical On Care For Our Common Home (Laudato Si) is clearly intended for all.  The climate change crisis is similar to the threat of nuclear destruction faced by Vatican II.  The message is that people of good will need to join together to avoid disaster.

    The climate change encyclical does not avoid difficult philosophical questions.  Francis notes that the epistemological paradigm used in science dominates our thinking and is not suitable to look to solutions for the climate change and pending disaster. (#107)  This is a problem for epistemology that goes back to the time of Abelard and Heloise (12^th century) with the battle between the universalists and the nominalists.    

                             

   Empirical science has successfully focused on the individual and the collective, thus producing inventions that can make life better for humanity.  Empirical science successfully produced cars, airplanes, pesticides and drones.  This bright light of success has unfortunately reduced the ‘essential’, Aristotle’s ousia, to the ‘un-real’, a product of the imagination and therefore the term humanity or all men is meaningless.  Such thinking has prevailed since the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) and later, the existentialists attempted to relegate the essentialists to past history. 

   Abraham Lincoln differed. What does “all men are created equal” mean?  Lincoln could be classified as a modern essentialist; he saw “All men are created equal” as including the slaves and having meaning yet to be developed, e.g. gays have rights also, humanity’s duty to protect the planet.   Author Gary Wills traces Lincoln’s thinking to the Unitarians and Transcendentalists of his time. (cf. Gary Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Simon & Schuster,  1992, p.104.  also blog, “Faith & The Labor Movement”, April 1, 2013)

Linoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois with Bill 'Lincoln' Lange and family

   Moral philosopher and former Harvard professor John Rawls (1921 -2002) would have supported Lincoln.  He contended that the equality of humanity was intuitive and based on experience. (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA. 1971, p. 118) For Rawls, and Catholic Social Teaching, because of common humanity people have rights and duties.  (Ibid. pp. 27-28, 32, p. 333)

   To recognize that climate change is a crisis is to accept the conclusions of science; to do something about it is to recognize our common humanity with rights and duties. Pope Francis challenges us to cooperate and break out of the political structures of destruction dictated by an individualistic philosophy of economics producing inequality and a technology that ignores ultimate causes.

   Francis’ Encyclical is instructive and inspires faith in the hope that our common love of – humanity & nature will guide us towards resolving the climate crisis.