Accompany the marginalised: Pope to Spanish workers

In a message for the 14th General Assembly of the Spanish Christian Workers Movement (HOAC) in Segovia, Pope Francis urged Catholics to accompany people struggling on the margins of the economy.

Pope Francis addressed his message to participants in the HOAC meeting from 12-15 August 2023, which bears the theme “Building Bridges, Tearing Down Walls: The Church in the World of Work Weaving Bonds of Fraternity”.

Work founded in human dignity

In his message, the Pope expressed his appreciation for the movement’s dedication to helping the Church accompany Catholics in the workforce.

Recalling his words in Evangelii Gaudium, he noted that work is “an essential component of life and human dignity”.

“Work is not simply a productive activity, but a means by which we cooperate with God in the work of creation and realize ourselves as human beings,” he said.

The Pope added that human labor helps us to be “co-creators and to participate in building a more just and fraternal world.”

Pope Francis added that it is the Church’s mission to walk with people in all aspects of their lives, including participation in the workforce.

Accompanying people on the peripheries

He said the Church especially needs to accompany people who are on the peripheries of the world of work.

“Our commitment cannot be limited to isolated speeches or actions,” he said, “but must be a constant witness of solidarity and support to people in situations of labor and social vulnerability.”

The Church’s mission with workers, he added, includes being close to people who have lost their jobs or suffer from a lack of employment opportunities.

Christians cannot remain enclosed in the walls of our church buildings, he urged, inviting everyone to reach out actively to those in need and to seek “just and lasting solutions” to job insecurity.

The Pope lamented the fact that unemployment continues to affect many families, saying the Church bears the responsibility of standing in solidarity with “people who face despair and exclusion due to joblessness.”

He concluded his message by encouraging the members of Catholic Action to “weave bonds of fraternity, bear the light of the Gospel, and build a more just society.

“I urge you to continue to be God’s people in the midst of working life, and to continue to weave stories of love and solidarity,” concluded Pope Francis. “The Church needs you.”

SOURCE

Pope: Church must accompany workers in midst of job insecurity (Vatican News)

Pope plans apostolic letter on St Therese

In his General Audience on 7 June, just before he left for surgery, Pope Francis announced that he is planning to issue an apostolic letter on St Therese of Lisieux, patron saint of the YCW and Catholic Action.

Before beginning his talk, he walked with his cane to a large reliquary containing the relics of St Thérèse that was placed on a table near where he sits to deliver his catechesis, Our Sunday Visitor reports. He placed a large white rose before the ornate reliquary and stood a few moments in prayer.

“Here before us are the relics of St Therese of the Child Jesus, universal patroness of missions,” the pope explained. “It is good that this happen while we are reflecting on the passion for evangelization, on apostolic zeal. Today, then, let us allow the witness of St. Therese to help us. She was born 150 years ago, and I plan to dedicate an Apostolic Letter to her on this anniversary.”

He continued:

She is patroness of the missions, but she was never sent on mission. She was a Carmelite nun who lived her life according to the way of littleness and weakness: she defined herself as “a small grain of sand.” Having poor health, she died at the age of only 24. But though her body was sickly, her heart was vibrant, missionary. She recounts in her “diary” that her desire was that of being a missionary, and that she wanted to be one not just for a few years, but for the rest of her life, even until the end of the world. Therese was a “spiritual sister” to several missionaries: she accompanied them from her monastery through her letters, through her prayer, and by offering continuous sacrifices for them.

Without being visible, she interceded for the missions, like an engine that, although hidden, gives a vehicle the power to move forward. However, she was often not understood by her fellow nuns: she received “more thorns than roses” from them, but she accepted everything lovingly, patiently, offering even these judgments and misunderstandings together with her illness. And she did this joyfully, for the needs of the Church, so that, as she said, “roses might fall on everyone,” especially the most distant.

Now, I ask, where did all this zeal, this missionary strength, and this joy of interceding come from? Two episodes that occurred before Therese entered the monastery help us to understand this.

The first concerns the day that changed her life, Christmas 1886, when God worked a miracle in her heart. Shortly after that, Therese would turn 14 years old. As the youngest child, she was pampered by everyone at home. Returning from midnight Mass, however, her very tired father did not feel like being there when his daughter opened her gifts, and said, “Good thing it’s the last year!” Therese, who was very sensitive and easily moved to tears, was hurt, and went up to her room and cried. But she quickly suppressed her tears, went downstairs and, full of joy, she was the one who cheered her father. What had happened?

On that night, when Jesus had made himself weak out of love, her soul became strong: in just a few moments, she had come out of the prison of her selfishness and self-pity; she began to feel that “charity entered her heart, with the need to forget herself” (cf. Manuscript A, 133-134). From then on, she directed her zeal toward others, that they might find God, and, instead of seeking consolations for herself, she set out to “console Jesus, [to] make him loved by souls,” because, as Therese, Doctor of the Church, noted, “Jesus is sick with love and […] the sickness of love cannot be cured except by love” (Letter to Marie Guérin, July 1890). This then was her daily resolution: to “make Jesus loved” (Letter to Céline, 15 October 1889), to intercede for others. She wrote, “I want to save souls and forget myself for them: I want to save them even after my death” (Letter to Fr. Roullan, 19 March 1897). Several times she said, “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.”

Following the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, her zeal was directed especially toward sinners, to “those far off.” This is revealed in the second episode. Therese learnt about a criminal, Enrico Pranzini, sentenced to death for horrible crimes: he had been found guilty of the brutal murder of three people, and was destined for the guillotine; but he did not want to receive the consolations of the faith. Therese took him into her heart and did all she could: she prayed in every way for his conversion, so that he, whom, with brotherly compassion she called “poor wretched Pranzini,” might demonstrate a small sign of repentance and make room for God’s mercy in which Therese trusted blindly. The execution took place.

The next day, Therese read in the newspaper that Pranzini, just before laying his head on the block, “all of a sudden, seized by a sudden inspiration, turned around, grabbed a Crucifix that the priest handed to him and kissed three times the sacred wounds” of Jesus. The saint remarked, “Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of the One who declared that in Heaven there will be more joy for a single sinner who repents than for the ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance!” (Manuscript A, 135).

Such is the power of intercession moved by charity; such is the engine of mission! Missionaries, in fact – of whom Therese is patroness – are not only those who travel long distances, learn new languages, do good works, and are good at proclamation; no, a missionary is anyone who lives as an instrument of God’s love where they are. Missionaries are those who do everything so that, through their witness, their prayer, their intercession, Jesus might pass by.

This is the apostolic zeal that, let us always remember, never works by proselytism or constraint, but by attraction: one does not become a Christian because they are forced by someone, but because they have been touched by love. With so many means, methods, and structures available, which sometimes distract from what is essential, the Church needs hearts like Therese’s, hearts that draw people to love and bring people closer to God. Let us ask this saint for the grace to overcome our selfishness and for the passion to intercede that Jesus might be known and loved.

READ MORE

Pope plans to write document dedicated to St. Thérèse of Lisieux (Our Sunday Visitor)

Pope Francis, Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 16. Witnesses: Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, patron of the missions (Vatican.va)

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Vatican Media

Young people are the change we need: Pope Francis

Young people embody the change that we all need, Pope Francis writes in the preface to an book by Gaël Giraud and Carlo Petrini entitled “The taste to change. The ecological transition as the path to happiness” (Slow Food Editore and Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

“The good that appears as beautiful carries with it the reason why it must be done. This is the first thought that arose for me after reading this beautiful dialogue between Carlo Petrini, whom I have known and esteemed for years, a gastronome and activist known all over the world, and Gaël Giraud, a Jesuit economist whose contributions I have recently appreciated in La Civiltà Cattolica, where he writes qualified articles on economics, finance and climate change,” Pope Francis wrote.

He continued:

What the two authors bring forward in this exchange is a sort of ‘critical narration’ with respect to the global situation: on the one hand, they elaborate a reasoned and compelling analysis of the economic-food model in which we are immersed, which, to borrow a writer’s famous definition, ‘knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’; on the other hand, they propose several constructive examples, established experiences, singular stories of care for the common good and the commons that open the reader to a look of goodness and trust on our time. Criticism of what is wrong, stories of positive situations: one with the other, not one without the other.

The authors, Petrini and Giraud, one a 70-year-old activist, the other a 50-year-old economics professor, find reasons for trust and hope in the new generations, he added.

Usually we adults complain about young people, indeed we repeat that the ‘past’ times were certainly better than this troubled present, and that those who come after us are squandering our achievements. Instead, we must admit with sincerity that it is the young people who embody the change we all objectively need. It is they who are asking us, in various parts of the world, to change. Change our lifestyle, so predatory towards the environment.

Change our relationship with the Earth’s resources, which are not infinite. Change our attitude towards them, the new generations, from whom we are stealing the future. And they are not only asking us, they are doing it: taking to the streets, demonstrating their dissent from an economic system that is unfair to the poor and an enemy of the environment, seeking new ways forward. And they are doing it starting from the everyday: making responsible choices about food, transport, consumption.

Young people are educating us on this! They are choosing to consume less and experience interpersonal relationships more; they are careful to buy objects produced following strict rules of environmental and social respect; they are imaginative in using collective or less polluting means of transport. For me, seeing that these behaviours are spreading to become common practice is cause for consolation and confidence. Petrini and Giraud often refer to youth movements that, in different parts of the world, advance the demands of climate justice and social justice: the two aspects must be kept together, always.

Pope Francis further notes that the fact that the two authors, one an agnostic and one a Jesuit, represent different points of view and cultural backgrounds adds to the book’s richness.

“This objective fact does not prevent them from carrying on an intense and constructive conversation that becomes the manifesto of a plausible future for our society and our planet itself, so threatened by the nefarious consequences of a destructive, colonialist and domineering approach to creation.

“A believer and an agnostic speak and meet, albeit from different positions, on different aspects that our society must take on board in order for the world’s tomorrow to be still possible: it seems to me something beautiful! ” the pope concluded.

SOURCE

Pope: Humanity must change our relationship with Earth’s limited resources (Vatican News)

Lay apostolate primarily witness: Pope Francis

“The apostolate of the laity is primarily that of witness!” Pope Francis told participants at a meeting organised by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

“You have come here from various countries to reflect on the shared responsibility of pastors and lay faithful in the Church,” he continued. ” The path that God is indicating to the Church is precisely that of a more intense and concrete experience of communion and journeying together.

“He asks the Church to leave behind ways of acting separately, on parallel tracks that never meet,” the pope stated. “Clergy separated from laity, consecrated persons from clergy and the faithful; the intellectual faith of certain elites separated from the faith of ordinary people; the Roman Curia from the particular Churches, bishops from priests; young people from the elderly, spouses and families disengaged from the life of the communities, charismatic movements separated from parishes, and so forth.

“This is the worst temptation at the present moment,” he warned. “The Church still has a long way to go to live as a body, as a true people united by the same faith in Christ the Saviour, enlivened by the same Spirit of holiness and directed to the same mission of proclaiming the merciful love of God our Father.”

“This last aspect is critical: a people united in mission,” he continued. ‘This is the insight that we must always cherish: the Church is the faithful holy People of God, as Lumen Gentium affirms in nos. 8 and 12. The Church is neither populist nor elitist, but the faithful holy People of God.

“We cannot learn this theoretically, but through lived experience. Only then may we seek to explain, as best we can; but if we do not live it we cannot explain it. A people united in mission, then. Synodality has its origin and ultimate purpose in mission: it is born of mission and directed to mission.

“Sharing in mission brings pastors and laypersons closer together; it builds a unity of purpose, manifests the complementarity of the differing charisms and thus awakens in all the desire to move forward together.

“We see this illustrated in Jesus himself, who from the beginning surrounded himself with a group of disciples, men and women, and, with them, carried out his public ministry. Never alone. When he sent the Twelve to proclaim the kingdom of God, he sent them ‘two by two’.

“We see the same thing in Saint Paul, who always proclaimed the Gospel with co-workers, including laypersons and married couples. Not by himself. This has been the case at times of great renewal and missionary outreach in the Church’s history: pastors and faithful together. Not isolated individuals, but a people that evangelizes, the faithful holy People of God!

The apostolate of the laity

Training of lay people must also be “directed towards mission, not just towards theories, otherwise they will fall into ideology.”

“To avoid this, formation must be mission-oriented, not academic, limited to theoretical ideas, but practical as well. It must arise from hearing the kerygma, be nurtured by the word of God and the sacraments, help people to grow in discernment, as individuals and in community, and engage from the beginning in the apostolate and in various forms of testimony, however simple, which can lead to closeness to others.

“The apostolate of the laity is primarily that of witness! The witness of one’s own experience and history, the witness of prayer, the witness of serving those in need, the witness of closeness to the poor and the forgotten, and the witness of welcome, above all on the part of families.

“That is the right training for mission: going out towards others, learning ‘on the ground’. And at the same time, an effective means of spiritual growth.”

“From the beginning, I have said that ‘”I dream of a missionary Church’ (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 27; 32).

“It is in this perspective that we can properly approach the issue of shared responsibility on the part of laypersons in the Church,” Pope Francis explained. “The need to enhance the role of the laity is not based on some theological novelty, or due to the shortage of priests, much less a desire to make up for their neglect in the past.

“Rather, it is grounded in a correct vision of the Church, which is the People of God, of which the laity, together with the ordained ministers, are fully a part. The ordained ministers, then, are not masters, they are servants: shepherds, not masters.

“éThis means recovering an “integral ecclesiology”, like that of the first centuries, when everything was unified by membership in Christ and by supernatural communion with him and with our brothers and sisters. It means leaving behind a sociological vision that distinguishes classes and social rank, and is ultimately based on the ‘power’ assigned to each category. The emphasis needs to be placed on unity, not on separation or distinction. The layperson is more than a ‘non-cleric’ or a ‘non-religious’; he or she must be considered as a baptised person, a member of the holy People of God, for that is the sacrament which opens all doors.

“In the New Testament, the word ‘layperson’ does not appear; we hear of ‘believers’, ‘disciples’, ‘brethren’ and ‘saints’, terms applied to everyone: lay faithful and ordained ministers alike, the People of God journeying together.

In this one People of God that is the Church, the fundamental element is our belonging to Christ.

“In this unitary vision of the Church, where we are first and foremost baptised Christians, the laity live in the world and at the same time belong to the faithful People of God. The Puebla Document expressed this nicely: laypersons are men and women ‘of the Church in the heart of the world’, and men and women ‘of the world in the heart of the Church’. 

“True, the laity are called to live their mission chiefly amid the secular realities in which they are daily immersed. Yet that does not mean that they do not also have the abilities, charisms and competence to contribute to the life of the Church: in liturgical service, in catechesis and education, in the structures of governance, the administration of goods and the planning and implementation of pastoral projects, and so forth.

“For this reason, pastors need to be trained, from their time in the seminary, to work collaboratively with laypersons, so that communion, as a lived experience, will be reflected in their activity as something natural, not extraordinary and occasional.

“This experience of shared responsibility between laypersons and pastors will help to overcome dichotomies, fears and reciprocal mistrust. Now is the time for pastors and laypersons to move forward together, in every sphere of the Church’s life and in every part of the world! The lay faithful are not ‘guests’ in the Church; it is their home and they are called to care for it as such.”

“Together with their pastors, laypersons must bring Christian witness to secular life: to the worlds of work, culture, politics, art and social communications.

“We could put it this way: laity and pastors together in the Church, laypersons and pastors together in the world,” Pope Francis concluded.

Source

Pope Francis, To Participants at the Conference promoted by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life (Vatican.va)

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Pope Francis addresses participants at a conference of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. (Vatican Media)

Combat exploitation, restore dignity to work: Pope Francis

Addressing the Vatican Diplomatic Corps on 9 January, Pope highlighted three priority areas of concern for the year 2023: migrants, the economy and work as well as “our common home.”

“We live in a world so interconnected that, in the end, the actions of each have consequences for all,” Pope Francis said.

Here, I wish to draw attention to three areas in which this interconnection uniting today’s human family is particularly felt, and where greater solidarity is especially needed.

The first area is that of migration, which concerns entire regions of the world. Often it is an issue of individuals fleeing from war and persecution, and who face immense dangers. Then too, “every human being has the right to freedom of movement… to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there” and everyone should have the possibility of returning to his or her own country of origin.

Migration is one issue where we cannot “move ahead at random”. To understand this, we need but look at the Mediterranean, which has become a massive tomb. Those lost lives are emblematic of the shipwreck of civilization, as I noted during my trip to Malta last spring. In Europe, there is a pressing need to reinforce the regulatory framework through the approval of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, so as to put in place suitable policies for accepting, accompanying, promoting and integrating migrants. At the same time, solidarity requires that the burden of the operations needed to aid and care for the shipwrecked does not fall entirely on the people of the main landing points.

The second area concerns the economy and work. The crises of recent years have highlighted the limits of an economic system aimed more at creating profit for a few than at providing opportunities for the benefit of the many; an economy more focused on money than on the production of useful goods. This has created more fragile businesses and unjust labour markets. There is a need to restore dignity to business and to work, combating all forms of exploitation that end up treating workers as a commodity, for “without dignified work and just remuneration, young people will not truly become adults and inequality will increase”.

The third area is the care of our common home. We are continually witnessing the results of climate change and their serious effects on the lives of entire peoples, either by the devastation they produce, as in the case of Pakistan in the areas that experienced flooding, where outbreaks of disease borne by stagnant water continue to increase; or in vast areas of the Pacific Ocean, where global warming has caused great damage to fishing, which is the basis of daily life for entire populations; or in Somalia and the entire Horn of Africa, where drought is causing severe famine; and in recent days too, in the United States, where sudden and intense blizzard conditions caused numerous deaths.

Last summer, the Holy See chose to accede to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as a means of lending its moral support to the efforts of all states to cooperate, in accordance with their responsibilities and respective capabilities, in offering an effective and appropriate response to the challenges posed by climate change. It is to be hoped that the steps taken at COP27 with the adoption of the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, however limited, can raise everyone’s awareness of an urgent issue that can no longer be ignored.  Promising goals, however, were agreed upon during the recent United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) held in Montreal last month.

60th anniversary of Pacem in Terris

Pope Francis also noted that this year marks the 60th anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical, , which warned against the threats to peace of that time.

He concluded, adding that “building peace requires that there be no place for ‘violation of the freedom, integrity and security of other nations, no matter what may be their territorial extension or their capacity for defence’. ”  This can come about only if, in every single community, there does not prevail that culture of oppression and aggression in which our neighbour is regarded as an enemy to attack, rather than a brother or sister to welcome and embrace.

“It is a source of concern that, in many parts of the world, there is a weakening of democracy and of the breadth of freedom that it enables, albeit with all the limitations of any human system. It is women or ethnic minorities who often pay the price for this, as too do entire societies in which unrest leads to social tensions and even armed clashes,” the pope continued.

“In many areas, a sign of the weakening of democracy is heightened political and social polarization, which does not help to resolve the urgent problems of citizens,” he warned.

SOURCE

Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the members of the diplolmatic corps accredited to the Holy See (Vatican.va)

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January 9 2023 Audience to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps Pope Francis (Vatican Media/YouTube)

Workers must be at home in the Church: Pope Francis

In an address to the Italian Christian Workers Movement on its 50th anniversary, Pope Francis emphasised the Church’s commitment to the world of labour and the need for workers to feel at home within the Church.

“Fifty years are also a time to look realistically at one’s own history, made up of so much gratuitousness and also of hard work in Christian witness. It is important not to indulge in self-celebratory forms, but to recognize the action of the Holy Spirit in the folds of your history, not so much in the striking events, but rather in the humble and everyday ones. This anniversary could help you walk in two directions: a work of purification and a new sowing. Both: purify and sow.

“Purification is always necessary, always, for all of us and in all human experiences. We are sinners and need mercy like the air we breathe. The willingness to convert, to allow oneself to be purified, to change one’s life, to change one’s style, is a sign of courage, of strength, not of weakness; stubbornness is a sign of weakness.

“It is a question of welcoming the newness of the Spirit without placing obstacles: allowing young people to find space, that the spirit of gratuitousness be guarded and shared, that the initiative of the beginnings not be lost by preferring reassuring choices that do not help to experience the newness of the times .

“You are a movement born in the aftermath of Vatican II and you can tell the fruitfulness of that ecclesial and social season. I encourage you to rediscover the impetus of your beginnings, clearly visible in the enthusiasm with which you live the ecclesial bond in the territories and in the gratuitousness of service to the needs of workers.

“The Council has called us to read the signs of the times – and above all it has given us the example -; therefore, aware of the social changes, you can ask yourself: how can we be faithful to the service of workers today? How to live the commitment to ecological conversion and peacemaking? How to animate Italian society in the economic, political and working fields, contributing to discernment with the criteria of integral ecology and fraternity?

“Here are the reasons for a new sowing that awaits you. While celebrating, we look forward. Indeed, this is not only a time to reap fruit: it is also a time to sow again. The difficult season we are experiencing requires it. The pandemic and the war have made the social climate darker and more pessimistic. This calls you to be sowers of hope. Starting with yourself, with your associative fabric: may your doors be open; that young people feel not only guests, but protagonists, with their ability to imagine a different society.

“I would also like to offer you a specific commitment on the subject of work. You are a movement of workers, and you can help bring their concerns within the Christian community. It is important that workers are at home in parishes, associations, groups and movements; that their problems are taken seriously; that their call for solidarity can be heard. In fact, the work goes through a transformation phase that must be accompanied.

“Social inequalities, forms of slavery and exploitation, family poverty due to lack of work or poorly paid work are realities that must be listened to in our ecclesial environments. They are more or less forms of exploitation: we call things by name. I urge you to keep your mind and heart open to workers, especially the poor and defenceless; to give voice to the voiceless; not to worry so much about your members, but to be leaven in the social fabric of the country, leaven of justice and solidarity.

“The encyclical Fratelli tutti recalls that ‘thanks be to God so many aggregations and organizations of civil society help to compensate for the weaknesses of the international community, its lack of coordination in complex situations, its lack of attention to fundamental human rights and very critical situations of some groups. Thus the principle of subsidiarity acquires concrete expression, which guarantees the participation and action of communities and organizations of a lower level, which complement the action of the State in a complementary way’ (§ 175).

“This ongoing third world war makes us aware that renewal comes from below, where relationships are lived with solidarity and trust. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the courage of new beginnings of reconciliation and fraternity.”

SOURCE

Discorso del Santo Padre Al Movimento Cristiani Lavorati (Vatican.va)

Be the leaven in the dough: Pope Francis

During his visit to Bahrein for the  “Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence” from 3-6 November, Pope Francis met with young people at Sacred Heart School/

“I am happy to have seen in the Kingdom of Bahrain a place of encounter and dialogue between different cultures and beliefs.,” Pope Francis said. “As I look out at you, who are not all of the same religion and are not afraid of being together, I think that without you this coexistence of differences would not be possible. And it would have no future!

“In the dough of the world, you are the good leaven destined to rise, to break down many social and cultural barriers and to foster the growth of fraternity and innovation. You are young people who, as restless travellers open to the unexpected, are not afraid to exchange ideas with one another, to dialogue, to ‘make some noise’ and mingle among yourselves; and so you become the basis of a society marked by friendship and solidarity. *

“This, dear friends, is something essential in the complex and varied situations in which we live: to tear down certain barriers in order to bring about a world that is people-oriented and more fraternal, even if this involves facing a number of challenges,” Pope Francis said.

He proposed three invitations to young people.

Culture of care

My first invitation: to embrace the culture of care. Sister Rosalyn used that expression: “culture of care”. To care means to develop an inner attitude of empathy, an attentive gaze that takes us out of ourselves, a gentle presence that overcomes our lack of concern and makes us take an interest in other people.

“This is the turning point, the start of something new, the antidote to a world closed in on itself and, rife with individualism, a world that devours its children. A world imprisoned by a kind of sadness that gives rise to indifference and solitude. Let me say this to you: how badly the spirit of sadness hurts, how badly! If we do not learn to take care of our surroundings – other people, our cities, our society, the environment – we will end up spending our lives like those people who are constantly in a hurry, running around, doing many things at once, but in the end are sad because they have never really known the joy of friendship and generosity. Nor have they given the world that unique dab of beauty that they alone, and no one else, were capable of giving.

“As a Christian, I think of Jesus and I see that everything he did was inspired by care for others. He was concerned about relating to all whom he met, in their homes, in the towns and along the wayside. He looked people in the eye, listened to their pleas for help, drew near to them and touched their wounds. Do you look people in the eye? Jesus entered into our human history in order to tell us that the Most High cares for us. To remind us that being on God’s side involves caring for someone and something, especially for those who are in greatest need.

“Dear friends, how beautiful it is to care for others, to build relationships! Yet, like everything in life, this calls for constant training. So do not forget, first of all, to care for yourself: not so much outside as inside, in the deepest and most precious part of yourselves. What part is that? It is your soul, your heart! And how can you care for the heart? By trying to be silent and listen to it. Try to make time to keep in touch with what is going on inside you, to appreciate the gift that you are, to take hold of your life and not let it slip through your fingers. “

Spread fraternity

“This, then, is my first invitation, to embrace the culture of care. If we embrace it, we will help make the seed of fraternity grow.

“And this is my second invitation: to spread fraternity. I liked what you said Abdulla: ‘You have to be a champion not only on the playing field, but in life!’ Champions off the playing field. That is true, so strive to be champions of fraternity, off the playing field! This is the challenge of today that will make us winners tomorrow, the challenge faced by our increasingly globalized and multicultural societies.

“For you see, the devices and technology that modernity offers us are not enough to make our world peaceful and fraternal. We are witnessing this: the winds of war do not stop blowing with technological progress. We are seeing with sorrow that in many regions, tensions and threats are increasing and, at times, are breaking out in conflicts. Often enough, this happens because we do not work on the heart; we allow distances between ourselves and others to increase and, as a result, ethnic, cultural, religious and other differences become problems and fears that isolate rather than opportunities to grow together. And when those differences seem more powerful than the fraternity that keeps us together, we risk confrontation and conflict.

“To you, young people, who are more straightforward and more capable of making contacts and building friendships, overcoming prejudices and ideological barriers, I would like to say this: continue to sow the seeds of fraternity, and you will be builders of the future, because only in fraternity will our world have a future!

“This invitation is one that I find at the heart of my faith. Indeed, the Bible says, “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this, that those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (1 Jn 4:20-21). Yes, Jesus tells us never to separate the love of God from love of neighbour, and to become neighbours to everyone (cf. Lk 10:29-37).

“Everyone, not just the people we like. To live as brothers and sisters is the universal vocation entrusted to every creature. You young people – you more than anyone else – in the face of the prevailing tendency to remain indifferent and intolerant of others, even supporting wars and conflicts, are called to “respond with a new vision of fraternity and social friendship that will not remain at the level of words” (Fratelli Tutti, 6).

“Words are not enough: there is need for concrete gestures carried out on a daily basis,” Pope Francis emphasised.

“Here too, we can ask ourselves a few questions. Am I open to others? Am I friends with someone who does not share all my interests, or has different beliefs and customs from mine? Do I try to meet others, or do I stick to the people I know? The key, in a few words, is in what Nevin told us: to “create good relationships” with everyone.

The challenge of making decisions

“I would also like to offer you yet a third invitation: accept the challenge of making decisions in life. You know from everyday experience there is no such thing as a life without challenges. Just as when you come to a fork in the road you have to choose, so, when faced with a challenge, you always have to put yourself on the line, take risks and make a decision.

“This requires good planning. You cannot improvise, living by instinct or always acting on the spur of the moment! So how do you prepare, how do you develop your decision-making ability, your creativity, your courage and your tenacity? How do you sharpen your inner gaze, learn to judge situations, and grasp what is important? It requires learning how to weigh your options and take the right direction. This is why the third invitation is to make decisions in life, right decisions.

“It is important, then, to learn how to distinguish his voice, God’s voice that speaks to us. And how do we learn to do this? As you told us, Merina: through silent prayer and intimate dialogue with him, treasuring in our hearts what helps us and gives us peace. God’s light illumines the maze of thoughts, emotions and feelings in which we often find ourselves.

“The Lord wants to enlighten your understanding, your innermost thoughts, the aspirations in your heart, and the judgements that are taking shape within you. He wants to help you distinguish what is essential from what is superfluous, what is good from what is harmful to you and to others, what is just from what leads to injustice and disorder. Nothing we experience is foreign to God, nothing. Often we are the ones who turn away from him; we fail to turn people and situations over to him, and instead turn in on ourselves in fear and shame. Let us cultivate in prayer the consoling certainty that the Lord watches over us, that he does not grow tired, but constantly watches out for us and keeps us safe.

Good counselors

“Dear young friends, making decisions is not something we do alone. So let me say one last thing to you. Before you go to the Internet for advice, always seek out good counselors in life, wise and reliable people who can guide and help you. Do this first. I am thinking of parents and teachers, but also of the elderly, your grandparents, and a good spiritual guide.

“Each of us needs to be accompanied on the road of life! I will say again what I told you: never alone! We need to be accompanied on the road of life.

“Dear young people, we need you. We need your creativity, your dreams and your courage, your charm and your smiles, your contagious joy and that touch of craziness that you can bring to every situation, which helps to break us out of our stale habits and ways of looking at things. As Pope, I want to tell you: the Church is with you and needs each one of you very much, so that we can be renewed, explore new paths, experiment with new languages, and become more joyful and hospitable. Never lose the courage to dream big and to live life to the full!

“Adopt the culture of care and spread it. Become champions of fraternity. Face life’s challenges by letting yourselves be guided by God’s faithful creativity and by good counsellors.

“And lastly, remember me in your prayers. I will do the same for you, carrying you in my heart. Thank you!

“God be with you! Allah ma’akum!”

FULL STORY

Meeting with the youth, Address of His Holiness, Sacred Heart School (Awali), Saturday, 5 November 2022 (Vatican.va)

Pope in Bahrain: Dear young people, we need you! (Vatican News)

Church’s mission starts from reality: Cardinal Hollerich

In an interview with La Civilta Cattolica, Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has called for the Church to focus on its mission, starting the reality that see us all as children of the same Father.

“I believe that today in Europe we are suffering from a pathology, which, that is, we are unable to see clearly what the mission of the Church is,” Cardinal Hollerich, a former chaplain to the Luxembourg YCW, warned.

“We always talk about structures, which is certainly not a bad thing, because structures are important and certainly need to be rethought. But there is not enough talk of the mission of the Church. Which is to announce the Gospel. To announce, and above all to testify, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. 

“A witness that the Christian must interpret mainly through his commitment in the world for the safeguarding of creation, for justice, for peace. 

“The teaching of Pope Francis is everything and nothing other than the clarification of the Gospel. It is not difficult to understand. In today’s secularised world, direct proclamation is not always understood, but our witness is. We are observed and valued in the world for how we live the gospel. 

“It is a bit like it happens for teachers at school: it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. 

“Take the encyclical for example it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. Take the encyclical for example it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. 

“Take the encyclical for example Laudato si ‘.  Many have read it, even among non-believers, even among those who do not know the Gospel. And all those who read it shared its value, importance, urgency. I had direct feedback from my daily contacts with the politicians of the European Parliament and Commission in Brussels. So everyone has read  Laudato Sì,  and admires it. And the same was also true for  Fratelli Tutti. 

“In other words, everyone recognizes Pope Francis as the paternity of the proposal for a new humanism. Which he often proposes in solitude among the great world leaders. But then it is up to us to be able to explain that Francis’ humanism is not just a political proposal, but a proclamation of the Gospel. Those outside the Church sometimes understand the Gospel better than those inside. 

“Pope Francis therefore indicated this way of proclaiming the Gospel, which starts from reality, that reality that sees us all as creatures and children of the same Father. But to answer your initial question: in all European countries there has been much talk at synods of communion, of participation, but very little of mission,” Cardinal Hollerich concluded.

SOURCE

Hollerich: la Chiesa deve cambiare, rischiamo di parlare a un uomo che non c’è più (Vatican News)

PHOTO

GilPe / Wikipedia / CCA BY SA 4.0

Pope Francis to Pax Romana: Be agents of social change

In a personally signed letter to the Pax Romana movements on 22 July 2022, Pope Francis called on Catholic students and professionals to work for the spread of the Gospel, its values of justice, peace and solidarity, and to be agents of social change.

Pax Romana, which comprises two movements – the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) and the International Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMICA) – has just concluded its centenary year commemorating its foundation in 1921.

In his letter, Pope Francis thanked Pax Romana leaders for maintaining a “spirituality of action” and for fulfilling “your mission of addressing the spiritual and material needs of young people in tertiary educational institutions throughout the world.”

“I am likewise appreciative of the contribution you have made within the Church,” the pope continued, “and for the notable fruits that have been borne in nurturing leaders and supporting the faithful in promoting Catholic social leaching in the Americas, Africa and Asia.”

“Your vital apostolate encourages young people to take the lead in striving for a more just social order within their countries,” the pope noted, even though “not all of you live in environments that easily facilitate the pursuit of your dreams or that help you to grow in faith.”

“Support one another in the life of faith and the pursuit of virtue. In a world of widespread inequality, may you be mindful too of your fellow students and peers in so many parts of our world whose dreams are threatened by war, injustice, and political, economic and ecological crises. Keep them in your prayers and support them by works of practical solidarity,” the pope added.

Recalling the theme for World Youth Day 2023 – “Mary arose and went with haste” – he urged leaders “to ‘arise’ like Mary, and work for the change you want to experience within your communities

“Demonstrate and spread the (Pax Romana) values of ‘Respect and Integrity, Trust and Solidarity, Diversity and “Inclusivity, Transparency and Accountability” so that “your service to the liberating message or the Gospel will be effective and will bear lasting fruit,” Pope Francis concluded.

“Pope Francis is clearly very familiar with the work of Pax Romana,” commented Australian Cardijn Institute secretary, Stefan Gigacz. “The Uruguayan intellectual and Pax Romana member, Alberto Methol Ferré, was a major influence on Francis’ thinking as were many Argentinian chaplains of the JUC, the local member movement of the IMCS, including Lucio Gera.”

The Australian Cardijn Institute (www.australiancardijninstitute.org) is a corresponding member of Pax Romana ICMICA (www.icmica-miic.org ).

READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE POPE’S LETTER

To the Members of the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-MIEC) Pax Romana and the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMCA-MIIC) Pax Romana

I send prayerful good wishes to the students and professionals celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the International Movement of Catholic Students – Pax Romana. Your Movement received official recognition by the Holy See in 1921, and I am pleased that you have maintained your spirituality of action and fulfilled your mission of addressing the spiritual and material needs of young people in tertiary educational institutions throughout the world. I am likewise appreciative of the contribution you have made within the Church over this period, and for the notable fruits that have been borne in nurturing leaders and supporting the faithful in promoting Catholic social leaching in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Your vital apostolate encourages young people to take the lead in striving for a more just social order within their countries.

Over the past Century, Pox Romana has enabled many university students and young professionals to grow in their faith and to work for the spread or the Gospel and its values of justice, peace and solidarity. I encourage you to continue to be agents of social change, steadfast in your efforts to help build a more inclusive, harmonious and sustainable world. Be ever ready to give the best of yourselves in meeting the challenges that lie ahead, attentive to the signs of the times and committed to the service of the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged.

Dear young friends, at this stage of your lives, you have much energy and a plethora of opportunities and choices before you. Yet, while you have many wishes and interests that you want to explore, not all of you live in environments that easily facilitate the pursuit of your dreams or that help you to grow in faith. Support one another in the life of faith and the pursuit of virtue. In a world of widespread inequality, may you be mindful too of your fellow students and peers in so many parts of our world whose dreams are threatened by war, injustice, and political, economic and ecological crises. Keep them in your prayers and support them by works of practical solidarity.

As you know, young Catholics are preparing to meet in Lisbon in August 2023 for World Youth Day, with the motto, “Mary arose and went with haste” (Lk 1:39), I look forward to seeing many of you there! I urge you to “arise” like Mary, and work for the change you want to experience within your communities. Demonstrate and spread the values of “Respect and Integrity, Trust and Solidarity, Diversity and Inclusivity, Transparency and Accountability” that your Strategic Plan highlights. In this way, your service to the liberating message or the Gospel will be effective and will bear lasting fruit.

With these sentiments, I send my blessing to all the members of lMCS and ICMICA, I ask you, please, to pray for me, and for peace in our world, that young people everywhere may enjoy a future filled with hope and joy.

Rome, Saint John Lateran, 22 July 2022

SOURCE

Pope Francis, Letter to Pax Romana

PHOTO

Zebra48bo / Wikipedia / CCA BY SA 4.0

Plenary misses Francis’ wider vision

Some 278 Catholic bishops, clergy, religious personnel and lay people will meet as members of an unprecedented Plenary Council during 4-9 July to finalise the resolutions of their first assembly last year. However the May working document ‘Framework for Motions’, despite much worthy content, especially on Indigenous affairs, relies on a narrow notion of mission overly focused on inner-church issues at the expense of the wider social engagement that Francis emphasises, writes Fr Bruce Duncan CSsR in Eureka Street.

(It is) puzzling how the Framework for Motions overlooks the specifically secular mission of lay women and men in their daily work, occupations, communities and families. Merely a single paragraph calls for deepening the ‘lay apostolate in the world based on attentiveness to the “signs of the times”, scriptural reflection, prayerful communal discernment and a commitment to engagement with the broader Australian community through listening and dialogue’ (#80). But it does not explain why this secular involvement is so crucially significant, especially for Pope Francis.

‘Francis has explicitly recast this see-judge-act method into the process of synodality and discernment, calling the whole Church to learn this way of listening carefully to others, especially the excluded or marginalised.’

Let me explain. The paragraph refers to the famous see-judge-act process developed by a Belgian priest, Canon Joseph Cardijn, nearly a century ago for use by young working women and men in factories and workplaces. Cardijn formed groups to discuss their life and work issues (‘see’), to reflect together using a Gospel passage for spiritual guidance (‘judge’) and then to take action to change situations (‘act’).

It was a circular process of empowerment for people to take charge of their lives and challenge unjust practices. It became known as the Young Christian Workers Movement and spread internationally, even to Australia, especially in Melbourne and Adelaide. Based on people’s personal experiences, it linked faith cogently with their real life issues, giving them strength and courage to make often difficult decisions but acting always on their own responsibility. This method often empowered people for the rest of their lives and careers.

Francis has explicitly recast this see-judge-act method into the process of synodality and discernment, calling the whole Church to learn this way of listening carefully to others, especially the excluded or marginalised.

Francis urges a ‘cultural revolution’ in the church, to undertake ‘the slow work of changing structures, through participation in public dialogue, where decisions are made that affect the lives of the most vulnerable.’ He said that the social apostolate is to empower people ‘“to promote processes [italics added] and to encourage hope”, to help communities grow, to be aware of their rights, to apply their talents, and create their own futures’. He dreams of a ‘Church that does not stand aloof from life, but immerses herself in today’s problems and needs, bandaging wounds and healing broken hearts with the balm of God.’

His notion of mission is thus not confined to inner-church matters. At the opening of the 2021-1923 Synod on Synodality on 9 October 2021, he said that the Vatican Council understood mission as including ‘apostolic commitment to the world of today’, but warned that this was opposed to ‘proselytism’. In an address to Catechists on 27 September 2013, he insisted: ‘What attracts is our witness… Words come…. But witness comes first: people should see the Gospel, read the Gospel, in our lives.’

FULL ARTICLE

Bruce Duncan, Plenary Council fails to embrace Pope Francis’s wider social vision (Eureka Street)

See-judge-act bishop now a cardinal

Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego as one of 21 new cardinals. Bishop McElroy, who visited Australia in June 2017, has made a name for himself for a pastoral approach very close to that of Pope Francis.

In February 2017 address to the US Regional Meeting of Popular Movements he offered a powerful endorsement of Cardijn’s see-judge-act method.

“For the past century, from the worker movements of Catholic action in France, Belgium and Italy to Pope John XXXIII’s call to re-structure the economies of the world in ‘Mater et Magistra,’ to the piercing missionary message of the Latin American Church,” Cardinal-elect McElroy said, “the words ‘see,’ ‘judge’ and ‘act’ have provided a powerful pathway for those who seek to renew the temporal order, in the light of the Gospel and justice.”

He continued:

As the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace described this pathway, it lies in “seeing clearly the situation, judging with principles that foster the integral development of people and acting in a way which implements these principles in the light of everyone’s unique situation.”

There is no greater charter for this gathering taking place here in Modesto in these days than the simple but rich architecture of these three words: “see,” “judge” and “act.” Yet these words — which carry with them such a powerful history of social transformation around the world in service to the dignity of the human person — must be renewed and re-examined at every age and seen against the background of those social, economic and political forces in each historical moment.

In the United States we stand at a pivotal moment as a people and a nation, in which bitter divisions cleave our country and pollute our national dialogue.

In our reflections in these days, here, we must identify the ways in which our very ability to see, judge and act on behalf of justice is being endangered by cultural currents which leave us isolated, embittered and angry. We must make the issues of jobs, housing, immigration, economic disparities and the environment, foundations for common efforts rather than of division. We must see prophetic words and prophetic actions which produce unity and cohesion and we must do so in the spirit of hope which is realistic. For as Pope Francis stated to the meeting in Bolivia: “You are sowers of change,” and sowers never lose hope.

San Diego Diocese has a long history it the jocist movements. For many years, it hosted a Cardijn Centre founded by YCW and YCS chaplain, Fr Leo Davis. It was also the home diocese for Fr Victor Salandini, who became known as the “tortilla priest” for his work with Latino farm workers.

READ MORE

Bishop W. Robert McElroy (Wikipedia)

Bishop McElroy: Pope Francis and Vatican II give us a road map for the synodal process (America Magazine)

Transcript of speech by San Diego Catholic Bishop Robert McElroy to community organizers (San Diego Tribune)

Pope Francis names Bishop McElroy a Cardinal (San Diego Diocese)

Pope announces 21 new Cardinals from around the world (Vatican News)

Leo Davis (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Victor Salandini (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Pope Francis on education

Francis considers schools as being free of geographical boundaries and walls. He calls each school “a platform for drawing close to children and young people” (CV 221). Indeed, a school is not an end in itself; it is a platform, a support area that serves as a base for other operations. Schools are also “privileged places of personal development”.

The school is not enclosed within boundaries and schedules; it goes beyond them. Addressed to the surrounding reality and to the world, it offers an educational program for the whole of life.

Pope Francis recently reflected a broader vision of the school in his video message for the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Latin American Federation of Colleges of the Society of Jesus (FLACSI).

In it, he listed eight desires for schools of the Society of Jesus: 1) that Jesuit schools form hearts convinced of the mission for which they were created; 2) that they be welcoming schools, in which one can heal one’s own wounds and those of others; 3) that they be schools with doors that are really open, not only in words, where the poor can enter and where one can go out to meet the poor; 4) that they not retreat into a selfish elitism, but learn to live together with everyone, be places where fraternity is lived; 5) that they teach their pupils to discern, to read the signs of the times, to read their own lives as a gift to be grateful for and to share; 6) that they have a critical attitude toward the models of development, production and consumerism that are pushing inexorably towards inevitable harm; 7) that they have a conscience and foster conscious awareness ; 8) that they are schools of disciples and missionaries.

Francis considers education under a triple aspect. First and foremost, it is an act of love, because it generates life in its multidimensionality; it removes people from self-centeredness; it helps them to enter into confidence with their interiority, to put potential into action, to open themselves to transcendence, to help the discarded ones of the globalizing society. For the pope, “education is a dynamic reality; it is a movement that brings people to light.” “I am convinced,” Francis says in Laudato Si’, “that change is impossible without motivation and a process of education” (LS 15).

Education is also an act of hope, which helps to break the vicious circle of skepticism, disbelief, and restriction within conceptions and attitudes contrary to the dignity of the human being. Francis does not tire of exhorting us not to lose hope. He addresses this appeal to various categories of people, because “a globalization bereft of hope or vision can easily be conditioned by economic interests, which are often far removed from a correct understanding of the common good, and which readily give rise to social tensions, economic conflicts and abuses of power.”

Finally, education is a factor that humanises the world, because it helps people to transcend individualism, to appreciate differences, to discover fraternity, to be responsible for the environment. It is “the natural antidote to an individualistic culture that at times degenerates into a veritable cult of the self and the primacy of indifference.”

READ MORE

Luiz Fernando Klein, SJ, How Pope Francis Sees Education (La Civilta Cattolica)

Pope Francis: New roles for lay people

After nearly nine years of preparation, Pope Francis has promulgated the Apostolic Constitution “Praedicate Evangelium,” reforming the Roman Curia and its structures.

Fundamental among the general principles in the new Constitution is the provision that anyone – including lay people – can be appointed to roles of government in the Roman Curia by virtue of the vicarious power of the Successor of Peter.

The preamble to the Constitution explains this in the following terms:

“Every Christian, by virtue of Baptism, is a missionary disciple to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus. One cannot fail to take this into account in the updating of the Curia, whose reform, therefore, must provide for the involvement of laymen and women, even in roles of government and responsibility.”

Noting that the “pope, bishops and other ordained ministers are not the only evangelisers in the Church,” the Constitution goes on to explain that the role of lay people in governance was “essential” because of their familiarity with family life and “social reality.”

Consequently, “any member of the faithful can head a dicastery (Curia department) or organism” if the pope decides they are qualified and appoints them, it provides.

READ MORE

Pope Francis promulgates Apostolic Constitution on Roman Curia ‘Praedicate Evangelium’ (Vatican News)

Pope rules baptised lay Catholics, including women, can lead Vatican departments (Reuters)

PHOTO

Pope Francis visits Palo Cathedral in one of his sorties in Leyte Province Saturday, January 17, 2015. / Malacañang Photo Bureau/ Picryl

Worker co-ops in the US

On 1 May 2019, the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, Pope Francis issued an invitation to young people – particularly to “young economists and entrepreneurs” – to join him in Assisi in March the following year to brainstorm a new economy, writes Renée Darline Roden in The Tablet.

The “Economy of Francesco” meeting was, of course, cancelled due to the pandemic, but a few months later Francis issued another call to action, a book entitled Let Us Dream. Again, he issued an urgent invitation to all Catholics to consider their part in reshaping a world economy that is exacerbating ­suffering rather than encouraging human flourishing.

The Economy of Francesco organisers in the United States are trying to find ways to add a distinctly American flavour to the global solidarity economy. Witchger and fellow ­organiser Elias Crim started a newsletter, “Ownership Matters”, to highlight various incarnations of the solidarity economy. The American models draw on a variety of global initiatives: the Quebecois cooperative credit unions; the Economy of Communion, personified in the town of Loppiano, Italy, run by the Focolare lay ecclesial movement; and the corporation founded by late Fr José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga, Mondragón.

Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa is a nexus of 170 factories, universities and media in the Basque region of Spain, cooperatively owned by approximately 81,000 workers who make a salary within a pay scale where the highest-paid member makes at most six times the amount of the lowest-paid member, where directors of companies are democratically elected by the workers and where each worker is also an owner of the company.

Witchger told me that the United States’ closest answer to Arizmendiarrieta’s project is Molly Hemstreet’s Industrial Commons, in Morganton, North Carolina. Hem­street, sporting a gentle Carolina accent, is a native of Morganton, in the Blue Ridge Mountain section of the Appalachian Mountains. She co-founded its first cooperative factory, Opportunity Threads, in 2008. It expanded by working with its local county business development bureau to build a close-knit ­network of textile producers in the region.

The Arizmendi Bakeries in California take their name from Fr Arizmendiarrieta. The first Arizmendi bakery opened in Oakland in 1997 and expanded into a franchise of cooperative bakeries. Each new cooperative was funded by some of the profits set aside from an older cooperative.

There are 22 worker-owners at the San Francisco site where Jason Jordan works, and around 200 worker-owners among all six bakeries.

FULL STORY

The people versus Mammon: worker-owners cooperatives in the US (The Tablet)

PHOTO

Bjorn / Flickr / CC BY SA 2.0

Think about exploited workers

During his General Audience on Wednesday 12 January 2022, Pope Francis continued his Catechesis on Saint Joseph, recalling his role as Saint Joseph the Carpenter.

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

The evangelists Matthew and Mark refer to Joseph as a “carpenter” or “joiner”. We heard earlier that the people of Nazareth, hearing Jesus speak, asked themselves: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (13:55; cf. Mk 6:3). Jesus practised his father’s trade.

The Greek term tekton, used to specify Joseph’s work, has been translated in various ways. The Latin Fathers of the Church rendered it as “carpenter”. But let us bear in mind that in the Palestine of Jesus’ time, wood was used not only to make ploughs and various pieces of furniture, but also to build houses, which had wooden frames and terraced roofs made of beams connected with branches and earth.

Therefore, “carpenter” or “joiner” was a generic qualification, indicating both woodworkers and craftsmen engaged in activities related to construction. It was quite a hard job, having to work with heavy materials such as wood, stone, and iron. From an economic point of view, it did not ensure great earnings, as can be deduced from the fact that when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, they offered only a couple of turtledoves or pigeons (cf. Lk 2:24), as the Law prescribed for the poor (cf. Lv 12:8).

The young Jesus thus learned this trade from his father. Therefore, when he began to preach as an adult, his astonished neighbours asked: “But where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?” (Mt 13:54), and were scandalised by him (cf. v. 57), because he was the son of the carpenter, but he spoke like a doctor of the law, and they were scandalised by this.

This biographical fact about Joseph and Jesus makes me think of all the workers in the world, especially those who do gruelling work in mines and in some factories; those who are exploited through undocumented work; the victims of labour: we have seen a lot of this in Italy recently; children who are forced to work and those who rummage among the trash in search of something useful to trade….

Let me repeat what I said: the hidden workers, the workers who do hard labour in mines and in some factories: let’s think of them: about those who are exploited with undocumented work, those who are paid in contraband, on the sly, without a pension, without anything. And if you do not work, you have no security. And today there is a lot of undocumented work. Let us think of the victims of work, of work accidents, of the children who are forced to work: this is terrible! A child at the age of play should be playing. Instead, they are forced to work like adults! Let us think about those poor children who rummage in the dumps to look for something useful to trade. All these are our brothers and sisters, who earn their living this way: with jobs that do not give them dignity! Let us think about this. And this is happening today, in the world. This is happening today.

But I think too of those who are out of work. How many people go knocking on the doors of factories, of businesses [asking]: “Is there anything to do?” — “No, there isn’t, there isn’t. Lack of work! [I think] of those who feel wounded in their dignity because they cannot find this work. They return home: “Have you found something?” — “No, nothing… I went to Caritas and I brought bread”. What gives dignity is not bringing bread home. You can get it from Caritas — no, this does not give you dignity. What gives you dignity is earning bread — and if we do not give our people, our men and women, the ability to earn bread, there is a social injustice in that place, in that nation, in that continent. Leaders must give everyone the possibility of earning bread, because this ability to earn gives them dignity. Work is an anointing of dignity. And this is important.

Many young people, many fathers and mothers experience the ordeal of not having a job that allows them to live serenely. They live day to day. And how often the search for work becomes so desperate that it drives them to the point of losing all hope and the desire to live. In these times of pandemic, many people have lost their jobs — we know this — and some, crushed by an unbearable burden, reached the point of taking their own lives. I would like to remember each of them and their families today. Let us take a moment of silence, remembering these men, these women, who are desperate because they cannot find work.

Not enough consideration is given to the fact that work is an essential component of human life, and even a path of holiness. Work is not only a means of earning a living: it is also a place where we express ourselves, feel useful, and learn the great lesson of concreteness, which helps keep spiritual life from becoming spiritualism. Unfortunately, however, labour is often a hostage to social injustice and, rather than being a means of humanization, it becomes an existential periphery. I often ask myself: With what spirit do we do our daily work? How do we deal with fatigue? Do we see our activity as linked only to our own destiny or also to the destiny of others? In fact, work is a way of expressing our personality, which is relational by its nature. And, work is also a way to express our creativity: each one of us works in their own way, with their own style: the same work but with different styles.

It is good to think about the fact that Jesus himself worked and had learned this craft from Saint Joseph. Today, we should ask ourselves what we can do to recover the value of work; and what contribution we can make, as Church, [to ensure] that work can be redeemed from the logic of mere profit and can be experienced as a fundamental right and duty of the person, which expresses and increases his or her dignity.

Dear brothers and sisters, for all these [reasons], I would like to recite with you today the prayer that Saint Paul VI lifted up to Saint Joseph on 1 May 1969:

O Saint Joseph,
Patron of the Church!
you, who side by side with the Word made flesh,
worked each day to earn your bread,
drawing from Him the strength to live and to toil;
you who experienced the anxiety for the morrow,
the bitterness of poverty, the uncertainty of work:
you who today give the shining example,
humble in the eyes of men
but most exalted in the sight of God:
protect workers in their hard daily lives,
defending them from discouragement,
from negative revolt,
and from pleasure loving temptations;
and keep peace in the world,
that peace which alone can ensure the development of peoples
Amen.

Catechesis on Saint Joseph: 7. Saint Joseph the Carpenter

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

The evangelists Matthew and Mark refer to Joseph as a “carpenter” or “joiner”. We heard earlier that the people of Nazareth, hearing Jesus speak, asked themselves: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (13:55; cf. Mk 6:3). Jesus practised his father’s trade.

The Greek term tekton, used to specify Joseph’s work, has been translated in various ways. The Latin Fathers of the Church rendered it as “carpenter”. But let us bear in mind that in the Palestine of Jesus’ time, wood was used not only to make ploughs and various pieces of furniture, but also to build houses, which had wooden frames and terraced roofs made of beams connected with branches and earth.

Therefore, “carpenter” or “joiner” was a generic qualification, indicating both woodworkers and craftsmen engaged in activities related to construction. It was quite a hard job, having to work with heavy materials such as wood, stone, and iron. From an economic point of view, it did not ensure great earnings, as can be deduced from the fact that when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, they offered only a couple of turtledoves or pigeons (cf. Lk 2:24), as the Law prescribed for the poor (cf. Lv 12:8).

The young Jesus thus learned this trade from his father. Therefore, when he began to preach as an adult, his astonished neighbours asked: “But where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?” (Mt 13:54), and were scandalized by him (cf. v. 57), because he was the son of the carpenter, but he spoke like a doctor of the law, and they were scandalized by this.

This biographical fact about Joseph and Jesus makes me think of all the workers in the world, especially those who do gruelling work in mines and in some factories; those who are exploited through undocumented work; the victims of labour: we have seen a lot of this in Italy recently; children who are forced to work and those who rummage among the trash in search of something useful to trade….

Let me repeat what I said: the hidden workers, the workers who do hard labour in mines and in some factories: let’s think of them: about those who are exploited with undocumented work, those who are paid in contraband, on the sly, without a pension, without anything. And if you do not work, you have no security. And today there is a lot of undocumented work. Let us think of the victims of work, of work accidents, of the children who are forced to work: this is terrible! A child at the age of play should be playing. Instead, they are forced to work like adults! Let us think about those poor children who rummage in the dumps to look for something useful to trade. All these are our brothers and sisters, who earn their living this way: with jobs that do not give them dignity! Let us think about this. And this is happening today, in the world. This is happening today.

But I think too of those who are out of work. How many people go knocking on the doors of factories, of businesses [asking]: “Is there anything to do?” — “No, there isn’t, there isn’t. Lack of work! [I think] of those who feel wounded in their dignity because they cannot find this work. They return home: “Have you found something?” — “No, nothing… I went to Caritas and I brought bread”. What gives dignity is not bringing bread home. You can get it from Caritas — no, this does not give you dignity. What gives you dignity is earning bread — and if we do not give our people, our men and women, the ability to earn bread, there is a social injustice in that place, in that nation, in that continent. Leaders must give everyone the possibility of earning bread, because this ability to earn gives them dignity. Work is an anointing of dignity. And this is important.

Many young people, many fathers and mothers experience the ordeal of not having a job that allows them to live serenely. They live day to day. And how often the search for work becomes so desperate that it drives them to the point of losing all hope and the desire to live. In these times of pandemic, many people have lost their jobs — we know this — and some, crushed by an unbearable burden, reached the point of taking their own lives. I would like to remember each of them and their families today. Let us take a moment of silence, remembering these men, these women, who are desperate because they cannot find work.

Not enough consideration is given to the fact that work is an essential component of human life, and even a path of holiness. Work is not only a means of earning a living: it is also a place where we express ourselves, feel useful, and learn the great lesson of concreteness, which helps keep spiritual life from becoming spiritualism. Unfortunately, however, labour is often a hostage to social injustice and, rather than being a means of humanization, it becomes an existential periphery. I often ask myself: With what spirit do we do our daily work? How do we deal with fatigue? Do we see our activity as linked only to our own destiny or also to the destiny of others? In fact, work is a way of expressing our personality, which is relational by its nature. And, work is also a way to express our creativity: each one of us works in their own way, with their own style: the same work but with different styles.

It is good to think about the fact that Jesus himself worked and had learned this craft from Saint Joseph. Today, we should ask ourselves what we can do to recover the value of work; and what contribution we can make, as Church, [to ensure] that work can be redeemed from the logic of mere profit and can be experienced as a fundamental right and duty of the person, which expresses and increases his or her dignity.

Dear brothers and sisters, for all these [reasons], I would like to recite with you today the prayer that Saint Paul VI lifted up to Saint Joseph on 1 May 1969:

O Saint Joseph,
Patron of the Church!
you, who side by side with the Word made flesh,
worked each day to earn your bread,
drawing from Him the strength to live and to toil;
you who experienced the anxiety for the morrow,
the bitterness of poverty, the uncertainty of work:
you who today give the shining example,
humble in the eyes of men
but most exalted in the sight of God:
protect workers in their hard daily lives,
defending them from discouragement,
from negative revolt,
and from pleasure loving temptations;
and keep peace in the world,
that peace which alone can ensure the development of peoples
Amen.


SOURCE

Pope Francis, St Joseph the Carpenter (Vatican.va)

PHOTO

ILO Asia-Pacific, Migrant workers working on a Thai boat, Samut Sakhon, Thailand

Pope Francis reflects on review of life and see-judge-act

Pope Francis met with leaders of the French Specialised Catholic Action movements on 13 January 2022, delivering an important speech in which he reaffirmed the value of the Cardijn see-judge-act and review of life methodology.

Here is his speech:

I greet you all with affection and I thank Archbishop Fonlupt for his kind words. It is a joy for me to receive you on the occasion of your pilgrimage to Rome. Through you, I would also like to greet all the members of the Catholic Action teams in France, and I ask you to assure them of my prayers and my closeness.

It is an old habit for your movements to come and meet the Pope. As early as 1929, my predecessor Pius XI received representatives of Catholic Action and hailed “the renewal and continuation of what was in the first days of Christianity, for the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, (… ) in the cooperation of the laity with the Apostles” in the movement (Audience of June 12, 1929). You have rightly chosen the theme: “Apostles today” for your pilgrimage. I would like to reflect with you on our call to effectively become apostles today, on the basis of the insight given to you by one of the great figures of Catholic Action, Father Cardijn, namely the “review of life”.

When the disciples walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk: 2418-35), they began by remembering the events they had experienced; then they discerned the presence of God in those events; finally, they acted by setting out again to announce the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. See, judge, act: you know these three words well! Let’s take them together.

See. This first stage is essential. It consists in stopping to look at the events that make up our life, which constitute our history as well as our family, cultural and Christian roots. The pedagogy of Catholic Action always begins with a moment of memory, in the strongest sense of the term: an anamnesis, that is to say the fact of understanding with hindsight the meaning of what one is and what was experienced, and to perceive how God was present at every moment.

The fineness and delicacy of the action of the Lord in our lives sometimes prevents us from understanding it at the time, and it takes this distance to grasp its coherence. In the encyclical Fratelli tutti, which your teams have studied, I begin with an inventory of the sometimes worrying situation in our world. It may seem a bit pessimistic, but it is necessary to move forward: “One never progresses without memory, one does not evolve without a complete and luminous memory” (Fratelli tutti, n. 249).

The second step is to judge or, one might say, to discern. This is the moment when we allow ourselves to be questioned and challenged. The key to this stage is recourse to Holy Scripture. It is a matter of allowing our lives to be challenged by the Word of God which, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says, is “living, energetic and sharper than a two-edged sword (…); it judges the intentions and thoughts of the heart” (4:12).

In Fratelli tutti, I chose the parable of the Good Samaritan to question our relationship to the world, to others, and in particular to the poorest. In the encounter between, on the one hand, the events of the world and of our life, and on the other hand, the Word of God, we can discern the Lord’s calls to us.

Through their history, our Catholic Action movements have developed genuine synodal practices, especially in team life which forms the basis of your experience. Our Church has also embarked entirely on a synodal journey, and I am counting on your contribution. Let us remember precisely that synodality is not a simple discussion. It is not an “adjective”. One should never turn the substantiality of life into an adjective.

Synodality is not even the search for majority consensus, that is what a parliament does, as is done in politics. It is not a plan, a program to put in place. No, it is a style to adopt in which the first protagonist is the Holy Spirit who expresses himself first and foremost in the Word of God, read, meditated on and shared together.

Let’s take the concrete image of the cross: it has a vertical arm and a horizontal arm. The horizontal arm is our life, our history, our humanity. The vertical arm is the Lord who comes to visit us through his Word and his Spirit, to give meaning to what we live. To be fixed on the cross of Jesus, as Saint Paul says (cf. Gal 2, 19), is to really accept to put my life under his gaze, to accept this encounter between my poor humanity and his transforming divinity. Please always leave an important place for the Word of God in the life of your teams. Also give a place to prayer, to interiority, to adoration.

We come to our third step: act. The Gospel teaches us that the action, which is in the very name of your movement, should always come from God’s initiative. Saint Mark reports that after the resurrection “the Lord worked with [the Apostles] and confirmed the Word by the signs which accompanied it” (16, 20). Thus, “action belongs to the Lord: it is he who has exclusive rights to it, walking “incognito” in the history we inhabit” (Speech of April 30, 2021 to the members of Italian Catholic Action).

Our role therefore consists in supporting and encouraging the action of God in hearts, by adapting to the reality which is constantly evolving. The people – and I am thinking more particularly of young people – whom your movements reach are not the same as a few years ago. Today, especially in Europe, those who frequent Christian movements are more sceptical of institutions, they seek less binding and more ephemeral relationships.

They are more sensitive to affectivity, and therefore more vulnerable, more fragile than their elders, less rooted in faith, but just as much in search of meaning, truth, and no less generous. It is your mission, as Catholic Action, to join them as they are, to enable them to grow in the love of Christ and neighbour, and to lead them to more concrete commitment so that they become the protagonists of their own lives and the life of the Church, so that the world will be able to change.

Thank you, dear friends, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous service, which the Church needs more than ever, at this time when I so much hope that everyone will find or rediscover the joy of knowing the friendship of Christ and of announcing the Gospel. Asking you to include me in your prayers, I entrust you, those in charge, as well as all the members of your teams, to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, and I give you the Blessing.

READ MORE

Pope Francis: Be effective Apostles rooted in the Word of God (Vatican News)

Pope Francis, Speech to leaders of Catholic Action movements in France (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Evangelisation according to Pope Francis

During his recent trip to Greece, Pope Francis met with priests, religious, seminarians and catechists in the Cathedral of St Dionysius in Athens.

Recalling the example of St Paul preaching to philosophers in the Areopagus, Pope Francis noted that an attitude of acceptance is essential to evangelisation.

Such an attitude “does not try to occupy the space and life of others, but to sow the good news in the soil of their lives; it learns to recognize and appreciate the seeds that God already planted in their hearts before we came on the scene.

“Let us remember that God always precedes us, God always sows before we do. Evangelising is not about filling an empty container; it is ultimately about bringing to light what God has already begun to accomplish,” the pope said.

“He did not tell (the Athenians): ‘You have it all wrong,’ or ‘Now I will teach you the truth.’ Instead, he began by accepting their religious spirit. … He draws from the rich patrimony of the Athenians. The Apostle dignified his hearers and welcomed their religiosity.

“Even though the streets of Athens were full of idols, which had made him ‘deeply distressed,’ Paul acknowledged the desire for God hidden in the hearts of those people, and wanted gently to share with them the amazing gift of faith.”

“The pope finished with a phrase he often uses. Speaking of St. Paul, he said: ‘He did not impose; he proposed.’

As Michael Sean Winters notes in the National Catholic Reporter, “this is the pedagogy of accompaniment.”

“It can scarcely be labeled ‘heretical’ or ‘confusing,’ as some conservatives are wont to do. It is rooted in the example of St Paul. And, as we know from all the biographies of the pope, and from watching him these past years, it is a pedagogy that has allowed him to engage the culture in arresting and profound ways.”

READ MORE

Michael Sean Winters, Pope Francis evangelizes very differently than US conservatives (National Catholic Reporter)

Pope Francis, Meeting with bishops, priests, consecrated persons, seminarians, catechists (Vatican)

Pope Francis and Vatican II vision of Yarra Theological Union


In this article reproduced from the Yarra Theological Union Alumni Digest, Fr Bruce Duncan CSsR, who is retiring as a lecturer at YTU but not from academic life, reflects imaginatively on his “conversations” with Pope Francis.

For some years I have been acting as the literary agent in Australia for Pope Francis, and in a recent phone call I was chatting with him about how so many women and men around YTU were inspired by his writings, and trying to revision the mission of the Gospel today. He was delighted to hear this, and wanted to know more about YTU. I said YTU readily understood his notion of ‘mission’ as attending to the cry of the poor and of the earth, and involved everyone, especially in their civil vocations and roles. As he has said, the church does not exist for itself, but to serve in the tasks of social as well as personal transformation as the metaphor of Reign of God beckons us.

Francesco (he prefers to use first names) asked me how our Plenary Council was going, and if people understood how necessary was synodality, ‘walking together’ as he termed it, to increase transparency, co-responsibility and participation as much as possible. He warmed to his topic, saying that the Catholic Church needed a good ‘shake up’ lest it look like a ‘museum’ or a quaint relic from the past.

He said that we must learn to listen more attentively to the Holy Spirit urging us to extend further our concern to the excluded and the outcasts, as did Jesus. Sadly, Francesco added, not everyone understood what he was talking about, and some were strongly opposed, even among some bishops and cardinals.

I assured him that his writings and words struck a deep resonance in the hearts and minds of YTU people and our sister colleges in the University of Divinity. Many of the teaching staff at YTU and Catholic Theological College were students or worked in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, and were inspired by the astonishing renewal in Scripture studies, moral theology, church history, canon law, philosophy and church social teaching.

Many people felt that Francesco’s initiatives reignited the enthusiasm we once felt with Pope John XXIII and Vatican II.

That was very heartening, said Francesco, since unless more people had a better grasp of Scripture, how and why the Church kept changing over history, and how teachings developed in response to the needs of the time, they would find it hard to understand how important synodality is for renewal in the Church. He explained that he was inviting everyone to learn to critique their life situations, to reflect prayerfully (to ‘discern’) what God’s Holy Spirit might be urging, and then to decide how to change things for the better.

He said this was a process followed in the Latin American Church over the last fifty years. It was linked with the ‘see-judge-act’ method developed by Canon Joseph Cardijn a century ago so that young workers could be strengthened by reflecting on the Gospel to support one another in their
struggle for human rights and social justice. It was a method of personal and social empowerment. Francesco added that he structured many of his own documents explicitly on the see-judge-act method.

I told him that Australia had also experienced Cardijn’s Young Christian Workers Movement which was very strong in Melbourne and beyond from the 1940s. Many of the women and men in the YCW became leaders in church and civil organisations.

Francesco said he had heard that one of the YTU students at the University of Divinity, Stefan Gigacz, had written a remarkable thesis on the life and impact of Cardijn, and asked if he could have a copy. I replied it was awaiting publication, but was available online at
http://theleaven.com.au/ .

Francesco was very happy that YTU and CTC were part of the University of Divinity. He said he too tried to cooperate as fully as possible with other churches and faith traditions, building personal friendships with leaders, respecting differences, listening to one another, and trying to see through the eyes of others. We all have things to learn from others.

Francesco was also delighted to hear that for many years YTU and other colleges have offered units on indigenous issues. He was especially pleased that the University has now established a special Indigenous Studies Centre. He knew from his own experience in Latin America and the Amazon Synod that Indigenous peoples still suffered greatly from colonisation and its consequences. He considered it vital that they take their proper place at the table, with their cultural treasures and stories, and sharing their insights into the ecology of their lands. He hoped all Australians would embrace the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Francesco asked what our University colleges were doing to promote awareness about other great social issues confronting us. He wanted to know if his social encyclical on the climate crisis, Laudato Si’, was being taken seriously in parishes, schools and everywhere. He had prepared the document in consultation with leaders of other Churches, particularly the Greek Orthodox and Anglicans, as the crisis called for decidedly ecumenical and inter-faith responses. He recently instituted a seven-year process of practical action to avert global warming, and asked if YTU and CTC, and perhaps the University of Divinity, were adopting this Laudato Si’ Action Platform, as many other universities were doing.

He considered the threat of ‘catastrophic’ climate change absolutely critical, and was very worried that the Glasgow Summit might fail. Francesco was surprised that Australia, with all its expertise and resources, was such a laggard in addressing climate issues.

Underlying the threat of ecological disaster, Francesco said, was the astonishing and growing inequality among peoples, where some individuals had wealth estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, while millions of others were desperately struggling to survive. When writing Laudato Si’, he had worked closely with leading experts designing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and strongly supported international efforts to reduce hunger and poverty. In many documents, Francesco said he had indicted the extreme free-market ideology, often called ‘neoliberalism’, that was distorting economies everywhere and driving increasing inequality.

Francesco foresaw a promising future for the colleges within the University of Divinity, advancing ecumenical collaboration in helping tackle, under the inspiration of the Scriptures, the unprecedented threats to human wellbeing and life on our planet. He asked if we would pray for him.

Retiring Faculty
Bruce Duncan CSsR
YTU 1986 – 2021

With a background in economics and politics from the University of Sydney, Bruce began teaching in history and social justice studies at Yarra Theological Union in 1986 and over 35 years taught units on Catholic social thought and movements in Australia and overseas, on Liberation Theology, Marxism and Christianity, and war and peace studies.

He was also a member of the Melbourne Catholic Commission for Justice, Development and Peace from 1994 to 2007, and worked part-time with Catholic Social Services Victoria from 1998 to 2007.

He helped found Social Policy Connections as an ecumenical social justice organisation in early 2005, with board members from Anglican, Catholic, Salvation Army and Uniting Church backgrounds. Bruce became director and Mr Peter Whiting president. Its office moved happily into the renovated Study Centre at YTU in 2008. SPC published a monthly online newsletter with six or seven articles a month on current affairs and organised regular public forums and events. Over 16 years, SPC published more than a thousand articles before it closed in 2021.

With encouragement from the Melbourne College of Divinity, SPC established the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy in 2008, with Bruce as the initial Director and former deputy prime minister, Mr Brian Howe its patron. It commissioned research on a range of major issues resulting in book publications. The new University of Divinity reconstituted the Yarra Institute as the Centre for Research on Religion and Social Policy (RASP) in 2016, funding a part-time director to coordinate its work.

Bruce supervised two significant doctorates: one by Dr Race Mathews, with Dr Austin Cooper co-supervisor (2008-13), published by Monash Publishing as Of Labour and Liberty: Distributism in Victoria 1891–1966: and the other by Dr Stefan Gigacz, The Leaven in the Council: Joseph Cardijn and the Jocist Network at Vatican II, published online at http://theleaven.com.au/.

Bruce has been appointed an Honorary Research Fellow within the University of Divinity and intends to continue to write on the interplay between religious views and current social and economic issues.

SOURCE

Yarra Theological Union Alumni Digest (Volume 6, Issue 2: 25 November 2021)

Fair wages needed to fight child labour: Pope

Extreme poverty, the lack of employment that can support a family and desperation are the major drivers of exploitative child labour, Pope Francis told an international conference on the theme “Eradicating Child Labour, Building a Better Future.”

“If we want to stamp out the scourge of child labour, we must work together to eradicate poverty (and) to correct the distortions in the current economic system, which concentrates wealth in the hands of a few,” he said.

“We must encourage nations and the stakeholders of the world of business to create opportunities for decent employment with fair wages that let families meet their needs without their children being forced to work,” he said Nov. 19 during a meeting with people taking part in an international conference on

“We must combine our efforts to promote quality education that is free for everyone in every country, as well as a health care system that is equally accessible to everyone,” he added.

The Vatican COVID-19 Commission of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development supported the conference, which was organised in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The U.N. General Assembly declared 2021 the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour; eliminating exploitative child labour also is one of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

“Progress toward the elimination of child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years with a reversal of the downward trend and numbers reaching 160 million children suffering worldwide of this situation,” which has worsened during the pandemic, the dicastery said on its website, using estimates provided by UNICEF and the International Labor Organisation.

The problem of child labour has nothing to do with age-appropriate chores and work that helps the family or their community and is carried out in their free time, the pope said.

Child labour is exploiting a child within a system of production in today’s globalised economy for the earnings and profits of others, he said.

“It is the denial of a child’s rights to health, education, sound development, including the possibility to play and dream,” he said. “This is tragic. A child who cannot dream, who can’t play, who cannot grow. It is robbing children of their future and, therefore, humanity itself. It is a violation of human dignity.”

The way people relate to children, including how much they respect their human dignity and fundamental rights, “expresses what kind of adults we are and want to be, and what kind of society we want to build,” the pope said.

“It is shocking and disturbing that in today’s economies, whose productive activities rely on technological innovations … the employment of children in work activities persists in every part of the world,” he said.

“Extreme poverty, lack of work and the resulting desperation in families are the factors that expose children most to labour exploitation,” he said.

READ MORE

Pope: To fight child labour, eliminate poverty, give adults fair wages (Southern Cross South Africa)

“Eradicating Child Labour, Building a Better Future” (Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Vatican)

PHOTO

Pxfuel

Mission, ministries and co-responsibility

Thanks to NZ Catholic and Bishop Peter Cullinane, emeritus bishop of Palmerston North, Aotearoa-New Zealand for permission to reproduce this important article.

The front line of the Church’s work is the Christian people whose lives are leaven in the dough of all the ordinary circumstances of ordinary life. The purpose of ministries within the Church is to provide nurture and formation for that mission. It is the mission that matters.

Part I Ministries

For some years, we have all been aware of a growing gap between the number of parishes and the number of priests available to serve in them. This reality serves as a wake-up call, but it is not the basis for greater lay involvement. That involvement has its roots in Baptism and the very nature of the Church. Through Baptism, we are all united to the priestly and prophetic mission of Christ. This is the basis for our shared responsibility for what the Church is and what it does:

“Co-responsibility requires a change in mentality, particularly with regard to the role of the laity in the Church, who should be considered not as ‘collaborators’ with the clergy, but as persons truly ‘co-responsible’ for the being and the activity of the Church . . . ” (Pope Benedict XVI, 10 August 2012).

This is more than just a matter of management, or meeting an emergency. It, too, is rooted in Baptism and the nature of the Church. So why does this require a “change in mentality” if it already belongs to the nature of the Church? History gives the answer. During the first four centuries of the Church, lay people had roles in the liturgy, preached, had a say in the election of bishops and nomination of priests; contributed to the framing of Church laws and customs, prepared matters for, and participated in, Church councils, administered Church properties, etc.

Then, after the conversion of the emperor Constantine and the mass conversions that followed, responsibility shifted one-sidedly into the hands of the clergy. And following the barbarian invasions, responsibility for public order also fell to them. Over following centuries, society came to see priesthood as a profession, with social privilege. During earlier centuries, it had been a point of honour for ministers of the Church to live and look like everyone else.

Perception changed also within the Church. This is perhaps symbolised by the altar being pushed back to the apse of the church, where liturgy became mainly a clerical affair, with diminishing involvement of the laity. Scholarship and better understanding of the early Church would eventually return the liturgy to the whole body of the faithful, and restore roles of pastoral care and administration to lay women and men.

Most see our own day as a time of privileged opportunity for renewal. It is challenging because it involves the need for more personal responsibility, and moving away from the forms of tutelage and guardianship that shaped Church practices right up till the time of Pope Pius XII. Others feel safer clinging to that recent past, often misunderstanding the meaning of “Tradition”.

Part II Mission

In Christ, God became immersed in human life; showed us how to live it, destined us to its fullness, and sent the Holy Spirit to draw us into what Christ did for us. That is God’s purpose, and the Church can have no other – “Humanity is the route the Church must take” (Pope John Paul II).

How we do this comes down to how we “do” love. There is a loving that does not go deep enough to transform society. It works at the level of what seems fair and reasonable and deserving. This is what governments are properly concerned with. Society must do better, and the Church’s mission is to be the leaven in society. It deals with a deeper kind of loving – love that is not limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved.

As Church, we are uniquely placed to do this because, in the person, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus, we see love that is unconditional, undeserved, and unstinting. When we love as we have been loved, our love becomes a circuit breaker – precisely because it is not calculating and limited to what seems fair and reasonable and deserved. Running through family life, civic life, industrial, commercial and political life, this kind of love “changes everything”. It brings about a way of living – of being human – that is true to what God made us for.

But, note, it starts with seeing God’s love for us – contemplative seeing! Christians have the least excuse for not recognising the intrinsic link between contemplation and working for social justice because, in celebrating Eucharist, they move from contemplating God’s extraordinary love for us to receiving and becoming the body broken for others and the blood (life) poured out for others.

This is how faith makes a decisive difference to all of human life, while fully respecting the rightful autonomy of everything that is properly secular. In the midst of life, God is drawing us towards the fulfilment of our own deepest yearnings, and wonderfully more, involving God’s purpose for the whole of creation.

On that understanding of “the route the Church must take”, we come to know what ministries are needed to nurture us for that mission, and what kind of formation is needed for those ministries.

Part III Formation

To be involved in the processes of making our lives more truly human is a wonderful mission. So what kind of formation is needed for ministries that serve that mission?

Writing about the formation needed for priests, Pope John Paul II said it needs to be “human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral”, and went on to say that continuing formation was a matter of a priest’s faithfulness to his ministry, of love for the people, and in the proper sense a matter of justice, given the people’s rights (Pastores Dabo Vobis, 70).

Commenting on some of the characteristics of human formation, the Congregation for the Clergy explicitly singled out the specific contribution of women, “not only for the seminarians’ personal life, but also with a view to their future pastoral activity” (Ratio Fundamentalis, 95). The congregation’s reference was to Pope John Paul’s emphasis on “what it means to speak of the ‘genius of women’, not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God’s plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated, but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well as in the life of the Church; (Letter to Women, 1995, 10).

In our country, women have been carrying out significant roles at both Holy Cross Seminary and Good Shepherd College for some years. What still needs to be developed, however, are ways of allowing parishioners generally to play a bigger part, both in seminarians’ formation and in the discernment of their vocation. Those who will live with the results of formation, for better or for worse, should have a say in that formation and the selection of candidates.

Programmes for the formation of lay women and men for parish ministries already exist, and I leave it to others to comment on them. My concern here is with a very specific feature needed in Church leadership – both lay and ordained. It is needed all the more because general education in our country has been gradually reduced to learning mainly practical skills. Skills, both human/relational and technological, properly belong within education, but not more so than the deeper aspects of what it means to be human. Even when we know how to do the things necessary for successful living, we still need to know what ultimately gives meaning to it all.

Knowing that one’s life has a purpose can make the difference between surviving, or not surviving, life’s toughest times. The will to live needs a reason to live. The need I am pointing to is the need for leaders who are “in the service of meaning” (Ratcliffe). This is what it means, in practice, to be ministers of God’s Word. Knowing how much we mean to God is the most important thing we can know about ourselves, and is truly life-giving.

Within a culture that has become superficial, reductionist and utilitarian, one of the ways we are in the service of meaning is by knowing how to identify flaws within that culture, especially where important aspects of daily life are devalued by becoming disconnected from what gives them their meaning, or at least their full meaning. Formation will be incomplete unless it is formation “in the service of meaning”.

Part IV     Where to start? 

 I referred to the increasing gap between the number of our parishes and the number of priests. Simply combining parishes, whether for the sake of having a parish priest in every parish, or out of due concern for future financial resourcing, does not resolve the problem because ultimately everything depends on pastoral effectiveness and enlivening.  

 An alternative to combining parishes is available where Church law allows for the pastoral care of parishes to be entrusted to lay people, with a priest appointed to provide general supervision (canon 517/2), usually from another parish. We already experience the insufficiency of suitable priests, which is what justifies recourse to this canon. Of course, where this happens, priests are still required for sacramental ministry. It is possible that some priests might even prefer that kind of role, leaving management of the parish to a team of qualified lay women and men. Lay leadership of parishes requires proper formation – of parish and leaders – and proper remuneration.  

 Yet another starting point for renewal can be found in the experience of small base communities pioneered by the Church in some countries in South America and Asia. Of course, we cannot simply transfer other local churches’ experience to our situation. But we, too, can establish smaller communities within parishes, where leadership can be shared by teams and on a voluntary basis.  

 Such gatherings would be lay-led, and need no official authorisation. They can happen already, and develop in home-spun ways. 

 The Christian Base Communities in South American countries grew out of lay people coming together to pray and reflect on the Scriptures and on their life situations, using the Catholic Action principle: “see, judge, act”.  Their aim was a more just society and more truly human life for everyone – “the route the Church must take”. If this were happening in our own country, we could ask the kind of questions they asked: what are the causes of poverty in our country, and what can we do about those causes? Indeed, this is an appropriate level at which to analyse whatever flaws in our culture leave us less able to deal with the epic issues of our time – those that degrade human life, human dignity, human rights, and the planet itself. 

 Addressing those issues – through the lenses of divine revelation – is itself a way of participating in the mission of the Church. It is a good place to start because it is already do-able; it can be inclusive of those who feel unable to participate in other aspects of the Church’s life; it does not need clerical leadership or control, but makes room for ordained priesthood to present itself as a supporting ministry; it can model shared leadership, and lead to whatever forms of ministry might need to come next.   

 It is also a way of being Church that is “synodal”, (being “on the road together”).  The larger gatherings that we call “synods” presuppose the experience of walking and working together before we are ready for the decisions we gather to make at synods. It also gives scope and opportunity for the participation of many who will not be at the synods. 

Part V    What More?  

 Pope Francis has rightly said: “The Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures all need to be channelled for what best serves the Church’s mission of evangelising the world”; (Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, 27).  

To act on that would make big differences. Yet, even these changes are “small change” compared with where the Church has already been, and can yet go. Bigger changes rightly need wider consultation. And synodality is pointless if it isn’t about the road ahead and exploring what might yet be. 

Ministry that is authorised to speak and act in Christ’s name has its origin in Christ’s historical intentions. But its structure and concrete forms were determined by the Church during the apostolic period and after, continuing until late in the second century. What the Church gave shape to after the apostolic period, it can give different shape to now. Being faithful to the Tradition involves more than just receiving what the early Church did; it involves doing what the early Church did: it shaped its ministries to meet the needs of its mission.  

So long as the fullness of ordained responsibility remains intact – as in the college of bishops with and under the bishop of Rome – lesser participations in ordained ministry can be redistributed. The “powers” presently distributed within the three ministries of bishop, presbyter and deacon would live on, but enshrined within a wider variety of ordained ministries. This would open up significant new pastoral opportunities, and incorporate a wider range of charisms into ordained ministry. 

Whatever about that, 50 years ago, the International Theological Commission said  “It is urgent to create much more diversified structures of the Church’s pastoral action as regards both its ministries and its members, if the Church is to be faithful to its missionary and apostolic vocation.”  (The Priestly Ministry, pp 99,100). 

SOURCE AND PHOTO

Bishop Peter Cullinane, Mission, Ministries and co-responsibility (NZ Catholic)

Bishop Peter Cullinane, Mission, ministries and co-responsibility (part two) (NZ Catholic)

End monopolistic systems: Pope Francis

In a powerful speech to the Fourth World Meeting of Popular Movements, Pope Francis has insisted that while personal change is necessary, “it is also indispensable to adjust our socio-economic models so that they have a human face, because many models have lost it.”

Pope Francis continues:

And thinking about these situations, I make a pest of myself with my questions. And I go on asking. And I ask everyone in the name of God.

I ask all the great pharmaceutical laboratories to release the patents. Make a gesture of humanity and allow every country, every people, every human being, to have access to the vaccines. There are countries where only three or four per cent of the inhabitants have been vaccinated.

In the name of God, I ask financial groups and international credit institutions to allow poor countries to assure “the basic needs of their people” and to cancel those debts that so often are contracted against the interests of those same peoples.

In the name of God, I ask the great extractive industries — mining, oil, forestry, real estate, agribusiness — to stop destroying forests, wetlands and mountains, to stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop poisoning food and people.

In the name of God, I ask the great food corporations to stop imposing monopolistic systems of production and distribution that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry.

In the name of God, I ask arms manufacturers and dealers to completely stop their activity, because it foments violence and war, it contributes to those awful geopolitical games which cost millions of lives displaced and millions dead.

In the name of God, I ask the technology giants to stop exploiting human weakness, people’s vulnerability, for the sake of profits without caring about the spread of hate speech, grooming, fake news, conspiracy theories, and political manipulation.

In the name of God, I ask the telecommunications giants to ease access to educational material and connectivity for teachers via the internet so that poor children can be educated even under quarantine.

In the name of God, I ask the media to stop the logic of post-truth, disinformation, defamation, slander and the unhealthy attraction to dirt and scandal, and to contribute to human fraternity and empathy with those who are most deeply damaged.

In the name of God, I call on powerful countries to stop aggression, blockades and unilateral sanctions against any country anywhere on earth. No to neo-colonialism. Conflicts must be resolved in multilateral fora such as the United Nations. We have already seen how unilateral interventions, invasions and occupations end up; even if they are justified by noble motives and fine words.

This system, with its relentless logic of profit, is escaping all human control. It is time to slow the locomotive down, an out-of-control locomotive hurtling towards the abyss. There is still time,” the pope said.

WATCH THE VIDEO

IV World Meeting of Popular Movements (Vatican News/YouTube)

READ THE FULL SPEECH

Video message to the Fourth World Meeting of Popular Movements (Vatican.va)

Greg Crafter now a papal knight

Greg Crafter

Congratulations for former Adelaide YCW leader and national extension worker, Greg Crafter, for his appointment by Pope Francis as a Knight of the Order of St Gregory the Great.

Greg later practised law in Adelaide before entering the South Australian Parliament as the Labor member for the seat of Norwood. He also served for seven years as the Minister for Education in that state.

Greg continued his involvement in his local parish and the Adelaide Archdiocese, including chair of the Clergy Care Council, chair of the Diocesan Finance Council and as a member of the Order of Malta.

At a national level, he served as chair of the National Catholic Education Commission for seven years during a period of complex political engagement with the Federal Government, which led to long-term funding benefits for Catholic schools across Australia.

He was a director of the Little Company of Mary, which runs Calvary Health Care across Australia, for nine years, and has been involved in fundraising for the Mary Potter Hospice and Mary MacKillop Museum in Adelaide.

In 2015 he was appointed by the Bishops Conference to the Truth, Justice and Healing Council which was established by the Australian bishops to liaise with the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

In the wider community, he has held a number of positions on key government boards including the South Australian Housing Trust, was president of the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organisation and a member of the Council of the University of Adelaide which awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contribution to education.

Greg also played a key role in the fundraising campaign to host the International YCW World Council held in Adelaide in November – December 1991.

In 2011, he co-authored a paper with current ACI president, Brian Lawrence, proposing the establishment of a Cardijn Institute in Australia, a proposal that has now come to fruition with the Australian Cardijn Institute.

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Pope honours South Australians (CathNews)

PHOTO

Southern Cross