“When the Gospel Grows Feet”

Anyone who is familiar with the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero knows the name of Rutilio Grande. Fr. Grande’s murder by assassins associated with the Salvadoran military because of the ministry he was involved in was the catalyst of a dramatic conversion in Romero. His transformation from bookish ecclesiastic who was content with the status quo to outspoken defender of the oppressed poor of his homeland is sometimes called “Rutilio’s miracle.” That’s the extent that many of us know about Grande — he serves almost as a stage prop in the drama in which Romero is the central figure.

Thankfully, Thomas M. Kelly allows us to move far beyond that, putting flesh and blood on the name and exploring Grande’s ministry and significance in his own right, in his new book, When the Gospel Grows Feet: Rutilio Grande, SJ, and the Church of El Salvador; An Ecclesiology in Context. (Full disclosure: I work for Liturgical Press, the publishing company which published this book earlier this year.)

That last word in title, context, points to one of the rich contributions of the book. For those who don’t understand what Grande was up to or who might question the motivation or the orthodoxy of his thinking and his ministry, this book explores church and state relations in colonial Latin America, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the Medellin conference of Latin American bishops, and Grande’s own personal theological-pastoral formation.

This is no simple biography. It is also an intimate portrait of the Church as it existed at a particular time in a particular place.

Kelly allows Grande to stand as the protagonist of his own drama. He helps us understand why Grande did what he did, what formed him into the priest he was, and why he and his work represented such a threat to the system that ultimately and successfully sought to destroy him. We look very closely at Grande’s pastoral style, his plan for the evangelization of the parish he served, and the doctrinal, theological, and sociological principles that undergirded it all.

I was especially interested to learn the important place that the Eucharist had in Grande’s thinking. For him, the Eucharist provides the vision for humanity’s place in creation and for what human society is intended to be. He spoke often and forcefully of how there was always space at the Eucharistic table for all who cared to gather, a standard which exposes the injustice of social structures that allow a few rich to own vast tracts of land that go unused (Kelly reports that at mid-twentieth century, nearly 90 percent of the land of El Salvador was owned and managed by fourteen families descended from the original Spanish conquistadores!!) while millions live lives beneath the dignity of any human person.

One thing that might perhaps be missing from Kelly’s account is a fleshing out of the relationship between Romero and Grande. Obviously, Grande’s death had an enormous impact on Romero. Why? What was the nature of their friendship and how did it develop? Understanding this better would make “Rutilio’s miracle” much more understandable. As it is, even after reading this book, Romero’s transformation as a response to Grande’s murder retains a bit of a deus ex machina flavor.

Kelly covers a lot of ground and shines his light in many directions in an effort (a quite successful one) to provide a full and understandable context to this story. This book will therefore be well worth the time for anyone interested in Catholic social teaching, ecclesiology, evangelization, the Second Vatican Council, lay ecclesial ministry, or the church in Latin America.

It seems clear that we will soon be seeing some significant movement in the cause for the canonization of Oscar Romero. Exploring the life and ministry of Rutilio Grande may well, therefore, provide a unique window into the mysterious workings of God’s grace in life of one of the great saints and martyrs of the twentieth century.

Direct hit! Francis on our relationship with money

Depending on where you get your news, today Pope Francis slammed, attacked, denounced, ripped, hit out at, blasted, railed against, warned against, criticized, or condemned the “cult of money” that pervades much of the world economy. He was speaking to a group of diplomats at the Vatican. But if you think he was not speaking to each of us, you need to have another look.

But there’s no need for commentary or interpretation from me or the press. Francis does fine speaking for himself, clearly. Just read the thing! (Complete text/translation from here. I did the highlighting in bold below.)

Your Excellencies,

I am pleased to receive you for the presentation of the Letters accrediting you as Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Holy See on the part of your respective countries: Kyrgyzstan, Antigua and Barbuda, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Botswana.  The gracious words which you have addressed to me, for which I thank you heartily, have testified that the Heads of State of your countries are concerned to develop relations of respect and cooperation with the Holy See.  I would ask you kindly to convey to them my sentiments of gratitude and esteem, together with the assurance of my prayers for them and their fellow citizens.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our human family is presently experiencing something of a turning point in its own history, if we consider the advances made in various areas.  We can only praise the positive achievements which contribute to the authentic welfare of mankind, in fields such as those of health, education and communications.  At the same time, we must also acknowledge that the majority of the men and women of our time continue to live daily in situations of insecurity, with dire consequences.  Certain pathologies are increasing, with their psychological consequences; fear and desperation grip the hearts of many people, even in the so-called rich countries; the joy of life is diminishing; indecency and violence are on the rise; poverty is becoming more and more evident.  People have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way.  One cause of this situation, in my opinion, is in the our relationship with money, and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society.  Consequently the financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis.  In the denial of the primacy of human beings!  We have created new idols.  The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces man to one of his needs alone, namely, consumption.  Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.  We have begun a throw away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it is being promoted!  In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy.  While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling.  This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good.  A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules.  Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power.  Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions.  The will to power and of possession has become limitless.

Concealed behind this attitude is a rejection of ethics, a rejection of God.  Ethics, like solidarity, is a nuisance!  It is regarded as counterproductive: as something too human, because it relativizes money and power; as a threat, because it rejects manipulation and subjection of people: because ethics leads to God, who is situated outside the categories of the market.  These financiers, economists and politicians consider God to be unmanageable, unmanageable even dangerous, because he calls man to his full realization and to independence from any kind of slavery.  Ethics – naturally, not the ethics of ideology – makes it possible, in my view, to create a balanced social order that is more humane.  In this sense, I encourage the financial experts and the political leaders of your countries to consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom: “Not to share one’s goods with the poor is to rob them and to deprive them of life.  It is not our goods that we possess, but theirs” (Homily on Lazarus, 1:6 – PG 48, 992D).

Dear Ambassadors, there is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone.  This would nevertheless require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders.  I urge them to face this challenge with determination and farsightedness, taking account, naturally, of their particular situations.  Money has to serve, not to rule!  The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.  The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centred ethics in the world of finance and economics.

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person.  In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes.  The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples.  She urges financial leaders to take account of ethics and solidarity.  And why should they not turn to God to draw inspiration from his designs?  In this way, a new political and economic mindset would arise that would help to transform the absolute dichotomy between the economic and social spheres into a healthy symbiosis.

Finally, through you, I greet with affection the Pastors and the faithful of the Catholic communities present in your countries.  I urge them to continue their courageous and joyful witness of faith and fraternal love in accordance with Christ’s teaching.  Let them not be afraid to offer their contribution to the development of their countries, through initiatives and attitudes inspired by the Sacred Scriptures!  And as you inaugurate your mission, I extend to you, dear Ambassadors, my very best wishes, assuring you of the assistance of the Roman Curia for the fulfilment of your duties.  To this end, upon you and your families, and also upon your Embassy staff, I willingly invoke abundant divine blessings.

Talks

I’ve been asked recently if I’m available for talks and discussions with interested groups. The answer is yes (though I do have work and family committments to be attentive to in making such arrangements). I have experience addressing groups of all sizes. The following suggested topics can be adapted to several different formats and lengths.

Catholic Social Teaching and the New Evangelization — JP2 insisted that Catholic social teaching is an essential part of the new evangelization. In fact, it has always been part of the church’s evangelizing work and must continue to be. Why? How do they fit together?

Pope Francis and Catholic Social Teaching — Pope Francis is an apostle of Catholic social teaching, proclaiming it and living it in ways that are bold and challenging. Let’s explore what he’s saying and why it should make us Americans a little uncomfortable. See my OSV article here.

“The Church’s Dynamite” — (That’s what Peter Maurin called Catholic social teaching.) An overview of modern CST that starts from its two bedrock principles, human dignity and solidarity. Points out its fascinating origins, its development over the decades, some of the more surprising (to some) parts of it, and likely developments on the horizon.

Pro-Life, Consistently — Perhaps surprisingly, there are few issues that have the potential to unite Catholics in a sadly politicized and divisive environment like the issue of abortion. Being anti-abortion implies a preferential option for the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized. And being committed to social justice means being anti-abortion, too. Recent popes have placed the abortion issue decisively in the context of Catholic social teaching. See my comments at these posts. This reviewer’s comments on my book are also quite relevant.

The Eucharist and Social Justice: The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it clearly: “The Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren.” Just the last hundred years, for example, offer us the luminous witness of the likes of Mother Teresa, John Paul II, Rutilio Grande, Oscar Romero, Virgil Michel, Katharine Drexel, and Dorothy Day — each one of whom lived out in various ways a bold commitment to social justice that was nourished by a profound engagement in the Eucharistic liturgy and devotion to the Eucharistic Lord. These commitments and the connection between them are radically scriptural and thoroughly traditional. This talk explores the why and the how.

The Most Influential American at Vatican II: John Courtney Murray — His story is an amazing and dramatic one. Murray represents America’s distinctive contribution to Vatican II and, more broadly, to the doctrinal patrimony of the Catholic Church. And it’s a story that both “liberals” and “conservatives” can both cheer for and be challenged by. See my comments here.

“We Should Wear Crash Helmets” — An overview of the crucial place of the eucharistic prayer in Catholic life and worship. In a word: it’s at the heart of everything. Considers the 4 main eucharistic prayers of the Roman rite today (where they came from, their unique and fascinating characteristics) and/or the 9 key pieces of the prayer and how Catholics in the pew can pray their way through them.

Other topics are possible. Look over the list of “Categories” in the right hand column of this blog to see the topics that I’m most interested in these days. Email me at barryhudock[at]gmail.com for more information.

Review of Faith Meets World

The latest issue of The Visitor, the St. Cloud diocesan newspaper, includes a very gracious full-page review of Faith Meets World, written by the paper’s editor, Bob Zyskowski. The article is available here, but the paper has kindly given me permission to reprint it below. Because it really captures what I’m trying to do with this book, I’d like to offer the whole thing (including some good points Mr. Zyskowski makes about some weak spots). My thanks to him and to The Visitor for the article!

Church’s social teaching is for everyone

Albany author explains its essential principles in a way that both liberals and conservatives will grasp and appreciate

By Bob Zyskowski, The Visitor

In our ideologically divided church, common ground for Catholics to stand on together can seem difficult to locate.

Catholics can be passionately prolife, staunch advocates for social justice, singularly pietistic, proponents of liberation theology, committed to the New Evangelization — and any combination of the above.

In the midst of the divisiveness, Barry Hudock, a parishioner of Seven Dolors in Albany, offers a point of view that sees these diverse passions as part of a single whole, a truly Catholic and catholic — big C and small c — whole.

Hudocks’s new book, “Faith Meets World,” published by Liguori, carries the subtitle “The Gift and Challenge of Catholic Social Teaching.” While that’s an apt description that will draw the attention to those on the more liberal or progressive side of the church aisle, those who take a more conservative point of view may choose to ignore this 143-page paperback.

That would be a shame.

Hudock does an excellent job of explaining not just Catholic social teaching in terms all can grasp, but how the principles of Catholic social teaching are based on traditional Catholic values, values cherished by both conservative and liberal Catholic. Plus, he takes a strong prolife stand.

“We’re not talking politics here,” Hudock writes. “We’re talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News that God offers to humanity about who God is, who we are, how we relate to God, and what that relationship means.”

He quotes Blessed Pope John Paul II, for example, who declared that “The ‘New Evangelization’ . . . must include among it essential elements a proclamation of the church’s social doctrine.”

“So this is not about which party we belong to,” Hudock declares, “not about being liberal or conservative. For Catholics, this is about being a person and also being Catholic. It’s about being the person God calls us to be in the society that God wants us to have.”

Easy-to-understand language

Catholic social teaching — Hudock teaches — is living out Jesus’ commandment to love one another in the context of society.

He explains just what that means with common language that makes “Faith Meets World” an excellent choice for a Catholic book club, for small groups and adult continuing education programs. The language is simple enough that the book would make a good text for high school-age faith formation, religion classes and youth ministry.

For example:

• The first of the social encyclicals, “Rerum Novarum,” was Pope Leo XIII’s response to the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. “Leo insisted,” Hudock notes, “that the willingness of people desperate for income to accept a low wage did not make paying such a wage morally right.”
• Another aspect of Pope Leo’s 1891 encyclical was the conviction that “people might be poor for reasons other than their own laziness, that the society around them might push them into poverty or prevent them from getting out of it.”
• In 1987 John Paul II noted in “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” that many people and nations remain poor not simply because they are “underdeveloped,” as though they simply have not been able to keep up with other more fortunate ones, “but because of unjust social structures that conspire to keep them poor.”

Facts well presented

Telling anecdotes and analogies bring home the message of the principles of Catholic social teaching.

Human dignity is a foundational principle based on the fact that every person is created in the image and likeness of God. The need for all to be concerned with human dignity is illustrated well when Hudock points out that millions of American workers were protected by labor laws, but migrant workers were specifically excluded for the law’s protection.

Solidarity, the other primary principle, is an awareness of the unity of the human family, but not just an awareness, Hudock tells us, but “the determination to act in such a way that it will bring good to the human community.”

As each following chapter takes on one of the remaining principles — human rights, the common good, the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor and subsidiarity — there are good questions we all might ask ourselves, some worthwhile suggestions for actions we might take, and constant references to the 14 papal encyclicals and Scripture that form much of what the church teaches about how we are to live justly with others.

Considering the often difficult language of the encyclicals, Hudock thankfully paraphrases their teachings. He does a thorough job, too, of backing his writing with clearly annotated references to both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible.

The final portion of “Faith Meets World” is where the rubber meets the road.

Hudock, who works for Liturgical Press in Collegeville, takes readers through applying Catholic social teaching to real life — in the family, in the area of work, in the economy, politics, the environment, peace and war and finally life and death.

Prolife at the core

Those whose passion is focused in the prolife area will especially appreciate how he connects abortion to the Catholic social teaching principle of solidarity.

”Being a person is never about looking our solely for ourselves with no regard for the well-being of others,” Hudock writes. “Solidarity is the exact opposite of the cynical individualism that demands a parent can do what she wants to ‘her body’ regardless of what it means to a child she carries.”

He adds, “The decisions of some of today’s most prominent Catholic social-justice leaders and Catholic social teaching advocates to ignore the issue of abortion is tragic. Their strident demands that the government has a clear and unquestionable duty and responsibility to protect and support immigrants, the unemployed, children and the elderly, but that what we do to unborn people is all a matter of personal choice, is terribly inconsistent.

“If preferential option for the poor means the most vulnerable among us need and deserve our help and protection, then legal protection of the unborn demands a primary place in our social-justice efforts.”

Careful readers will note that some of the suggestions for action fall on the simplistic side, that Hudock doesn’t let the church off the hook when it has been on the wrong side of what is moral, that some of his analogies are stronger than others, that he isn’t afraid of taking to tasks politicians who would have people pick and choose which of the Catholic social teaching principles to disregard.

Those careful readers will notice, too, that in “Faith Meets World” Hudock challenges us with questions that make us uncomfortable.

Just as Catholic social teaching should.

Saints galore!

Now here’s a fascinating fact. The great saintmaker, Pope John Paul II, took 27 years to create 482 new saints, more than any other pope in history. Today, two months into his pontificate, Pope Francis smashed that record and instantly became the pope to canonize more saints than any pope in history, with today’s canonization of the 812 Martyrs of Otranto plus two others.

The inside-baseball church-politics narrative makes it even more interesting. The traditionalists might be inclined to criticize the move, concerned that too many saints, particularly over 800 in one fell swoop, waters down the uniqueness of it all and makes canonization more pedestrian, more commonplace. That complaint was voiced occasionally during the pontificate of JP2 (almost always from traditionalists). It fact, it was rather well known that Cardinal Ratzinger thought this way.

But in an interesting twist, it was Ratzinger himself, Pope Benedict XVI, who approved the canonization of today’s 800+. That approval came at the consistory of February 11, 2013 — yes, the very same meeting with cardinals at which the Pope announced his resignation. (So you’ll be forgiven for not remembering what else happened that day.) With today’s canonization, Francis is merely carrying out something that Benedict put on the calendar. That’s not to say that Francis would prefer not to do it; I have no idea what he might think of it. But it makes for an interesting dynamic: those who might be most inclined to criticize what happened today are forced to think twice, because it would mean criticizing the person they otherwise regard as a great defender of the traditionalist cause. And the guy who thought there were too many saints became today responsible for adding more new saints to the books than the pope whose new-saint-count he questioned ever did.

Saint Laura Montoya Upegui, pray for us! Saint Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, pray for us! Antonio Primaldo and the Martyrs of Otranto, pray for us! All you holy men and women, pray for us!

Hitting 400

I tweeted about this the other day, but it’s something I’ve found my mind keeps coming back to. So it’s worth pointing out again. Here’s how the New York Times reported it:

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering.

The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.

“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.

The full report is here.

It brings to mind the question that Pope Francis posed, just days after his election in March, in an audience with 6,000 reporters who covered the conclave. Explaining the reasons he chose the name Francis, the new pope invoked the memory of Saint Francis of Assisi. Mentioning il Povorello’s great love for creation, Pope Francis asked: “These days we do not have a very good relationship with creation, do we?”

Sr. Megan Rice

Do you know about 82-year-old Sr. Megan Rice, her bold actions on behalf of peace (with two courageous companions, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed), and their criminal conviction for them yesterday? You need to. The New York Times reports:

She has been arrested 40 or 50 times for acts of civil disobedience and once served six months in prison. In the Nevada desert, she and other peace activists knelt down to block a truck rumbling across the government’s nuclear test site, prompting the authorities to take her into custody.

She gained so much attention that the Energy Department, which maintains the nation’s nuclear arsenal, helped pay for an oral history in which she described her upbringing and the development of her antinuclear views.

Now, Sister Megan Rice, 82, a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and two male accomplices have carried out what nuclear experts call the biggest security breach in the history of the nation’s atomic complex, making their way to the inner sanctum of the site where the United States keeps crucial nuclear bomb parts and fuel.

In addition to the Times article, here are some helpful links:

• Catholic News Agency: Elderly nun found guilty over nuclear site break-in
• The Assocatied Press: Elderly nun, 2 other protestors found guilty of sabotaging nuclear weapons  facility
• The Washington Post video: The nun who broke into a US nuclear-weapons facility

I expect we’ll be hearing more about her in the weeks and months ahead.

An evening at the Catholic Worker

Stearns County folks: The Central Minnesota Catholic Worker is hosting me for a discussion on Catholic social teaching and my new book, Faith Meets World, at the CW house in St. Joseph, MN, on Monday, May 13. We’ll start with a simple meal at 6:30 pm, followed by the discussion around 7:15. The evening will also include prayer and book signing.

The house is at 35 2nd Ave SE. All are welcome.

Do we WANT the honeymoon to end?

This troubles me. “The honeymoon (that the media is having with the Pope) will end,” say the ‘conservatives.’ (Another version of this is that “the liberals will soon turn on him!”)

But they don’t just say it; they almost insist on it, seem to wish for it and place their fervent hope in it. They say it with gritted teeth, willing it to be so. They say it almost with resentment that it has not happened yet. “Make no mistake about it,” says one commenter to the Crisis article at the link, ”the press’ ‘turning on’ Pope Francis would be a good sign, a sign of hope and a cause for rejoicing.”

They may be right about the turning to come, of course. They probably are. It’s true, the media and much of western culture in our day have found a lot about Christian doctrine, but more particularly with some elements of Catholic morality, to be unhappy about. But what’s oddly missing is a sense of welcoming by these ‘conservatives’ of the fact that it hasn’t happened yet.

I mean, we do want the world to embrace the Gospel, right? That’s the goal, no? It’s what the New Evangelization is all about, unless I’m missing something. Wouldn’t that be “a sign of hope and cause for rejoicing”?? I get the impression that for some people, the New Evangelization means “They were ignoring the Church’s teaching before, so, by-God, we are going to make sure they can’t ignore it; in fact, we’re going to ram it down their damn throats.”

Of course, no one who does not perceive the deliverer of a message to be worth listening to, to be trusted to offer a message that is reliable, will ever hear the message. And so we want the world, the media, to be receptive to the Pope. For them to “love” him would be quite a good thing. And it would not necessarily mean that he’s failing to preach the Gospel.

Pope Francis surely is not. He has not – God bless him — hesitated to say things that are not palatable to many of us modern, secularized westerners. He’s been talking frequently about the devil, for one thing. He has rejected the idea of reading and interpreting Scripture too individualistically. He has criticized the “intellectuals without talent” and the “ethicists without goodness” who interpret Jesus as purely human rather than also divine. He has insisted that Jesus is “the only gate” for entering the kingdom of God” and that “to find Jesus outside of the Church is not possible.” He has taken jabs at the capitalism and the consumerism that is the very cultural air we breath. All that since his election in mid-March.

He has? So why haven’t they turned on him? Why haven’t they flippin’ tarred and feathered him?

Maybe we should ask ourselves whether the Church and its message have at times been harshly rejected not so much because of what we’ve said, but how we have said it. Maybe this fervent insistence that the honeymoon will end is simply a way to reassure ourselves that if our words have been rejected, it certainly is not because of anything about us or the way we’ve offered these words. Yet isn’t it possible that it has not been welcomed at times because we’re offering it in the form of a scold, a judgment, a condemnation, rather than as wonderful, beautiful Good News, news that we ourselves have been transformed by, and that we are therefore humbly sharing with our fellow wayfarers along the paths of life?

Maybe one thing that the new supreme teacher of the Church universal is teaching us is a few qualities of a great teacher of doctrine that we have forgotten: simple human warmth, humility, respectfulness, simplicity, clear attentiveness to the poor.

The honeymoon may indeed end. I’m hoping not too soon.

Resisting Structural Evil

Leisure reading time has been in shorter supply for me this year than it has been in over a decade. For that reason, I’ve quit reading several books lately soon after beginning them; I don’t want to waste time reading something that I’m not enjoying. I mention that because there was never any question of dropping Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda’s Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation until the end. It’s a bracing, informative, and challenging read. Stealing away small chunks of time in the evening, sometimes enjoying an hour or two on a weekend, I slowly worked my way through, and it was time well spent.

Moe-Lobeda offers a fascinating exploration of “the complex webs of exploitation enabling our extravagant acquisition and consumption … the intricate webs of interrelated power arrangements, ideologies, values, practices, policies, and ways of perceiving reality that span generations and have unintended snowballing consequences.” The unsettling message here is that we wealthy, over-consuming Americans do not have what we have simply because we are more fortunate or more resourceful or more blessed, but as a result of human choices and structures that obtained these “blessings” for us at least in part through systematic oppression of and robbing from others.

Others are poor because our economic systems make them poor, to defend and support our overconsumption. In the words of one Methodist bishop Moe-Lobeda quotes, “African children die so that North American children may overeat.”

No, we’re not all villainous plunderers — at least not consciously. Most of us participate in and/or benefit from the villainy with little awareness of it. We even ignore it, vaguely aware that it would break our hearts to know more, but thinking we may as well avoid knowing since there’s nothing we can do to change it. But Moe-Lobeda insists, we must make ourselves aware of it, not only because we’re involved in it, but because we can do something about it. “I cannot overstate the importance of recognizing this paradox,” she writes: “Structural sin, while it cannot be dismantled by individual actions, cannot be dismantled without them.”

One of the strong points of this book is that it is very specific and concrete. She offers a wide variety of things we can do, goals that can be attained, problems that can be addressed. She “names names” — not only the bad guys, but the good guys, too, the people and organizations who are already doing things to make the world better, whom we can get to know and with whom we can join forces (to name just a few: United Students against Sweatshops, the fair trade movement and even fair trade towns, Oxfam, 350.org, the Faith Action Network, Walmart Watch, and Food First). I found myself turning to the internet to find out more about activist organizations she features and issues she shines a light on. Of course, some will be more appealing than others to various people, but the point is, they’re out there and in many cases doing effective work.

Too often, we absolve ourselves by our gifts to charitable organizations that offer direct aid to those in need. And that is both good and quite essential. But it’s clear that it is not enough, and if it leaves us with the impression that we’ve done our part, it’s even dangerous. Moe-Lobeda writes:

Such charity is a strong and necessary response to God’s call to love neighbor as self. However, alone, it is NOT a turn away from — a renunciation of — structural sin. I may respond in charity to a homeless woman and continue to support and benefit materially from public policies and corporate actions that render her homeless. I may help pay for the injured child’s surgery [she refers here to a young Iraqi boy brought to the United States during the war in Iraq for reparative surgery after U.S. bombing wrecked his leg, which briefly garnered much attention and generated a lot of charitable donations] while still enjoying cheaper oil enabled by the Revenue Sharing Agreements with Iraq obtained in part through the American war on that country. I may rebuild houses in New Orleans and remain a beneficiary of the white privilege that made Katrina’s victims disproportionately Black.

Moe-Lobeda is not Catholic, but her work in this book bears much in common with teaching to be found in Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio and Evangelii Nuntiandi, John Paul II’s Sollicitudo Rei Socialis and Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, and especially Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate.  She agrees wholeheartedly with Benedict’s insistence in the latter encyclical that “if we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity.” In fact, the entire book could be taken as a detailed explanation of what Pope Benedict means when he calls structural reform “the institutional path — we might also all it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor directly” (CiV, sections 6 and 7).

I suppose I was a little frustrated that Moe-Lobeda seemed at times to absolve a little too easily the real people who are responsible for the unjust actions, structures, and processes she addresses. Within such structures, she says, “No specific person may be held responsible.” The evil is “not traceable to any one person.” It is “not a direct act by identifiable individuals.” But as she herself points out elsewhere, “Every system of evil requires personal actions to make it work.”

And there were a couple of highly theoretical chapters that could probably have been left out. For example, readers know what the author means when she talks of loving one’s neighbor. Chapter 7, an exhaustive 30-page consideration of what love is, was unnecessary, distracting, and a little boring. The book would have been just as good, incisive, and effective without it. Chapter 6 is one of the weaker chapters, too. Also, numerous problems with spelling, commas, periods, and more became distracting at times.

But none of that should dissuade anyone from reading Resisting Structural Evil — not just reading, but responding, too.

A reader digs in!

I was excited and flattered to receive this photo in an email from an appreciative reader of the new book. “As you can see,” he wrote, ”I’ve found more than a few noteworthy items in Faith Meets World.”

The gentleman who wrote this works in Catholic media. We haven’t met, but I sent him a copy of the book, hoping he might like it and consider a review or article of some kind.

Happy 80th birthday, Catholic Worker!

Today is a significant anniversary for the Catholic Church in the United States. It’s especially important for all who appreciate the life and ministry of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker movement which they founded.

It was 80 years ago today — on May 1, 1933 — that the first issue of the Catholic Worker newspaper was published. This was the very first step in what would become the Catholic Worker movement, an international network of communities and people dedicated to living and promoting the Gospel’s call to care for the poor and human solidarity, especially as these are expressed in Catholic social teaching. (The image on the right is of an issue dated April 1936.)

Dorothy printed 2,500 copies of that first edition of the paper and distributed them at May Day celebrations in New York. She remained its editor until her death in 1980. Contributing writers over the years included Jacques Maritain, Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Merton, Robert Coles, and others. At its height, it had several hundred thousand subscribers.

In May 1933, Dorothy Day was 35 years old and had been a Catholic for less than 6 years, having been baptized in December 1927. She chose to do it at the expense of a treasured relationship with her beloved partner and the father of her child. Before that, she had worked on the staffs of several socialist newspaper in New York. After her baptism, Dorothy moved with her daughter to Los Angeles, where she worked briefly as a Hollywood screenwriter. She returned to New York and began writing for the Catholic journals Commonweal and America. In early December 1932, she traveled to Washington, DC, where she covered a large hunger march for the journals. While there, on December 8 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception), Dorothy prayed inside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception that God would guide her into the work her wanted her to do. On the day she returned to her New York City apartment, Peter Maurin was waiting there to introduce himself.

They talked at great length, for several months, about Catholic social teaching and how it could be made better known and lived more faithfully. It was Peter’s suggestion that Dorothy start a newspaper (though he liked the title The Catholic Radical). In the months and years after the paper began publication, the houses of hospitality, Catholic Workers farms, and social activism followed.

The Catholic Worker movement remains alive today, though not as prominent as it once was. (See the interesting article by Eric Anglada in the brand new issue of America. Also Dan McKanan’s The Catholic Worker after Dorothy.) The bishops of the United States recently voted unanimously to move forward with her canonization cause.

The newspaper is still published today in at least a couple of formats. Click here for information on a version still published by a CW community in New York City. I used to receive one published by Casa Juan Diego, a CW house in Houston. There’s an online publication known as the Catholic Worker Journal here.

Dorothy Day, pray for us.