The Working Catholic: Lonely in Crowds By Bill Droel

 

 I’m against social distancing. I’m into physical distancing instead. There is already too much social distance in our country.

Covid-19 is accompanied by a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend alone. “People last year spent far less waking time—an hour and a half less [per day], on average—with people outside their own household,” write Ben Casselman and Ella Koeze in N.Y. Times (7/29/21), summarizing a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). Time spent all alone increased by about one hour per day. Of course, Covid-19 restrictions on visitors increased the loneliness of those in nursing homes. In general, seniors spent the most time alone,” says N.Y. Times. But teenagers too were alone: One and a half hours more each day than before Covid-19.

Covid-19 is not the cause of aloneness; it only accelerated a 50-year societal trend. Robert Putnam of Harvard University tracks the loss of social capital, of togetherness. His 2000 book, Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster) exhaustively crunches all the numbers to conclusively prove the steady depletion of community life in our society since about 1970. His latest report with Shaylyn Romney Garrett is titled The Upswing (Simon & Schuster, 2020). The two discover that our current separateness is not brand new, yet isolation has not always been so. In a parallel to today, our society was individualistic from the late 1800s into the early 20^th century (the Gilded Age). Inequality was extreme; culture was polarized. However, our society gradually became more cooperative as the 20^th century evolved. Bowling leagues, clubs, denominations, veterans groups, civic endeavors, associations, school boards, neighborhood organizations and like attracted members and enriched society. But then, starting in about 1970, there was a major relapse.

Sustained isolation harms individuals. We become pessimistic. We are prone to scammers—those soliciting over the phone and those peddling conspiracies on cable TV. It is worth recognizing that loneliness and isolation can just as readily occur in big cities with crowded events as it can in rural towns.

Sustained isolation harms society. A sense of victimhood can overwhelm any impulse for the improvement of institutions, neighborhoods and culture at large. Collective virtue, which is acquired and practiced in social interaction, gives way to collective apathy or at times to narrow, one-off outbursts of fragmented dissatisfaction. A healthy give-and-take over differences is replaced by uncivil culture wars over abortion, same-gender unions, a woman’s place in society, the status of science and other issues. In fact, as the affliction of loneliness grows, individuals grasp for identity in an affiliation with extreme factions.

This analysis is totally wrong, some say. The boring social groups of the past are replaced by lively social media. That’s where today’s young adults meet and interact.

Facebook, which owns the other major social platforms, pitches community in all of its reports, its publicity and its Congressional testimony. Nonsense, writes John Miller in America magazine (8/21). Facebook is selling community but it can’t really build it. Some of its executives and engineers have so little experience of real community that they half-believe the company’s line. Other Facebook leaders are fully aware that the “company’s business model relies on making money by selling advertising to companies based on information it has gathered about its users.”

The presumption that healthy connectivity is aided by computers is backward. Computer-aided connections are a symptom of the loneliness epidemic. By design, they turn up the volume of disagreement and accentuate slights. They add to the widening polarization of isolated factions from the common square of democratic conversation. Technology, by nature, individuates. Policing the content of Facebook and other sites is not the remedy.

What can be done? To be continued…

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

WHY CATHOLICISM IS NEEDED IN THE SOCIAL JUSTICE DEBATE

 

(From the left bank of Underwood Creek, Wauwatosa, WI)

Matthew Walter, editor of the Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributing editor of the American Conservative, wrote an essay entitled, This is Why America Needs Catholicism.  Walter is concerned about ‘the soulless tyranny of secular liberalism.’  Wait a minute!  Lincoln did not need Pius IX to dictate to him the Gettysburg address, especially since the Roman Catholic Church has a history of supporting slavery.  But social justice is a political issue and support is needed from all including the institutional Catholic Church.  Aquinas writes, ‘Every truth without exception and whoever may utter it is from the Holy Spirit.’

Advice from the Faith Community is essential.  Let’s look at some examples: 

The Warrior Prophet:  In his Commentary on Jeremiah, Thomas Aquinas explains, ‘A prophet has been consecrated to overturn, root up, destroy, and again to build and renew.’  

The Mystic:  A seer who focuses on the path of justice, respects science and becomes aware without the restrictions of place, space and time.  Sharing of revelation can be through music - a mode of expressing truth.

(Caution: Aquinas was condemned by the Church as a materialist in 1277; He was later canonized by Avignon Pope John XXII in 1323.)

 

THE SACRED EARTH

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  She was in the beginning with God. All things came to be created through Her, and without Her nothing came to be. (Gospel of John, Chapter 1)

The Holy is consciousness of the created and that awareness results in Love, the Spirit of life, care and new creation.  

 TRUMPET CALLS TO ACTION

The earth is under siege and there are apocalyptic trumpet calls for action. 

Pope John XXIII faced a similar crisis.  In the 50’s and 60’s the world was confronted with a strong possibility of nuclear war.  In 1963 Pope John pleaded for peace in his Encyclical, Pacem in Terris.  The Encyclical was addressed not just to Roman Catholics, but the entire world.  The Ecumenical (world wide) Council, Vatican II, was launched on October 11, 1962.  A radio address by Pope John before the official opening stressed the establishment of peace through social justice. The Council Fathers rejected a condemnation of communism in the opening message of the Council.  Then on October 22, the world was confronted with the Cuban missile crisis.  The Council concluded in 1965.  The thrust of the Council was to convince all to achieve peace through social justice.  Vatican II extended an olive branch to traditional enemies of the Roman Catholic Church in an effort to gain peace through world cooperation. 

The current crisis of global warming, with nuclear destruction lurking in the background, calls for a response not only of institutions but of all humanity. The challenge is from a false god.  Pope Francis writes, “whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which has become the only rule.”  (Laudato Si, para. 54)   

A practical response is a radical change in life style, but fear dictates the status quo.  Change threatens personal status and a world view that has successfully explained life for the comfortable.    

 

ORDER OF THE SACRED EARTH,  by Matthew Fox, Skyler Wilson, and Jennifer Listug; Monkifish Book Publishing, N.Y. 2018.

This is an important book that suggests focus and commitment and an oath that looks to community success in defending the living and creative earth.

To become a member of the Order of the Sacred Earth, requires making a commitment, an oath: ‘I promise to be the best lover and defender of Mother Earth that I can be.’ (p. vll) The oath is the basis for the formation of a community of action.  A Socratic rather than a dogmatic approach is used in the discussion of the need for such a community and for effective actions for justice.

All are accepted in the effort to defend the Sacred Earth. The Order of the Sacred Earth suggests that there is no need to create an alternate reality to explain causes or justify action.  Negative judgment of discovery indicates that not all that exists can be physically accounted for.  Spiritual phenomena are natural and immediately experienced.  Judgment depends on logic, the logic of poetry and sensitivity to righteousness – justice.  Revelation is from and to nature which is alive and sacred.

   St. Paul wrote:

   …for creation waits with eager expectation the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it is in hope, that creation would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; …(Romans, Chapter 8)

An anthropocentric world view forgets where we are from and its focus is on the person and the personal.  A cosmocentric view recognizes creation and the creator, not humans, as the core of being.  Frank Zeidler, in the following poem, helps us become aware of our relation to creation.

Ode to a Trilobite

The stone mason who split the limestone block

With lucky stroke of hammer left quite whole

The imprint that you gave the Nagara rock

When you met death in open sea or shoal.

He little thought, that workman did, when he

Began to pound the stone to make it square

That ancient bodies of Silurian time

Did die to make a stony bottomed sea,

While later years exposed to open air

The creatures that had died, as massive lime.

I found your mark before the weather wore

The stone too smooth; I cut you from your grave;

I took you home to swell my fossil store;

Now your diatomaceous corpse I save.

To look at you inspires profound thought:

You represent a million years!

What countless lives have suffered since your day!

What trials of life has Nature slowly wrought!

What struggles to survive! What deaths! What fears!

What agony and pain since your decay!

(The Poetry of a Young Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee Public Library, 2002, “Ode to a Trilobite.”)

 Julia Esquivel draws from her own experience to show that the struggle for Justice is not only a human task.

Five hundred years of oppression have not diminished our faith in our creator.  We bear witness in our struggles and in our hope to our faith in a God of life who is also the God of the poor…the struggle for justice opens our eyes so that we recognize the creation for what it is: our home and the home of all people, the source of life.  

(Julia Esquivel, The Certainty of Spring, Poems by a Guatemalan in Exile, EPICA, Washington, D.C. 1993.)

 Let us consider a cosmocentric Christ as Creator and Redeemer.

     

Cosmocentric Christ:  Inti Sun God of the Andes, Our Lady of Copacabana. Banners made by students of St. John H.S. Little Chute WI, 1966.

The Order of the Sacred Earth community is dedicated to cooperating in the salvation of  Pacha Mama – Mother Earth.

 

The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine Part II BY BILL DROEL

  

Modern Catholic social doctrine dates from May 1891 with the publication of On the Condition of Labor by Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903). Customarily, social encyclicals are subsequently released on significant anniversaries of On the Condition of Labor.

In May 1981 Mehmet Ali Agca, a criminal from Turkey, shot Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) in St. Peter’s Square. Thus John Paul II’s anniversary encyclical was delayed until September 1981. It is titled On Human Work.

Every worker is equal in dignity, says John Paul II. That’s because the dignity of work originates with the person doing the work; the person who raises children, instructs students, assists homebuyers, manages portfolios, takes orders at the drive-through window, crafts legislation, develops affordable housing or supervises a manufacturing plant. A boss cannot confer dignity. An executive secretary is no more dignified than the night janitor. Every worker is equal—not necessarily in pay or expertise, but equal in dignity prior to, during and after the job or task.

The word work, according to John Paul II, is any activity that comports with God’s on-going creation and redemption.  A homemaker is a worker. Unemployed workers, volunteer tutors and chief executives are all workers. A gun trafficker is not a worker because she or he detracts from the plan of God. A predatory lender is not a worker. An adult who abuses children is not a worker.

The design of an economy, the policies of a specific business, or the management style of a boss or the level of cooperation among fellow workers make it easier or harder to experience holiness through work. On Human Work says that the first purpose of any economy or business is the fulfillment of its workers. Fulfilling work is some combination of putting bread on the family table, benefitting society with a needed service or product, participating in a team effort and growing in self-knowledge. If a company first has regard for its workers, it will likely also respect its suppliers and customers or clients. (Remember, its workers include the shop hands, janitors, executives, nurses, top partners, drivers, public relations personnel, sales force and more.) That company with competent management and a needed product or service will likely be profitable.

The best test of whether a company respects its workers is its wage structure. “In every case a just wage is the concrete means of verifying the justice of the whole socioeconomic system” and each business within it, writes John Paul II. “It is not the only means of checking but it is…the key means.” Get wage structure right, the company and society will be right. Wage structure, by the way, includes the top (not paid too much) and the bottom (not paid too little).

On Human Work names other considerations for a whole, holy economy or business. John Paul II warns against an authoritarian business or a collectivist economy. No surprise coming from a champion of anti-communism. He likewise warns against neo-liberal individualism. No surprise coming from a Catholic. Instead, he favors businesses that value subsidiarity (bottom-up decision making), participation and solidarity (solidarność).

John Paul II devotes a section to the “importance of unions,” and he affirms “the right to strike.” He reminds employers and employees that the disabled have “ideas and resources” and can be offered a job “according to their capabilities.”

On Human Work concludes with an intriguing section titled Elements for a Spirituality of Work. John Paul II, in a totally neglected injunction, says that the whole church has “a particular duty to form a spirituality of work…which will help all people come closer, through work, to God.” Such spirituality is “a heritage shared by all.”

 

Next up: Pope Francis’ contributions to social doctrine. For now, obtain John Paul II’s Gospel of Work edited by Bill Droel (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $7 discount price).

The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine By Bill Droel

 

Modern Catholic social doctrine is officially 130-years old. It dates from Pope Leo XIII’s May 1891 encyclical, On the Condition of Labor. Subsequent popes (as will be mentioned) advance social doctrine, often on anniversaries of On the Condition of Labor.

Doctrines are derived from reflection on the accumulated experience of Christians in many societies and from an application of reason or science, particularly the social sciences. Doctrines are in harmony with God’s revealed Scripture. Dogma, by contrast, comes to us directly from revelation; it cannot be figured out only through study of nature. The dogma of the Trinity, for example, fits an understanding of nature but God had to reveal the Trinity to us. Dogma is not irrational; it is not opposed to science. It is true but not empirical, like a spouse’s love. 

Western Europe in the time of Leo XIII (1810-1903) was experiencing industrialization which in turn attracted thousands of families to urban centers. This industrial era held forth many promises including a higher standard of living and conveniences. However, Leo XIII among others saw that industry and urban life came with a paradox: degrading working conditions and great poverty amid concentrated wealth. The Communist Manifesto of 1848 addressed the paradox and named a resolution: proletariat revolution. Leo XIII countered Marxism with Christian principles.

The bedrock principle of Catholic social doctrine is the intrinsic dignity of each person. Humanists all agree that modern individuals are free and can exercise appropriate agency. Jews, Christians and Muslims know that this doctrine is additionally supported in Scripture; that each person is created in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:27 & Qur’an 17:70)

The modifier intrinsic is important because the term dignity is sometimes used carelessly. Intrinsic means built-in. For example, a husband does not give his wife dignity. She has it long before they meet. An employer does not give employees dignity. It comes with them in the morning and stays with them after they punch the clock. God put dignity into each person.

A negligent husband or an exploitative boss can, of course, degrade a person’s dignity. Thus an obligation to improve degrading situations follows from the principle of basic dignity. To that end On the Condition of Labor advocates for safe and humane working conditions, a family wage and the right of workers to collectively bargain. To achieve these and other improvements, Leo XIII says government’s role includes restraint on laissez-faire capitalism.

A subsequent column will discuss other social encyclicals—specifically St. John Paul II’s On Human Work on its 40^th anniversary and the recent encyclicals of Pope Francis, one on inequality/environment and one on public friendship.

Officialdom uses the term Catholic social teaching for these encyclicals and a few other Church documents.  I prefer the term Catholic social thought and action. This includes the official teaching but it also includes reflection on the teaching and its implementation in worldly settings. Doctrine is principles that tell us what to do. But, they have to be applied with prudence. As the principles hit the streets or corridors, right-minded people can disagree on the how to implement the doctrine in fluid situations. Here’s one small example: Catholic social doctrine says employees have a right to bargain collectively without the maternal or paternal meddling of their boss. The application, however, is more complex. Do we necessarily want a union at this workplace? If so, do we want this union or a different union or an independent union of our own making? If we do not want a union, what is our alternative mechanism for improving conditions at our workplace? Sincere employees can respectfully disagree with one another. This example becomes more complex if unfortunately the employer violates the starting principle or skirts the law. To be continued…

Obtain Droel’s booklet Catholic Administrators and Labor Unions from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $1.50).

Originalism

 

“Originality is Simply a Pair of Fresh Eyes”
~Thomas Wentworth Higginson

If someone calls you an “O.G.” take it as a compliment. The abbreviated term is usually short for, “Original Gangster,” or “Old School.” It is often an homage to the style or approach of a person, usually older in age, whose tactics, values, or beliefs were likely popular during an era from years past. The qualities embodied by an “O.G.” can sometimes be unconventional, dated, yet effective. But not everyone is an “O.G.” When you were young, you certainly knew of an older person whose thinking and beliefs were dated and not reflective of our community’s current values. One reason beliefs become outdated is because as people we evolve.

When a Supreme Court Justice calls themself an “originalist” it often means they recognize the United States Constitution to be a fixed, original document that defines the law of the land. They frequently interpret the Constitution through a lens of the framers’ 1787 intent. Contrary to an “originalist” is a style of constitutional interpretation, understanding the document as one that lives and breathes, adapting with the times regardless of a formal amendment.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett described her originalist view in her Senate confirmation hearings as, "I interpret the Constitution as a law; I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.  That meaning doesn't change over time and it is not up to me to update it or infuse my policy views into it."  

At the time people ratified the constitution women weren't full citizens, Black people weren't recognized as people, but as property, and indigenous people in this land weren't recognized as citizens of the land they inhabited for years prior to Europeans arriving.  

The fascination with originality in this country remembers the good but forgets the bad.  Because the true origins of this country were founded on the false idea of white supremacy.  that false ideology, with the biases accompanying it, permeated many of the policies that created the historic injustices of this country.    

There are certainly some redeeming qualities of the all-white, male version of the U.S. Constitution written in 1787, most notably the separation of powers designed to avoid tyrannical rule.  But to be loyal to a 234-year-old document in its original format and intentions can only come at the expense of the rights and dignity of the marginalized communities who were not invited to the Constitutional convention in Philadelphia, PA.

With age often comes wisdom. But this idea applies to people, not documents. When people revere the U.S. Constitution, they must acknowledge its deficiencies which we’ve been correcting through movements, legislation, and amendments since its adoption. Justice Barrett is not an “O.G.” and perhaps the next appointment to the Supreme Court bench will view the U.S. Constitution with 21^st-Century values of equity in mind.

William C. Snowden, is the Founder of The Juror Project and proud son of Billy Ray and Kay Snowden.

CHOOSING JUSTICE OVER EXPEDIENCY by John Celichowski, OFM Cap.

  

In his moving book, Just Mercy:  A Story of Justice and Redemption, lawyer Bryan Stevenson posits that the true character of our society and our commitment to justice, the rule of law, and equality are not found in how we treat people who are wealthy, powerful, and privileged but rather how we treat "the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned."

Stevenson's judgment is echoed in Catholic Social Teaching.  "A basic moral test" the Catholic Bishops of the United States have noted on their website, usccb.org, "is how our most vulnerable members are faring.  In a society marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition recalls the story of the Last Judgment (Mt 25:31-46) and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first."

I write this brief reflection on Good Friday.  As we reflect on the unfathomable depth of God's self-sacrificial love for us, we also confront the injustice of Jesus' persecution, trials, condemnation, and execution.  Contemporary historical accounts of Pontius Pilate suggest that he could be callous and cruel.  In the gospels, he is described more sympathetically, but that has more to do with the polemical needs and theological purposes of the authors than his character. 

In dealing with Jesus, Pilate was driven more by expediency than justice.  In trying, condemning, and executing Jesus, he was giving the mob what they wanted and making sure that everyone knew that he was "a friend of Caesar." 

In a similar way, our system of criminal justice is driven far more by political and bureaucratic expediency than by justice.  Mercy is either an afterthought, the refuge of the privileged, or derided as weakness and being "soft on crime."  Appearing tough while spending billions of dollars dealing with the consequences of centuries of prejudice and failed educational and social policies is more likely to garner votes than doing the hard work of confronting those prejudices, challenging and changing those policies, and reprioritizing our public spending. 

The engines of failed system are fueled by racism, classism, fear, and anger.  As Bryan Stevenson points out in Just Mercy, "Fear and anger are a threat to justice.  They can infect a community, a state, or a nation, and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous."

Jesus found himself before Pilate primarily because of fear and anger.  Those who accused him feared him and the gospel he preached, and they were angered by what they perceived to be his arrogance, unorthodox teachings, and his claims to be God's Son.  Their fear and anger mailed him to the cross.  Pilate, who mockingly placed a sign in several languages proclaiming Jesus "King of the Jews," provided the wood, nails and legal machinery to accomplish it.

In the wake of Stevenson's Just Mercy, Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste:  The Origins of our Discontents, as well as the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain by law enforcement officers, there are renewed cries for reform of our criminal justice system.  That will be a daunting task.  Fixing our broken legal machinery is daunting enough.  Addressing the fear, anger, and other dark forces that have forged and fueled that machinery will be even more difficult.  It has taken generations for us to get here.  It will take years of sustained effort to change.

 John Celichowski, OFM Cap.is the Director at the NAPCC Novitiate in San Lorenzo Seminary & Friary in Santa Ynez, California..