The Working Catholic: Sacraments by Bill Droel

 

The Christian denominations vary in their list of official sacraments. But restricting God’s instruments of grace to any official list is misguided, writes Fr. Robert Lauder in The Tablet of Brooklyn. He directs his readers to Bernard Cooke (1922-2013), particularly his Sacraments and Sacramentality (Twenty Third Publication, 1983).

The word “sacrament must be understood in a much broader sense,” writes Cooke.  Properly understood, “the most basic sacrament of God’s saving presence to human life is the sacrament of human love and friendship… Our experience of being truly personal with and for one another is sacramental… The human friendships we enjoy embody God’s love for us.” Some knowledge of and experience of the divine is gained through personal relationships, Cooke continues. 

Marriage is a prime example. It is an intense relationship between two people with God in the mix. Please understand, this does not mean that a couple is constantly aware of God. Nor is a sacramental marriage coated in frosting. There is discord and disappointment in the crucible of every marriage. Mutual revelation too. And hilarity and quiet joy. And, of course, marriage is the sacramentality of sex.

 A sacramental moment occurs as two friends meet every Monday morning at the diner or as four women meet after work on Friday for drinks. God is not explicitly mentioned. The conversations go here and there from the superficial to deeply personal. But love is lurking within every genuine friendship.

The sacrament of friendship is easily lost in our culture in which relationships are utilitarian. Companies and business managers too often think of employees only as an item on the expense ledger. Employees have little loyalty to a jobsite, moving-on with but a muffled goodbye. Our dominant culture likewise encourages utilitarian marriages negotiated on a quid pro quo basis. “I did this for you, so you should do this for me.” Or, “I disclosed my innermost feelings, so now it is your turn to do the same.” Real friendship, by contrast, is a free gift that expects nothing in return, though it is often richly rewarded.

Like all sacraments, friendship is public. This necessary public dimension is seen in marriage, symbolized by the honor extended to the guests at the wedding reception. There is a public function to casual friendships among drinking buddies, in accidental friendships among neighbors, and in the friendships within extended families and more. All of these relationships build-up our social fabric and pose a counter-narrative to individualism.

Plus, there is a type of friendship that is primarily public, what Aristotle termed philia. Public friendship is different from liking someone or sharing an interest in sports or a hobby. Its sacramental component is a care for another person’s well-being and character. Therefore, public friendship is concerned about the environment or institutions that shape people. Ultimately, it cares about the public good. It is civic affection, camaraderie, trust or civic happiness.

The opposite of public friendship is, again, transactional utilitarianism. There are far too many people afflicted by agnosia—the inability to recognize the human in the person in front of them. They go about their business and miss the meaning embedded in the day. Public friendship is the result of a culture of encounter. There is no “art of the deal” associated with it.

At times the issues of the day seem most important. Or the material to be covered in that afternoon’s class. Or the arrangement of the decorations in the meeting hall. Or the diagnosis of the problem with the faulty heater in late November. Yet, all of these things come-and-go. What endures is friendship. Friendship is prior to the issues, the charts, the tangle of wires under the desk, the staff shortage for the evening shift, the stack of papers or the traffic congestion on the expressway. Be open to the sacramental grace within friendship and all these things will be given you besides.

Public Friendship by Bill Droel is obtained from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $5).

The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine #14 by Bill Droel

The term social justice is regularly used but rarely defined. It often means a government program is on the way. “Social justice requires an increase in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps).” It can mean a general concern. “The status of women is a matter of social justice.” It can describe an event. “We went to a social justice conference.” Or describe a personality type. “She’s a social justice warrior.” In many circles it is simply substituted for the word charity. “Our parish food pantry is a social justice effort.”

Social justice actually has a Catholic pedigree and refers to a type under the general term justice. There is criminal justice, distributive justice (the duty of government), individual justice or commutative justice (fair exchange either implied or in a contract) and social justice (and more).

Fr. Luigi Taparelli, SJ (1793-1862) of Italy coined the term social justice in 1845. He was rightly worried about individualistic tendencies that characterize modernity--all the more extreme in our day. Taparelli favored an organic society in which many interdependent parts added up to more than their sum. Such a society needs healthy intermediate institutions that give individuals wider agency and also buffer individuals from big forces—families, parishes, workplace units, professional associations, ethnic clubs and more. This dynamic is called subsidiarity in Catholicism.

By about 1900 Catholic philosophers were equating social justice with what St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) calls legal justice. Now, for Aquinas legal justice does not refer to what is approximated on TV shows like Chicago P.D. and Judge Judy. He means that by divine law all the parts of an organic society must be directed toward the common good, not entirely to one individual’s good. The 20^th century Ctholic philosophers thought the term social justice was better than legal justice because many people think the word legal only means what is expressly prohibited or commanded. Such people stay within minimum behavior but consider social obligations to be strictly optional. In fact, they often expect some recognition when they help out in the community.

The academic conversation continued, treating both process and outcome. Process: How does social justice come about? Outcome: What does a social justice society look like?

Fr. William Ferree, SM (1905-1985) of Ohio greatly clarified the topic—in my opinion. First in a dissertation and then in an influential 1948 booklet, Introduction to Social Justice, Ferree said the unique act of social justice is organization and its outcome is improved policies or institutions.

This means that social justice is a virtue. It is something that is done, not a fond wish. It is more than calling out a problem. Like all virtues, it must be done habitually.

This means that social justice is a collective virtue. An individual can be generous, but cannot alone practice social justice. Like-minded people must get together. Thus, mixed motives are always involved. Each participant gets something out of the effort; the group also benefits in some way; but the greater good is a primary object of the practice.

This means that the aims of social justice must stay in the practical realm, though the initial ambition can reach beyond what will be achieved. Compromise is a necessary part of social justice. It is not a virtue for purists or utopians.

This means, to paraphrase a great polka song: In heaven there is no social justice; that’s why we do it here. In heaven there is perfect love, but in our messy here-and-now domain things are incremental. There’s need for social justice today and more need tomorrow. 

This means that social justice is for insiders. Protest is often necessary to get inside, but marches and rallies are not in themselves social justice.

This means that social justice is not charity, though charity might precede or accompany social justice. Charity in itself does not change policies, though people involved in charity often turn to lobbying (social justice) in order to make charity more efficient or even less necessary.

Social justice is a specific activity done by a group within an institution to improve a policy or, if necessary, to start an alternative institution. With a better appreciation for the definition of social justice more might be accomplished. As Elvis sang in 1968, “A little less conversation, a little more action.”

Ferree’s booklet ($6) and Droel’s booklet, What Is Social Justice ($5) can be obtained from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

 

 

The Working Catholic: Child Labor by Bill Droel

 

It is a fallacy to believe that if teenage members of a family spend more time on a job, the family will necessarily gain upwardly mobility. Nor is it true that our economy prospers when young people neglect their studies for the sake of income. Yes, employment trains teenagers and young adults in public disciplines plus gives them some outlook on social psychology. However, excess hours on the clock are not beneficial.

The current though relative labor shortage does not justify what N.Y. Times reporter Hannah Drier brought to light about child labor in articles from late February 2023 until early May 2023. Several companies are using children in restricted jobs for excessive hours and sometimes failing to pay them justly—835 companies last fiscal year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Packers Sanitation Services based in Kieler, WI, as one example, had 102 teenagers on overnight shifts cleaning back saws, brisket saws and head splitters in meat processing plants. Packers, which is owned by Blackstone investments, was fined $15million.

Drier found children illegally employed in retail, construction and manufacturing plus in sawmills, in an industrial laundry and in a slaughterhouse. Some were on the overnight shift and underpaid. Hearthside Food Solutions based in Downers Grove, IL contracts with popular brands to package food. Drier found many children at its Michigan facilities. Hearthside blames its staffing agency.

 There are many ways to address a labor shortage, reports John Miller in Dollars & Sense (6/23). Raise wages and improve workplace conditions, though “both would drive up costs.” Immigration reform would also put more adults into the job pool legally. A few columnists and several trade associations favor another remedy: child labor.

“Ten states, six in the Midwest, have considered proposals” to loosen child labor restrictions, Miller details. A 1938 law (the Fair Labor and Standards Act) specifies conditions for employing teenagers after school, on weekends and holidays for reasonable hours in non-hazardous settings like cashier, caddy, hostess, usher, lifeguard, school janitor, delivery person, clerical and the like with leeway on family farms and in family shops. Despite these reasonable guidelines the pro-family governor of Arkansas recently signed legislation to eliminate a simple permit that required a child’s age verification, parental approval and a non-hazardous situation for employment. The N.Y. Times comments: The new law “is not to protect those children from exploitation but instead to make it legal.” Iowa is likely next.

The full story, as Drier writes, includes the plight of unaccompanied migrant children of whom about 130,000 came into the U.S. in the past 12 months. These fearful young people are easily exploited. Some are put in dangerous jobs. Most are underpaid and some are cheated out of their pay entirely. Not all these young adults come to the U.S. with full knowledge and will. Some are trafficked by cartels and then sold to construction subcontractors or to agricultural entities. Some are forced into prostitution or thievery.

What is our federal government doing to protect children? Well, the administration of President Joseph Biden is eager to clear out shelters near our border. Day labor agencies and even traffickers, posing as hosts, have moved some of these migrant children into dangerous and exhausting jobs. The Department of Labor, Miller mentions, is “severely understaffed.”

A retired Department of Labor official provides The Working Catholic with details. He was stationed in Chicago for ten years and then 18 more in Florida. There is “an immediately apparent difference” between southern states that have a so-called right to work law and those states with viable unions. Further, many northern states have local laws pertaining to child labor and sometimes fund apprentice training programs. “Active union presence serves to minimize child labor violations,” he says.

“Violations are typically not easy to see,” his narrative continues. Investigations occur after-the-fact and “must be developed from employer records, which is not easy. The Department of Labor is a civil enforcement arm, not criminal. Thus, the documented cases must then be adjudicated by the Department of Justice.”

What can law-abiding businesses and citizens do? Use union labor. If not, stipulate in writing that a contractor all not allow its subcontractors to use child labor. Second, support a local worker center. Arise (www.arisechicago.org), a sophisticated worker center here in Chicago, takes up cases of wage theft and other labor violations. Escucha Mi Voz (www.escuchamivozia.org) is a Catholic-based worker center. It helps people from ten language groups. Child labor in meatpacking is one of its concerns. Women religious, as on many issues, are leaders in anti-trafficking. They publish an informative newsletter, detail some action steps and supply reflection material. Their website is www.sistersagainsttrafficking.org. Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) is based in New York City. It conducts research and reports on the topic.

 

Bill Droel (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629) is eager for any reports on child labor.

 

The Working Catholic: Immigration by Bill Droel

 

The immigrant “can sense that the United States is of two minds,” writes Hector Tobar of the University of California in Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation (Farrar, Straus, 2023). “Like the indentured servants, the Poles, the Germans and the Chinese people of other centuries, she knows there are factory owners and affluent families on the other side of the fence or the ocean who really want her to make it across… She knows that she has something that is prized on the other side.” At the same time the “walls, barbed wire and restrictive immigration laws announce they hate her kind.”

A country by definition must have borders. A phrase like open borders, if taken literally, erases the existence of nation states. The trick is to maintain an orderly system so that tourists, students, temporary workers, immigrants and refugees can safely enter a country and by their labor, knowledge and consumption they can contribute to their surroundings.

The current number of foreign-born people living in our country is the highest it has been in about 100 years; 45million by one estimate, reports Idrees Kahloon in The New Yorker (6/12/23). Many are immigrants who have become full-fledged legal U.S. citizens (about 970,000 within the past 12 months). Other foreign-born residents are guest workers (in Silicon Valley, in hospitals, in vineyards and on farms) and students (in technical fields, medical research and business) and others are immigrant/refugees--those who are in the legal process and those who have drifted into society without status.

The current influx actually began over 60 years ago when Congress changed its immigration limit and its general ban on those from Asia, details Dexter Filkins, also writing in The New Yorker (6/19/23). Our society’s need for more skilled and manual laborers attracts foreigners. More arrive under our policy of family preference or chain migration by which one immigrant can assist family members. Several factors push families toward the U.S., including drug violence, natural disasters, a bad economy at home, oppressive politics, the profitable smuggling/trafficking business (coyote cartels) and more.

Arrivals in the U.S., as Hector Tobar describes, have always encountered nativism. Some current U.S. residents say that their life would be better if immigrants were not unfairly given social services. Some residents also say that their own ancestors had to learn English, but that today’s arrivals don’t do so. They also say that new arrivals take away jobs that longer-standing residents would like to have.

  Data can counter these points, but the objections are not really about what they are about. The concern about jobs, for example, is only valid for a limited time in a specific place where “cheap labor can hold down wages for some workers,” says Filkins. However, the demand for employees in our country far exceeds the current supply. In the bigger picture immigration has no effect on jobs or wages. It is employment sectors that set wage scales and it is free trade and tax policies that send jobs overseas. Yet no one opposed to today’s immigrants is persuaded by the facts.

Migrants and refugees crossing our country’s southern border are resented more than well-educated technicians and doctors and trades people arriving from Asia or Eastern Europe, though each foreigner encounters nativism.

“Determining the exact number [of refugees is] remarkably difficult,” Filkins explains. There are possibly 11million undocumented people in the U.S. today; not all of whom intend to stay or will be allowed to stay. Even now our government does not know how many migrants it has sent back. The legal process for entry is backlogged and caught-up in conflicting court rulings. There are over two million pending cases just for those who claim refugee status. They are legally entitled to wait in the U.S. for a hearing on their case, but they have no right to a public defender. The wait time for the initial hearing is now five years. If the decision is unfavorable to the refugee, they can appeal. The wait time for that appeal hearing is another five years.

Reform of our dysfunctional immigration/migration system is, as any objective observer realizes, slow-going. A policy of exclusion, Filkins explains, is impractical. No matter how big a wall is built, people are not deterred from fleeing misery and staking their hope on our beautiful country. Total exclusion also damages the U.S. economy plus betrays the story of our country and it is inhumane. Three parts must come together simultaneously for acceptable reform. 1.) Tougher boarder security. 2.) More funding for local police in states like Texas and Arizona plus in cities that welcome migrants; more social services and processing assistance; more immigration judges. 3.) Better legal opportunities for immigrants, enforced fairly.

At the moment both Republican and Democrat leaders tolerate the frustrating chaos because they can blame one another. Additionally, Democrats and Republicans share the ambivalence of our citizenry. They want more immigration because it bolsters U.S. productivity. They want less immigration because more of it fuels resentment and politicians get the blame.

A final consideration: No matter the administrative chaos and the political muddle of the moment, there is an ethical obligation to assist the immigrants/migrants among us. To be continued…

 

Droel serves the board of National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

God, Make Me a Channel of Disturbance: The “Reverse St. Francis Prayer”

 

Faith Community Jericho Walk to support immigrants

at the Milwaukee ICE office (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) 

 every Thursday, 9:00 a.m. 

God, make me a channel of disturbance.

Where there is apathy, let me provoke.

Where there is compliance, let me bring questioning.

Where there is silence, may I be a voice.

Where there is too much comfort and too little action,

grant disruption.

Where there are doors closed and hearts locked,

grant the willingness to listen.

When laws dictate and pain is overlooked . . .

When tradition speaks louder than need . . .

Grant that I may seek rather to do justice than to talk about it.

Disturb us, O God,

to be with, as well as for, the alienated;

to love the unlovable as well as the lovely.

God, make me a channel of disturbance.

[author unknown]

 

"The Silliness -- and Clear and Present Danger -- of Today's SCOTUS: from the Daily Meditations by Matthew Fox (July 7, 2023)

 We are meditating on justice as a spiritual virtue and we are examining a particularly stunning action of the recent Supreme Court.  This court just passed a law saying it’s okay for a gay-hating religious believer who is a businessperson to deny a gay couple her service. 

But it turns out that the person named in the lawsuit, Stewart, never asked the plainiff for her services as a web-designer because he is not getting married and furthermore he is not gay.  He has stepped up ad said he never approached her since he himself is a web designer and would not need her services, and because he has been happily married to a woman for 15 years.

   Says one commentator:

Smith is so motivated by hatred of LGBTQ+ people that she invented an imaginary grievance, lied about it repeatedly through the various tiers of the court system, and eventually got license to deny service to a gay couple who doesn’t, technically, exist.*   Thus the Supreme Court, all decked out in its black finery and aristocratic self-importance, bathed in its solemnity and righteous black robes, took on this case without checking on whether the party involved was real or not.  Is this a Mickey Mouse supreme court or what?  Silliness, corruption, aristocracy (“let them eat cake”) and stupidity reign.   Six judges got suckered into legalizing a more-than-stupid precedent in their eagerness to support homophobia and religious prejudice.  Smith’s lawyers, demonstrating no shame (fascism rarely demonstrates either shame or a sense of humor), shrugged their shoulders: “No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law,” said one.    The conclusion?  It’s okay to invent a grievance and make up adversaries and go to certain courts and win.  Is this Supreme Court now a game, a political puppet show?  And those pulling the strings of six puppets?  I think we know.    What follows is neither humorous nor silly.  It is a dangerous “license to hate.” Can an atheist businessman refuse to serve Christians?  Can a liberal refuse to serve republicans, a Muslim refuse to serve Jews--or vice versa?  Can a gay busnessman refuse to serve (homophobic Christians?)  A slippery legal slope indeed. Said one legal scholar:  "This ruling blows a gaping hole in priior protections from discrimination" including race and religion and offers a "green light" to any business owners wanting to refuse service.  Where's the justice in a court like this?

The Working Catholic: Experience Counts by Bill Droel

 Catholic philosophers of the mid-20^th century (the Personalists) improved upon an older top-down notion of truth. Yes, truth comes from God. However, revelation does not come entirely from above. God’s truth (the Incarnation) is for all time embedded in human experience. The newer approach appreciates that God’s truth arises from and corresponds to real, important questions within our daily lives.

For many years Catholicism assumed that God’s truth came down from on high. Then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it was interpreted and proclaimed by way of the Church, through our bishops. This approach rightly meant that standards were fixed. However, the certitude of its interpretation presumed that a few people could know the full, static will of God. The interpretation sometimes delved into quite arcane matters, using technical terms and distinctions foreign to common people.

Our society currently adheres to an opposite view of truth. It is called utilitarian relativism or cost-benefit analysis. Truth in our society depends on the perception of an individual or on a circle of executives or a team of news editors or a vocal group of students or some trend among celebrities. Standards depend on the situation and the estimated outcome. For all its popularity, relativism is unsustainable. It favors opportunists who play the short-term game. It leaves too much to individual interpretation. It can easily define deviancy down.

The mid-20^th century philosophers who improved our understanding of God’s revelation did not endorse relativism in any way. The new bottom-up approach does not mean that truth is derived from feelings or even from a thoroughly audited vote or any other type of soft relativism.  Faithful to Scripture, the bottom-up approach compliments the responsibility of bishops to teach the truth.

  In summary, Christianity’s former bias toward abstractions, prototypes, blueprints, static policies, previous absolute formulae, cookie-cutter solutions, standard procedures, preset rules, protocol, agency policy and old-time programs now must consider real life experience. The new approach warns church leaders to abandon their older, tiresome habit of answering questions that no one asks. The new approach celebrates creativity, research, expansion, complexity, dynamism and, what Pope Francis calls “a culture of encounter,” one-to-one and group-to-group dialogue across neighborhoods, cities, ethnicities, ages and genders. An accumulation of experience combined with sustained reflection improves our understanding of God’s truth, says the newer approach.

A substantial number of baptized Catholics now reject the church. Among other reasons, many do so because the church’s presentation of God’s truth does not resonate with them. To repeat: This is not to say that the content of the older presentation is wrong. The disconnection is because church leaders often insist on a method and terminology that is foreign to young adults. For their part, young adults don’t bother to construct an alternative spiritual method and language for our time.

A starting place, in my opinion, is the discovery of God’s truth as contained in music, drama, science, engineering, sex, commerce and other so-called worldly activities. Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471) is the author of the still popular The Imitation of Christ. Though parts of this book might be helpful, its bias (and that of several contemporary Christian teachers) must be rejected. God “instructs [us] to despise earthly things, to loath present things,” Imitation of Christ advises. No. God from all eternity has been at ease with human joy and striving. God’s church cannot therefore be aloof from or opposed to the world. The secular is sacred in a real sense.

A church that relates to the deep concerns of young adults cannot be equated only with clergy and other church employees. The church is all of us who go about doing our best on the job, in the community and for our family. The church is those of us who want to have a meaningful life; to put our questions into a context. The church is two friends who meet at the diner and share their sorrow, frustration, joy and insight. Our own experience contains some of God’s truth. How do we process that experience? Where do we find regular forums in which faith in daily life is explored? What language is there for us to take our isolated incidents and frame them into meaningful experience? Where are the storytellers to help us?

To be continued…

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