Newsday http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/campbell-francis-challenges-catholics-to-live-the-gospels-1.7370525

Campbell: Francis challenges Catholics to live the Gospels

Published: March 12, 2014 3:43 PM
By SIMONE CAMPBELL

In a recent interview with an Italian newspaper, Pope Francis warned against calling him a “superman” or “star,” deeming the descriptions offensive. He is, he said, a normal man who laughs, cries and has friends.

And yet, people around the globe respond enthusiastically to him as if he alone can satisfy a deep hunger for a renewed Roman Catholic Church focused on Gospel messages of compassion, inclusiveness and mercy.

The truth is, no single individual can satisfy our spiritual hunger. The challenges are too great: sexual-abuse scandals, Vatican financial misconduct and the perception that the church is deeply disconnected from those it is supposed to serve.

Pope Francis has reached out to everyone — particularly those who are struggling — and made it clear that all of us Catholics are to be part of the transformation. Not easy, but he helps pave the way by calling us to be joyful believers in the power of the Gospel. Joyful . . . not fearful people focused on sin and punishment, as many of us have been of late.

His apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” published in November, highlights his views of the change he is leading in the church and in the world. He is trying to build the peace Jesus gave to the Apostles. He challenges us to end turf battles, whether they be within Vatican offices or elsewhere, and embrace processes that bring us together. He knows that the heart hungers for unity and we must open the door to make that happen for each of us.

He also tells us that reality — read, real people’s lives — is more important than any theoretical construct. This is critical for social justice advocates like myself as we work to apply faith to lived reality. Stories told us by parents struggling to feed their families break our hearts and cause us to grow in a way that a federal budget battle or a Congressional Budget Office report never will.

And finally, he states that building peace requires inclusion of all because individual shapes are needed to form the whole. Each of us matters.

Some skeptics want him to immediately focus on church structural issues such as the role of women and shared decision-making. While critically important, these issues cannot be resolved without first engaging in spiritual conversion.

It won’t be easy. Almost everyone resists, seeking to assign blame for individual failings to others. Pope Francis understands such resistance, but he is engaged in leading the transformation. Simple acts like living in a modest communal residence and personally calling people reaching out for help directly connect him to the world. This is transformational for a church hierarchy accustomed to palaces, fancy capes and inaccessibility.

By focusing on everyone, Pope Francis seeks to heal barriers that separate us. He calls us to connect our spiritual lives with the real world around us and to live out our spirituality by being justice-makers. This requires political engagement for the common good.

By asking us to open ourselves to the movement of the Spirit, he has created deep challenges for us. We cannot authentically connect with others until we acknowledge pain and injustice that have wounded so many. We must let our hearts be broken by injustices we witness, weep together, and atone for our previous inaction or participation before we can truly experience conversion. Pope Francis calls us to this cleansing act, leading to forgiveness and new life.

We must all participate with him in renewing ourselves and our world in the Spirit — for that is the Gospel’s call.

Sister Simone Campbell is the executive director of Network, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and author of “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community.”

In a week of 5,000 postcards, 40 hours of work, 13 hours of Texan filibustering, 11 Senate office visits, 5 Starbucks trips, 4 major Supreme Court decisions, 3 wrong stops on the Metro, 2 Congressional sittings, and more weight gained because of delicious food truck lunches than I’m willing to admit, at first glance my first week interning with NETWORK would appear to boil down to the number one—one successfully Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Having never worked in federal politics, my knowledge of Washington came almost exclusively from The West Wing and The New York Times. When imbibing information from these kinds of sources, certain nuances get lost. For me, Washington became the manifestation of pure belief in statistics.

In a town seemingly obsessed with numbers and among people who rely upon figures to write policies, vote on legislation, and even to understand themselves, I wondered how I would fit in amidst the figures. As I rode the bus to work I thought back to the emails I had received in the weeks before arriving: “think federal budget, taxes, and debt limit.” The email seemed to confirm my suspicions: everything in Washington boiled down to numbers.

My boss told me to prepare myself for work on appropriations and taxation, which would—theoretically—shake out over the course of my stay Washington. I wondered what, aside from making coffee and drafting meeting minutes, I could add to anything so calculated and divisive.

You see, numbers and I never seemed to get along. I never could sit through a math class without my mind drifting and I decided upon History and English for majors in college in part to escape math. In short, the sum total of my mathematical capabilities is my parlor-room trick of doing simple computation in my head. And even though I’d spent years arguing for social change and studying America’s political movements, the concept of belonging to such an official and intense political community felt foreign. I wondered how long it would take before they spotted the intern.

Although the answer to that question proved to be “not long,” it was soon overshadowed by the mountain of work left before the truly life-altering decision on comprehensive immigration reform. I walked into the office to be put to work almost directly. I was thrust into meetings on strategy and development before I’d even figured out where the bathroom was.

And then, before my very eyes, my intern life began. I quickly discovered that as the NETWORK program “Nuns on the Bus” travelled around the country rallying the public around comprehensive immigration reform, the fleet of fervent advocates implored listeners to mail in NETWORK postcards to show their Members of Congress. These postcards, eventually estimated at 5000 in total, found their way to my desk. To ensure that all three affiliated elected officials saw the personal notes, we copied them twice over and delivered each by hand; my job, seemingly mundane but actually critical, was to man the photocopier for two days. By the end of day two we had organized, photocopied, and cut each postcard for delivery and delivered them to Senate offices with the same hope of success as the original sender.

In the end, the thousands of postcards and hundreds of hours of labor contributed to two final numbers: 68-32. These two numbers will prove extremely significant. On a personal level, the statistic represents a victory for NETWORK and the apparent successful culmination of my contribution to the campaign; on the national stage, the figure will inevitably change the course of millions of lives. Over 11 million undocumented workers will be given a brighter pathway to citizenship.

While the 68-32 figure may have allowed our nation sorely-overdue room to grow, the values cannot and will not encapsulate the significance of this vote. As I spent hours alphabetizing, moving, photocopying, and stacking the post cards we received, I saw the statistical value of the cards fade into the background. While the size was impressive and the campaign’s manpower was wide-reaching, I became fascinated with the capital we weren’t calculating.

Largely lost between their mailing and our reception was the idea of effort. While the questions we asked were basic contact information, the reality behind each postmark was the level of passion needed to fill out the card at all. In this town the distinction between keen interest and direct act seems less blurred than before. Without people committed to direct action, those individuals willing to fill out postcards or attend our “Nuns on the Bus” events, the passion we have would prove little more than a whisper in the halls of Congress. As we tabulated the size of each stack and the logistics of delivery, the personal almost got lost in the numerical.

Each postcard carried with it a message, some simple—“comprehensive immigration reform now!”—and others more personal; one person even filled out all of the personal information questions with the word “undocumented,” scrawling “help me get out of the shadows” near the edge of the card. The stories and calls for change from around the country were housed on those cards and, by photocopying them and delivering them to senators, I helped connect constituents to representatives.

Just like my understanding of Congress, my knowledge of the inner-workings of the Metro system, and my inability to avoid the food trucks near Union Station, I recognize that the bill adopted by the Senate is imperfect. With 48 amendments and plans that create a climate of militarization along one of our borders, the bill feels to me like progress and not perfection.

I feel much the same about my assumptions about Washington and my potential here at NETWORK. Although statistics eventually determined the fate of this bill, I’ve come to see that in the heart of downtown Washington the political climate is warmer than the cold, hard statistics of appropriations bills and approval ratings, and this political community more sentimentally connected than it seems. In reality, Washington is a hybrid, a creature that feeds on both statistics and sentiment. And maybe I can lend a hand to the mighty task of infusing life back into statistics and increasing socially-conscious funding to the point that they can change the world. It won’t be perfect, it most likely won’t be pretty either, but it will be progress.

In the end, even the highlights of the last week cannot parse out figure from feeling. 11 million people—the comprehensive immigration reform bill is a promise to 11 million people. The legislation I had even the slightest hand in promoting is one step closer to helping millions of members in American society gain citizenship, and I read the words and saw the widespread passion of the American electorate; these are the moments I feel proud to call my own.

I am working this summer as an intern for NETWORK. I have been assigned to do environmental research, and I’ll be doing a weekly blog throughout the summer on my findings. My overall goals are: to define climate change, to define the way that change is affecting people in poverty in the United States, to explore how its effects relate to Catholic social teaching, and to research ways to address the problem.

In the past, advocacy for legislation regulating America’s effect on the world environment has primarily come from environmental interest groups. I would like to clarify the misconception that climate change only adversely affects rainforests and many animal species; our nation too often focuses exclusively on this aspect of climate change and not on the damage being done to humans. The change in the climate has a disproportionate effect on people at the economic margins. Moreover, the increasing frequency of natural disasters is forcing the displacement of large populations across borders and people are struggling to find homes. Citizens of certain island nations will see their country completely submerged within our lifetimes. We have a moral imperative to counter the threats posed by the increasing intensity of droughts and other natural disasters.

We are called to be stewards of the earth and protect human dignity, and by disregarding our obligation to protect the gifts we have been blessed with, we endanger our lives and our morality. In my blog posts, I hope to provide convincing information from a variety of sources, combined with real and creative solutions to the dilemmas caused by our rapidly changing earth. If you have specific questions, please feel free to email me at[email protected].

Blog Post #1 – Global Warming: The Vicious Cycle

Blog Post #2 – Environmental Justice: A Vital Part of Catholic Social Teaching

Blog Post #3 – The Basics of Renewable Energy

Blog Post #4 – Some New and Inspiring Solutions

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a report on April 18, 2012 that is highly critical of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). The report, as well as the news release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, also implicates NETWORK, in that it calls for a review of LCWR’s affiliation with NETWORK along with reform of LCWR. (See www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-062e.cfm)

Since NETWORK was founded by women religious (a.k.a. Catholic sisters) 40 years ago, we have maintained a close relationship with LCWR. We will continue our solidarity as we continue to serve people who are marginalized, and advocate for human dignity and the common good. We do not know what the future holds, but we will not let our voice be silenced.

Many people are asking what they can do during this uncertain time in our church and our nation. We offer this partial list of suggestions, confident that people will find other creative ideas as we all pay attention to the Spirit moving among us.

• Reflect and pray
• Stay connected with NETWORK and make your faith voice heard in the public square. Go towww.networklobby.org and click on the “Join our email list” box in the right column to sign up.
• Participate in “Election 2012: Catholics Vote for the Common Good” — Sign the National Preamble and find other ways to get involved at http://commongood2012.org/
• Donate to NETWORK (www.networklobby.org/donate)  and LCWR (www.lcwr.org)
• Tell the stories about the work Catholic sisters are doing.
• Use social media – Facebook and Twitter – to share your thoughts
  www.facebook.com/networklobby
  www.facebook.com/SupportOurCatholicSisters
  Use Twitter hashtags #SupportOurSisters and #WhatSistersMeanToMe
• Write something about NETWORK on the “great nonprofits” website:http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/profile2/the-network
• Write letters-to-the-editor to local newspapers and/or national magazines – respond to articles about the needs of people and show how Catholic women respond. See http://capwiz.com/networklobby/dbq/media/for media contact information.
• Write to the USCCB: www.usccb.org/about/contact-us.cfm or 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017
• Write to your bishop — see www.usccb.org/about/bishops-and-dioceses/all-dioceses.cfm for addresses
• See http://ncronline.org/SistersUnderScrutiny for latest news and links

On Wednesday a group of housekeepers with the UNITE HERE union visited the NETWORK office. We listened to their stories of exploitative working conditions at various hotels around the country. Several of the women discussed the long hours working at backbreaking speeds for no overtime pay; high stress conditions; the lack of appropriate work tools for housekeepers which has led to chronic pain; and an unsafe environment.

Their visit was part of a larger campaign- Breaking the Silence. This national campaign aims to raise awareness to the many abusive practices that housekeepers must face every day and create safer worker conditions .

“Hotel housekeepers- overwhelmingly women, immigrants, and people of color- are the invisible backbone of the hotel industry…The women who work as housekeepers routinely face a broader spectrum of dangers at work, from sexual harassment to the debilitating injuries that many women sustain after years of making beds and scrubbing floors…. Sexual assault is one of a range of hazards that housekeepers experience. The rate of injury among hotel workers is 25 percent higher than among service workers overall. Among hotel workers, housekeepers have the highest rate of injury—50 percent higher than hotel workers overall.

Their campaign is garnering support for unionization and a number of “common sense preventative measures to make their work safer, such as increased security staff, working in teams, and replacing the traditional dress uniform with a pants and tunic uniform. In addition, the union fully supports two pieces of legislation recently introduced in New York that would 1) provide panic buttons to employees to use in case of emergency 2) require hotel and motel owners and operators to provide comprehensive sexual harassment awareness training.”

For more information on safety concerns that housekeepers face, visit www.hotelworkersrising.org/injuries/.

Booking a hotel room? You can use this guide to find a union hotel where UNITE HERE members are employed. You’ll be supporting good union jobs and safer conditions for housekeepers! Click here to find out what hotels to avoid on our boycott list.

Catholic Social Teaching, starting with Pope Leo XIII’s famous encyclical Rerum Novarum and continuing through the many papal encyclicals and the teachings of bishops’ conferences throughout the world, to the most recent encyclical last week of Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, is the source of my beliefs on social justice. Actually, there is little, if anything, in these writings, that isn’t part of Christ’s own teachings and life example, as the pastor of my parish is fond of saying.

Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) led me to NETWORK

It is love of these teachings that impelled me to join the Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) after retiring from work in both the private and public sectors. The IVC is a national organization (with 16 regional groups throughout the country) that partners with various agencies that either serve those who are poor and marginalized, believe strongly that their voice should be heard, or advocates with them, as NETWORK does. As a member of IVC, I have had the opportunity to tutor disadvantaged kids in grades six through eight who were falling behind in their studies; serve homeless people who live on the streets at drop-in day centers; serve in various capacities at actual homeless shelters, and, for the past two years, do research to assist NETWORK’s lobbyists and blog for the NETWORK website.

Unfortunately, my service at NETWORK is ending (this is my last blog), but I will continue to work for greater social justice through IVC at another agency, whose identity I do not know yet. It has been a great privilege to contribute to NETWORK’s important mission of lobbying on issues critical to social justice causes, and to get to know a number of wonderful people who labor in this vineyard of love. There is so much to be done before thevoice of all can be heard in their local communities, in their local governments, in the halls of Congress.

About the IVC

People in IVC must be 50 or older, be available for part-time work (about two days a week), and stimulated to serve those on the margins of society. There is also a strong spiritual component in IVC – more on this below. As a result, IVC has former foreign-service officers, military, laborers, lawyers, contractors, professionals, managers, scientists, housewives, and workers from every walk of life you can imagine. These are the people who volunteer to teach English-as-a-second-language, to tutor kids, to care for abandoned children, to work with those in prison, those who are dying, people who are homeless and very elderly people. They also work with people in hospice, immigrants, refugees, and others, too numerous to mention — as well as advocate with them and anyone whose voice is undeard. Many of our IVC members also provide indirect service to marginalized people by serving in an administrative capacity.

So what is IVC’s spiritual component? Remember that we are the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, so we derive much of our spirituality from Ignatius and the Jesuits, although most of us agree that our spirituality is Christian. It should be pointed out that our membership is primarily Christian because our numbers include a small number of Protestants. We are members of the world church – White, Black, Latino/a, Asian – who believe that the Jesuit charism, especially as it has unfolded since Vatican II, embraces all aspects of social justice that have been emphasized in Catholic Social Teaching.

Among the many spiritual opportunities afforded to IVC members are two retreats and one Day of Recollection annually, a spiritual reflector (director) with whom we can take a more intense spiritual journey (each region has numerous reflectors available for members), if that is desired, and monthly small-group meetings (some regions have as many as four or five) during which we discuss our service ministries, Scripture and a book on contemporary theology, social justice or Ignatian spirituality. Many members have said that the spiritual component of IVC is not only the highlight of their membership, but also prevents “burn-out” from squandering their ministry. And I agree.

I have to admit that among the many issues of social justice, I am especially concerned about the availability of sufficient “affordable housing” for poor individuals and families both in my community as well as nationwide. This interest accounts for my nine years of service at homeless shelters and has impelled my membership in the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).

NLIHC is an all-round advocate of housing for the poor and vulnerable members of our communities. It also provides major support for the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF), a fund that would largely assist extremely-low-income residents of a locale to afford housing. As of June 23 (yesterday), the Senate Appropriations Committee had left the NHTF intact during its deliberations over the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget, but had gutted other aspects of housing for low-income individuals and families. Sequestration has done further damage. When events like this happen, it merely makes me more determined to convince other members of Congress, through emails or calls, to vote in opposition to damagin.

My Farewell

Enough of my special issue! Your journey will be different than mine. I encourage everyone interested in social justice to determine what impels you to desire justice for others. Once you have chosen your specialty, go for it! Get involved, to the extent possible, and make your mark, whether that be in your neighborhood, your larger community, or the national stage. There can never be too many people who are ardent practitioners of Catholic Social Teachings. As I said in my title, working for social justice is the only way we can ensure that all voices are heard. And thank you for being a reader of my blogs.