‘Right relationships’ to end poverty, violence

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Genny O’Toole of St. Athanasius Parish in Evanston is a lawyer who defends people being evicted from their homes.

But seeing the challenges faced by so many people who lack the most basic resources made O’Toole believe she should do more.

“I’m interested in how we can make a difference in Chicago in affordable housing,” said O’Toole, one of about 200 people to attend the first archdiocesan Justice Day July 24 on the Lakeshore Campus of Loyola University Chicago. “I want to impact the lives of people in the community, how we can build bridges between them. There is so much poverty and homelessness.”

Building bridges between people in the Chicago area, in the United States and around the world is part of the church’s social justice mission, said keynoter John Carr, secretary for social development and world peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Chicago is the perfect example of a place where some people are moving way ahead, and some are left way behind, without the right papers or the right education,” Carr said. “And there are plenty of people in the middle being squeezed, wondering if they’re going to be able to keep their health insurance or pay for college. The Catholic Church is one of the few institutions that touches all three economies.”

The mission to the poor comes directly from Jesus, who in Chapter 4 of Luke’s Gospel chooses a text from Isaiah to read in the synagogue in Nazareth. The passage says he came “to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to bring liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a

year acceptable to the Lord,” Carr said.

Cardinal George, who welcomed participants at a lunchtime question-and-answer session, noted that Biblical justice means more than basic fairness; it means living in right relationship to all, starting with God. To do that, Christians must start with an attitude of love.

“Indignation at poverty starts with love for the poor, and even their oppressors,” Cardinal George said. “Outrage at violence starts with love of the combatants.”

The cardinal repeated that message July 25, when he spoke on the first day of the Summer Institute for Social Justice, a national gathering of Catholic social justice leaders. See story, Page 10.

Justice Day offered Catholics the opportunity to learn several ways to put their beliefs into practice. Father Michael Herman, pastor of St. Sylvester Parish in Logan Square, and the Rev. Patricia Watkins of the TARGET Area Development Corporation, a group funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, offered a presentation on “Justice and the Local Community.” Kathy Brown, director of the community engagement department for Catholic Relief Services, and Juan Salgado, director of the Instituto del Progreso Latino, covered “Justice and the Global Community;” Mary-Louise Kurey, who directs the archdiocesan Respect Life Office, and human rights activist Ed Osowski discussed “Justice and Life Issues”; and Terra Brockman of the Land Connection and Gary Cuneen of Seven Generations Ahead talked about “Justice and the Environment.” All the presenters found larger audiences than they expected, they said.

Brown said international workers at CRS understand how important U.S. Catholics, such as those who attended Justice Day, are to making a difference in the world.

“We are very aware that things will not change unless we have solidarity between Catholics in the United States and people around the world,” Brown said. “People are not disengaged in the United States. People care deeply about international issues, but it’s hard to get a handle on them.”

While the issues are complex, Catholic social teaching stems from simple truths, Carr said.

“It begins with the human person,” he said. We believe that every human person is precious, whether you work in the World Trade Center or a market in Baghdad, whether you are found in your mother’s womb or in an AIDS orphanage in Africa, whether you live in a gated community or under a box.”

That concern for the dignity of every human person leads to respect for life from conception until natural death, concern for the poor around the world, care for the sick, protection of the rights of families and work for the rights of laborers.

“This is about whether the woman who cleans your office can take her kids to the doctor. This about the people making our lunch, the people who make our kids’ sneakers, the person making the bed in the hotel I slept in last night,” Carr said. “These people are not issues, they are not problems and they are not sound bites. They are brothers and sisters to us.”

Work for justice means more than doing acts of charity, although such acts are necessary. Soup kitchens still need food donations, but Carr said Catholics must ask more than how many pans of lasagna to bring. They should ask:

“What would it take for them not to need our lasagna?” he asked. “Our blankets? Our baby clothes?”

Catholics must keep that mission uppermost in their minds despite the headlines about the clerical sexual abuse scandal, controversy over Catholics in politics and an undersupply of priests serving a dwindling numbers of Catholics in the pews on Sundays, he said.

“This is not a time for maintenance and management and survival,” Carr said. “It’s not a question of will our parishes be all right? It’s a question of what difference do they make? It’s a time for mission. ... A Catholic community of faith that is not serious about its social mission is not fully Catholic. It is not a community of believers.”

Believers must apply that social mission to all areas of their lives, including in the public square. That means that it’s right to ask politicians how their faith affects their work, he said, but that thoughtful Catholics must look at more than one issue.

“For us the question isn’t ‘are you better off than you were four years ago?’” Carr said. “It’s ‘are we better off?’ It’s not, ‘the economy, stupid.’ It’s more than our pocketbooks. It’s life and death, war and peace, who gets ahead and who gets left behind ...

“The most countercultural thing our church teaches is not that all life is sacred, not that the poor should come first, not that war is the last resort. It’s that politics is a good thing. We need pastors who will tell us to vote, not tell us how to vote.”