Newspaper Page Text
January 22,1981
Page 5
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Parish Communities Organize
BY FATHER PHILIP J. MURNION
An article about citizen-action groups in
the United States appeared a few years ago
in Newsweek magazine.
The groups it discussed were made up of
people who had organized for various
reasons: perhaps to challenge rate-hikes by
utility companies, to confront banks said to
be denying mortgages or home-improvement
loans to certain groups or regions in a
community, or even to make known
questionable practices of some real-estate
firms.
These citizens were doing traditional
things in non-traditional ways: acting as
groups rather than individuals to challenge
forces that affected their lives.
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
(All Articles on This Page
Copyrighted 1981 By N.C. News Service)
An important point not reported was that
the groups mentioned had received some
assistance from the Campaign for Human
Development. The campaign, which
conducts an annual collection among U.S.
Catholics, provides grants to responsible
self-help groups of various types - including
groups that promote justice. The campaign is
a remarkable sign of the Catholic
community’s readiness to help people
exercise responsibility for their own lives.
The goals of the campaign are also shared
by many parishes today. Partly following the
lead of the 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome,
parishes are learning that taking action to
promote justice is an important part of
preaching the Gospel -- perhaps even a basic
part.
People in parishes are beginning to realize
that many of the values they cherish -
family life, community stability, care for the
needy, freedom from fear - are deeply
affected by what happens in their own
communities. They know also that, in our
complex society, no one can stand alone and
that the forces shaping a community are
interrelated.
Efforts to achieve a healthy community
reach, then, from the individual home to the
statehouse, from the local store to the
headquarters of corporations. People are
learning as well that their efforts to improve
conditions in their communities need to be
handled on an organized basis. For parishes
are finding that they can be more effective
when many people work together to
challenge the powerful forces which threaten
their communities.
When it comes to organized action for
justice on the part of parishes, here is a point
that is especially interesting: More and more
parishes are building into these efforts time
for reflection on their faith and the values
that motivate and guide their action.
For, it is very easy to fall into the trap of
simply matching power against power, of
pursuing interests that really are worthless in
the light of the Gospel. Parishes organizing
to promote a more just society are
recognizing the need to link, in a conscious
way, their action with their reflection on the
Gospel.
In the final analysis, victory on some
issue of community concern is not the only
purpose of collective parish efforts for
justice. The goal, rather, is development of
the sense that a given community is a
people. Often parishes find that working to
right an injustice leads to strengthening
community bonds.
When parishes organize for action, they
react against the tendency people often have
simply to take care of themselves or to
isolate themselves. The parishes I am talking
about want to restore the realization that we
all depend on one another and that there are
ways for our interdependence to be put into
action.
For example, parishes in Cleveland, aided
by the Commission for Catholic Community
Action, have either formed coalitions or
joined coalitions. Together, they work for
better schools, safer streets and improved
services for the elderly, and for the
protection of their community against
certain outside interests.
Parishes in Baltimore have joined together
to prevent exploitation of their
neighborhoods by commercial interests, to
secure new housing and rehabilitation of old
housing. They also have worked to prevent a
highway from tearing the heart out of a
community.
Parishes in San Antonio have formed
Communities Organized for Public Service
(COPS). This organization has brought about
a change in the city council that gives the
Chicano population equal representation.
Finally, Catholic and Protestant parishes
in.Milwaukee have formed a coalition called
Congregations United for Community
Action' Through this group parishioners can
take action on community issues.
In such ways, parishioners are discovering
the ability they have to improve their
communities when they work together for
social justice.
GLORIA CHAVEZ, president of the United
Neighborhoods Organization (UNO) in East Los Angeles,
discusses UNO projects with residents at a neighborhood
meeting. Aided by funds from the Campaign for Human
Development, UNO started three years ago in a parish and
now assists many people in the low income area with
insurance problems, housing and health issues. The
Campaign for Human Development is a remarkable sign of
the Catholic community’s readiness to help people exercise
responsibility over their own lives. (NC Photo by Lou
Niznik)
Attack Injustice — But Love Your Enemie
BY FATHER JOHN O’CALLAGHAN
In the Acts of the Apostles, Christianity
is referred to as “the Way.” In those early
INMM1 PP >r
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FRONT
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ON THE STEPS of Washington’s St. Matthew’s
Cathedral, 20 people gather for a prayer vigil during a
memorial Mass for the four women missionaries killed in El
Salvador. Inside the cathedral, people were drawn together
in grief for the dead, “but ultimately it was solidarity with
the living, the oppressed people in El Salvador and around
the world.” (NC Photo from Reni)
Religious Enthusiasm Runs Wild
days, it seems to have resembled what we
today would call a “popular movement.”
On Dec. 6, 1980, I experienced
contemporary Christianity once again as a
popular movement. Not for the first time,
but strikingly.
It was at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in
Washington, D. C., at a Mass for the four
North American women murdered in El
Salvador a few days previously. Archbishop
James Hickey presided, assisted by three
other bishops. A cardinal was in attendance,
along with an altar full of priests.
The liturgy was beautiful, the
archbishop’s words moving and prophetic.
But it was the other side of the altar rail that
moved me more.
The people who filled that huge church
seemed bonded together in a way I don’t
often experience at a Mass. They were just as
varied as you’d find in any parish in
language, ethnic origin, social and economic
status.
Some had known the dead women. Some
were Salvadorans. Some were Religious,
others lay. Among them were activists and
executives, grandmothers and teen-agers.
Washingtonians and travelers from around
the country.
It put me in mind of the crowd in
Jerusalem that day we call Pentecost, and of
the ongoing apostolic community that
comes alive in the Acts of the Apostles. The
members of the congregation were not
fulfilling a Mass-obligation: they were part
of a movement.
Like Christians of old, these people came
together to celebrate their belief in the risen
Lord who is “the Way,” and to mourn their
dead sisters against the background of this
faith.
What drew us together immediately was
grief for the dead; but ultimately it was
solidarity with the living - the oppressed
people in El Salvador and around the world.
During Communion we sang, “The Lord
hears the cry of the poor!”
From talking to them, I learned that
many of those present were trying to
respond to the cry of the poor.
Congresspersons and State Department
officials got urgent letters from them;
anti-war citizens groups got offers of help;
arms-manufacturers found themselves
picketed.
The issue which galvanized these
Christians was murder. They organized to
protest that horror. Most parishes can’t
count on such dramatic issues to organize
around. But if people are kept constantly “
aware of injustice and the human suffering it
causes, issues for common action won’t be
lacking.
School issues, safety issues, housing
issues, family-life issues: There is no lack of
problems that need attention. The trick is to
move on them together.
That takes skill, persuasion and above all
patience. Judgments on issues differ;
agreements on strategies may be even harder
to reach. And behind and beneath any-
organized action we must keep alive the
faith and gospel vision that makes what we
do (ruly Christian.
For me, the truest sign that the
movement I experienced last December was
Christian was the repeated recognition of
our need and desire to pray for the
murderers as well as for the murdered! We
knew we had to cry in our day what one of
the Mass readings described Stephen as
crying in his day: “Lord, do not hold this sin
against them!”
Like any community organization
strategists, Christians must single out the
injustice - the sin -- in a social situation and
hold it up for recognition and action. But
those responsible for the injustice may never
be held up as targets for hate! Or vengeance.
“Love your enemies,” the Lord
commanded, “and pray for those who
persecute you,”
A parish can do that. The advantage a
parish brings to efforts to promote injustice
is that its base is a faith-base. Except for
their shared faith, these people would not be
a community. They gather first around the
table of the Lord, and then around concrete
injustices which need response.
Both those facets of reality are needed if
Christianity is to be, in our day as long ago,
a movement — and if the movement of
which we’re part is to be Christian!
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
There are few things harder to deal with
than religious enthusiasm run wild, and at
Corinth it seems to have been running in
many different directions. It would help
immensely if we knew just what those
directions were. Unfortunately, we can only
guess, based on Paul’s answers.
In Chapter 7, verse 25, Paul is obviously
taking up a new question, one concerning
virgins - although in the following verses he
says a great deal about marriage, which he
seems anxious to defend.
One gets the definite impression that
some Corinthian enthusiasts were extolling
virginity, even within marriage, as the only
really acceptable way of life for Christians!
Twice in this section, Paul insists that
marriage is not sinful. The super-Christians
seem to have claimed some sort of special
revelation on this point, a claim to be
repeated more than once in later church
history.
Paul admits quite frankly that he
personally has received no commandment
from the Lord with respect to virgins. He is
simply giving his considered opinion, an
opinion which, as always, weighs all the
factors.
He begins by repeating a general principle
he has already established: “In the present
time of stress it seems good to me for a
person to remain as he is.” The reference to
“the present time of stress” reflects his
preoccupation with the imminent return of
the risen Lord.
In light of that prospect, Paul asks, what
is the sense in changing one’s status and
launching out on a new career? It is no easy
task to assume the responsibilities and cares
of married life. In Paul’s view, under
ordinary circumstances it would be well
worth the effort but under present
conditions it would be love’s labor lost.
His concern with the end-time becomes
quite explicit in the part beginning, “I tell
you, brothers, the time is short,” and
ending, “for the world as we know it is
passing away.” Between these statements,
and colored by them, are a series of
recommendations which all add up to the
same advice: Don’t get too involved in what
will be a temporary situation.
Throughout this section Paul reveals a
desire to save his people from unnecessary
anxiety and care: “I should like you to be
free of all worries.”
With this in mind, we can read the often
misinterpreted verses: “The unmarried man
is busy with the Lord’s affairs, concerned
with pleasing the Lord; but the married man
is busy with this world’s demands and
occupied with pleasing his wife. This means
he is divided.”
Wrenched from their context these verses
simply do not ring true. A single person may
in fact be busy with all sorts of affairs other
than the Lord’s! A married person is not by
that very fact prevented from serving the
Lord’s interests.
But it also can happen that a married
couple, especially a newly married couple, is
so completely absorbed in each other that
nothing else much matters to them. Such
self-centered concentration can blind them
to other important concerns. But even here,
Paul makes it clear that he has no desire to
place restrictions on them. (vs. 35)
He finally gets around to another pet
project of the enthusiasts: spiritual
marriages. The Corinthians apparently had
an arrangement whAeby an unmarried
couple would agree to live together as
brother and sister. Even though Paul does
not condemn the practice outright, he
clearly considers it unrealistic and even
foolhardy. j
He is especially insistent that couples who
discover the arrangement is sheer torture
should marry and they will not be sinning if
they do.
Discussion Points And Questions
1. As described by Father Philip Mumion, what is the main goal of
efforts to organize in parishes for social justice?
2. Why do both Father Mumion and Father John O’Callaghan
emphasize the importance of reflection on social justice activities in the
light of the Gospel? What is the connection between the two?
3. What is the Campaign for Human Development?
4. Why do you think Father O’Callaghan was so moved by the
memorial service for the four women murdered in El Salvador? How
does he connect this experience with the early church? How effective
do you find this?
5. Awareness of injustice galvanizes Christians into taking action,
says Father O'Callaghan. Give two examples of what the Jesuit means
by this.
6. According to Father John Castelot, what reveals Paul’s concern as
a good pastor for his people?
7. What general principle is Paul setting down in his discussion on
virginity and marriage?
8. Having studied the demands of social justice for the past five
weeks, what do you, as a Christian, consider the most compelling
reason for parishes to work actively against injustice? What sorts of
activities does your parish pursue?