Catholic Social Teaching | Keeping Faith Today

Tag Archives: Catholic Social Teaching

Jesus for President

Photo via Flickr user Jared Budlong

Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they answered. So Jesus told them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” And they were unable to trap Him in His words before the people; and astonished at His answer, they fell silent. –Luke 20:24-26

A billboard popped up all over my city on the 4th of July. The background is red and blue, with three white stars across the top. JESUS is spelled out in huge, white letters. Across the bottom it says [A Christian radio station] supports this message.

My knee-jerk reaction upon reading the billboard was to groan loudly and roll my eyes. I support the separation of church and state and see how often Jesus gets tied into a God bless America agenda that is sometimes at the expense of people in other countries or people who practice other religions. Sojourners created a bumper sticker that read, “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat” as a response to this subtle hint of Jesus being American or taking political sides. “God Bless the Whole World. No Exceptions” is another bumper sticker made in response to the red, white and blue Jesus Christ.

I’m sure the radio station was just trying to be clever. You can’t blame them for running that ad on the 4th of July during a presidential election year. I’m sure it will be quite effective. As I continue to see it around town, however, I can’t help but go to a place where they are inserting Jesus into a political campaign in an unhelpful way. Jesus has a lot to do with how I vote, yet I do think we should carefully talk about the distinction between what makes good law and personal faith. What makes an effective politician who can put into law a structure that supports vulnerable people is fairly distinct from my choice to follow Jesus as my Lord.

It’s hard. Our system is broken. There is never a perfect candidate. Yet Catholic Social Teaching pleads with us to be engaged citizens who enter into politics in a meaningful way, not sidestep the process. Law matters. Good policy speaks up for the voiceless in our society. Fair legislation puts people before profit and promotes the common good. We are living in a season when our faith is calling us to both continue to follow Jesus with passion and to enter into the secular political process, to hold our politicians to a higher standard for the betterment of us all.

Tags: 4th of July, Catholic Social Teaching, common good, community, Ellie Roscher, engaged citizenship, fair legislation, good law, Keeping Faith Today, personal faith, politics, Republicans and Democrats

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Catholic Social Teaching, Ellie Roscher, Faith In Action, Keeping Faith Today, Our World Today, Reflections, Uncategorized
Author Ellie Roscher

Care for Creation

19 Jun

Photo via Flickr user Travis Morgan

What better time than during the beauty of summer to reflect on the gift of God’s creation and our role in it. After Pope Francis’ summit on global warming at the Vatican, he plans to to issue the first-ever papal encyclical on climate change and its effect on the world’s poor. The news has tended to focus on the fact that the contents of the document were leaked. However, I’m interested in the content of the encyclical. Pope Francis writes that the Earth

“is protesting for the wrong that we are doing to her, because of the irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God has placed on her. We have grown up thinking that we were her owners and dominators, authorized to loot her. The violence that exists in the human heart, wounded by sin, is also manifest in the symptoms of illness that we see in the Earth, the water, the air and in living things.”

His statements are in line with Care for God’s Creation as one of the seven tenants of Catholic Social Teaching. We are stewards of the Earth, which is a gift from God. Pope Francis calls all people to take a look at their energy consumption and make lifestyle changes that care for our common home.

Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God’s prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him. —On the Hundredth Year

Care for the Earth is in relationship to our care for other people. We are called to care for the Earth for the sake of our children and in the realization that the effects of climate change most severely affect the vulnerable members of our global community. This encyclical is timely and specific, asking us to eliminate those things obstructing real change:

“The attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.”

It will be interesting to watch the global reaction to the encyclical, yes, but I am also taking it as challenge on a personal level to evaluate my own lifestyle choices while celebrating nature.

Tags: Care for God's Creation, Care for the Earth, Catholic Social Teaching, climate change, Ellie Roscher, encyclical, global warming, God, God's creation, Keeping Faith Today, On the Hundredth Year, Pope Francis, stewards of the Earth

Categories Ellie Roscher, Keeping Faith Today, Our World Today, Uncategorized
Author Ellie Roscher

Loving God and Neighbor

25 Oct

From the Spirit 4 Teens blog:

via Flickr user Alvaro Canivell

“One cannot honor another person without blessing God who created the person. One cannot adore God without loving all God’s creatures.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2069

Loving our neighbors as ourselves is another way of expressing the golden rule — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The golden rule challenges us to develop empathy — the ability to feel with others. To empathize is to walk in our neighbor’s shoes, to put ourselves in their place. Catholic social teaching rests on the principle that every human person is sacred, made in God’s image and likeness, possessing inalienable rights to life and its basics. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor. We cannot love our neighbors without listening and learning their culture. Loving our neighbors is vital to becoming our whole selves.

Some ideas for putting your faith in action include inviting neighbors of diverse cultures in your area to visit your groups and talk about their lives, values, and dreams, practicing empathy consciously for a day — put yourself in the shoes of people you dislike or dismiss, talk to a coworker you don’t know every day for a week, and visiting the Southern Poverty Law Center to explore and use the center’s 101 Tools for Tolerance.

Tags: Catholic Social Teaching, community, compassion, Empathy, Golden Rule, Keeping Faith Today, Love your neighbor, Spirit 4 Teens Blog

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Catholic Social Teaching, Faith In Action, Keeping Faith Today, Living The Gospel Today, Our World Today
Author GoodGroundPress

A Vatican II Mini-Course by Joan Mitchell, CSJ

14 Feb

The Second Vatican Council affirmed life in the parish I grew up in—St. Donatus, Brooten, MN. Our pastor from the time I was 12 involved the 55 families in the liturgical movement and the justice that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin advocated in the Catholic Worker. Dorothy Day came to our parish and spoke when I was a sophomore.

In our parish the Eucharist was the Church’s greatest prayer, piety was best expressed in daily Mass, and a scripture passage was a common penance. A simple altar table replaced the plaster wedding-cake altar. Our Madonna and child were handcarved in oak and polychromed. The Easter Vigil required full, active, conscious participation of almost all of us; we loved moving out of church and back in with candles. Young married couples participated in CFM conversations. I did my first college research paper on the new St. John’s Abbey Church, a creative, poured-concrete, semi-circular Church where Father Geoffrey Diekmann and other Benedictine monks worshiped and put into practice what their magazine Worship taught about liturgical renewal.

As a child of the 1960s, I experienced change and progress in both church and country. The liturgical movement came to fruition for the whole Church when the Second Vatican Council passed its first document, which was on the Sacred Liturgy (1963). It turned altars around and gave us worship in the vernacular. The Civil Rights Movement came to fruition in the Civil Rights Act of 1965. In its final session that same year the Council brought the Church into the modern world with Gaudium et Spes, the most complete articulation of Catholic social teaching and human rights (1965). I made first vows that year, having been formed on these documents, ready for the second wave of feminism that arose with the ERA and anti-war protests that grew fierce by 1968.

Vatican II is an experience of the Holy Spirit I work to keep alive.

Start the Vatican II Mini-course by Joan Mitchell here.

Tags: Catholic Social Teaching, Joan Mitchell CSJ, Sister Joan, Vatican II

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Our World Today
Author GoodGroundPress

Gospel Reflection for September 30, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

24 Sep

John told Jesus about trying to stop a man, who was not a disciple, from casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus responded, “Do not stop him. No one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Mark 9.39-40

Sunday’s gospel begins with John tattling on a non-follower who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. John admits to Jesus that he and the other disciples interfered to stop the man. Jesus’ response teaches his disciples not to box in his power. Jesus reasons that a person liberating another in his name cannot also speak evil of him. Jesus claims broad middle ground in this saying, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

What experience of middle ground becoming common ground had you had?

*************************************

More from this week’s issue of Sunday By Sunday:

“Fifty years ago this fall the Second Vatican Council began its work of bringing the Catholic Church into the contemporary world. It called Catholics into solidarity with the afflicted, to the work of Catholic social teaching.
The council reclaimed the Church’s identity as the People of God who must actively participate in worship and whose baptisms call them to holiness. The Council named conscience the ultimate agent of moral discernment. It ended 400 years without middle ground between Catholics and Protestants…” Read the full issue here (pdf)

If you enjoy this excerpt from Sunday By Sunday,
please visit the Sunday By Sunday page

to order a subscription or request a free sample.
Start a small bible study. Be a leader.

Tags: Catholic Social Teaching, Gospel of Mark, Gospel Reflection, Joan Mitchell CSJ, Mark 9.39-40, middle ground, Our Catholic Faith, Second Vatican Council, Sister Joan, Sunday By Sunday, the bible, Vatican II

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Gospel Reflection, Mark, Reflections, Sister Joan, Sisters of St. Joseph, the Bible, the Gospels
Author GoodGroundPress

The Common Good & Bread for the World

22 Mar

Sunday as I left church, I saw a woman on a corner down a block with a cardboard sign that said, “Out of work 08. Help.” I couldn’t on the spot. She was asking for work, not food money. She wiped her eyes twice before I got around the corner, maybe feeling humiliated, maybe despairing. What do I or any of us do to help her? I don’t have a job to give her. Maybe somebody in the line of cars did. This woman’s need points to the reason we have government–so we can provide services for people together that we cannot do alone. Government constantly gets a bad rap when in fact it’s our capacity to ensure the common good of all citizens. More people are using food banks and shelves that in years as the recession continues in so many people’s lives.

To help me reflect on the common good, I regularly turn to two organizations–Network and Bread for the World. As budget talks heat up once more in Washington, Bread for the World urges Congress to create a circle of protection around people in our country who are hungry and poor. Bread for the World works with churches, synagogues, and mosques to promote public policies that work to end hunger. Read their March 20 bulletin, explore their research at bread.org, and consider joining in their work for legislative action.

Tags: Bread for the World, Catholic Social Teaching, community, compassion, Joan Mitchell CSJ, Network Lobby, Sister Joan, social justice

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Our World Today, Sister Joan, Social Justice
Author GoodGroundPress

Lenten Practices III: Prayer

17 Mar

A guest post from Claire Bischoff

In addition to fasting and almsgiving, prayer is the third pillar of Lenten practices. But if you are anything like me, it can be hard to find time to pray in the midst of our busy lives. Prayer often seems too serious, intimidating, or boring to be of much interest. In many images of prayer that we receive from our tradition, prayer is connected to solitude and a certain collectedness of self, two things that may seem in short supply as we hurry from school to work, from social engagements to extra-curricular activities. When prayer is understood as the act of removing oneself from the concerns of daily life in order to contemplate eternal wisdom, it is no wonder most people are not interested in prayer.

In order for prayer to make sense in our modern lives, we need to understand it a bit differently. First and foremost, we need to understand prayer as arising out of our relationship with God. All of us are directed by our loves and desires.*

In other words, we are motivated to act by what we love and what we want. If we really desire a new guitar, we will be willing to get an after-school job in order to make money to purchase it. In a relationship based on love, we often are willing to go out of our way for the other person, even to do things we might not otherwise do, because we are motivated by our love for that person. Similarly, our prayer lives can flow from our love of God and our desire to follow the example of Jesus. When we set our hearts and minds on God, prayer may just happen.

But cultivating a relationship with God based in deep love and a desire to follow Jesus is easier said than done. And the tricky thing is that prayer is an important avenue for strengthening and deepening our relationship with God. If we do not pray because our relationship with God is not that strong, then our relationship with God just keeps getting weaker as we stay away from prayer. But if we challenge ourselves to travel down the road of prayer, we may find prayer coming more easily as our relationship to God develops.

One thing we can do to travel down the road of prayer this Lent is to think of ways to include simple prayers as part of our day-to-day lives. For instance, every time I hear the siren of an ambulance, I pray for the injured person, his or her family, and the medical staff who are attending to her or him. When I sit down to eat, I say a simple grace, either in my head if I am alone or with my family if we are eating together, offering thanks for the food I have to eat and praying that all people receive the nourishment they need for a healthy life. When I get into the shower in the morning, I offer thanks to God for the body that will take me through the day ahead and ask that God be with me. These prayers become integrated into my daily routine, so that prayer is not an arduous task but rather simply a part of my daily life. How might you include prayers as part of your day-to-day life? At what moments would it be appropriate to offer thanks or to make a petition to God?

A second thing we can do to travel down the road of prayer this Lent is to think of things that we already do as prayers. I wrote about this for a previous blog post (November 9, 2011):

I have heard other people talk about being the most themselves and meeting God when they play music or sing, go for a run or shoot baskets, paint or sculpt. Prayer does not need to involve words or memorization or recitation. Things that we love to do in life, things that restore our souls, things through which we can be our best selves: these actions can be prayers. While it is important to pray as part of a community, this is not the only way to pray. We can pray while we are living our lives, which means God can be part of everything we do.

Chances are that you are already praying more than you think, if you see actions based in love as prayer. Tim, a former colleague of mine, once challenged our youth group to think about where they can meet God in video games, because he deeply believed that we can interact and pray with God in just about any situation. What do you already do that you could see as a prayer?

On the front of this week’s Spirit magazine, there are a series of statements about what makes relationships work. Prayer is an important ingredient of our relationship with God, but it is certainly not the only one. Participating in a community of faith and surrounding ourselves with people who are not roadblocks to our faith are just two other ingredients that contribute to our relationship with God. What other things are important for your relationship with God? How can you stregnthen these ingredients this Lent?

*This idea comes from Janet Martin Soskice, The Kindness of God: Metaphor, Gender, and Religious Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 8.

Photo of butterfly courtesy of Mike_tn via Creative Commons Licensing

Tags: Catholic Religious Education, Catholic Social Teaching, community of faith, Gender, Janet Martin Soskice, lent, Lenten Practices, prayer, relationship with God, Season of Lent, spirituality, The Kindness of God: Metaphor, third pillar of Lenten practices, tradition prayer

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Reflections
Author GoodGroundPress

Lenten Practices Part II: Almsgiving

16 Mar

A guest post from Claire Bischoff

As I wrote last week, there are three traditional pillars of Lenten practice for Catholics: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. This week I write about almsgiving, an ancient sounding word that may seem far removed from our current social lives.

“Alms” is a word from Old English that refers to something, like food or money, given to the poor. As a practice, almsgiving can include many things, such as making a donation to a charitable organization or tithing to a religious institution (that is, giving one-tenth a part of something). Almsgiving is part of our baptismal calling, as it is one way to take care of our brothers and sisters, both locally and globally, and to provide for the needs of the “least of these.” In a sense, almsgiving is putting money where our mouths are, that is, giving a material gift as a sign of our commitment to follow in the steps of Jesus.

Like fasting, almsgiving is a practice that encourages us to think about our lives and ourselves in new ways. Almsgiving encourages focusing on what we have to give, rather than on what we can get for ourselves. It also can help correct our attitude toward material possessions. Rather than hording our things out of fear that we may not have enough, almsgiving encourages us to express gratitude for all that God has given to us by giving some away. Small acts of almsgiving help us to grow in charity, leading toward recognition of Jesus Christ in the poor of our world. Almsgiving takes us beyond an attitude of “it’s just me and God,” as we respond to the needs of others, of those who participate in the Body of Christ with us.

Almsgiving is not just for the rich or just for adults. In fact, in Mark 12:41-44, Jesus praises a widow who donates two small coins. He even goes so far as to say that she gave more than the rich people, because she gave out of what she needed not out of what she had left over. You do not need to have a lot of money to make a big difference—this is the idea behind the Girl Up campaign, a program of the United Nations that encourages girls in the United States (and boys, too!) to give a high five ($5) to help provide medical care and education to girls living in poverty around the world.

During this Lent, how might you be able to practice almsgiving?

Could you donate 10% of your earnings from baby-sitting, tutoring, coaching, or other work to a charity of your choice?

Could you connect almsgiving and giving something up, donating the money you are saving by not eating chocolate or not drinking soda?

You can also get even more creative. Almsgiving and tithing do not have to involve money.

Take a look at your closet and what is in your room. Could you donate 10% of your clothes, items that are in good condition that you do not use but that someone else could? Do you have books in good condition that could be donated to a homeless shelter or school?

Think about how many hours of “free time” you have each week. Could you donate 10% of that time to charity or justice work—serving lunch at a soup kitchen, writing letters for Amnesty International, joining Big Brother/Big Sister?

What creative ideas do you have for teens who want to practice almsgiving during Lent? Share them here.

Tags: almsgiving, Catholic Religious Education, Catholic Social Teaching, Catholic youth ministry, Girl Up, gospel reflection for teens, human-rights, lent, Mark 12:41-44, small acts, Spirit for Teens

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Reflections
Author GoodGroundPress

That is Faith: A 40-something Perspective on Living a Catholic Life

16 Feb

The topic turned to faith and Church recently at a gathering of college friends. We’re 40-something now with vastly different expectations of Church.

My friend Scott has brain cancer. He and his wife have three young sons–ages 11, 9 and 5. We grew up together in a small rural community with 35 kids in our graduating class. Our dads graduated together from the same school 23 years before us. We went to the same Catholic college (even though he was a Lutheran). He has no sisters and I have no brothers. We have filled that role for one another for the past 35 years.

Scott’s diagnosis with stage III aeplastic astrocytoma has shaken our whole group to the core. Now our bi-monthly happy hour contains less beer and more Q & A time. “What did the MRI show? How are the boys doing in school? Are you going to try to keep working during chemo and radiation? What can we do to help?” Life expectancy, life insurance, health insurance, pathology, oncology, radiology, child psychology, steroids, vaccines, surgeries, gas prices, mortgages—the list of concerns grows.

I asked Scott (a devout convert to Catholicism), “Are you ever mad at God about this diagnosis? Are you questioning your faith? Has your faith wavered?”

Without hesitation, Scott said, “No. When I was unemployed so long, I didn’t understand why. I asked God every day why this was part of the plan. I didn’t necessarily like it, but I always believed it was for a reason. As soon as our little guy started kindergarten, I got another job. After my cancer prognosis, I understand that being home with my boys for two years during their formative years was a gift. I may not have seen it then, but I do now.” That is faith.

“A lot of bad things happen, but I don’t get angry with God,” Pete chimed in. He’s a cradle Catholic. “I try to look at it from different angles to see what part of the plan I am missing.” That is faith.

I was both impressed and amazed. Is their faith because they have children and I don’t? Is that where one learns that kind of trust and patience? “Well, I hate to admit it, but sometimes I question,” I said. “I take great comfort in my faith. It is the one thing that gets me through everything else life dishes out, but I question.” As we talked, I recognized that most of my spiritual frustration is with the Church, not God. Sometimes it is rooted in my parish.

Pete didn’t agree. “I love being Catholic,” he said, “Our kids growing up with the sacraments is important to me. I think of Mass as both traditional and reflective. It’s a time to look back on the week”

Scott was nodding his head in agreement as Pete continued.

However, Peggy (a cradle Catholic) doesn’t agree with her husband. “I come to Church to be motivated, to be energized, to grow,” she says.

She is unhappy with her parish. I’ve suggested a few others, but she thinks they would offer more of the same. She may leave the Church.

“Sherry and I have the same issue,” Scott admitted. “We both have strong faith. We both believe in the sacraments and raising our kids with Catholic Social Teaching. However, she doesn’t just want to reflect every week. A lot of our weeks are tough right now and with my cancer, she wants to be inspired. I take comfort in the tradition and routine, but she feels called to more. There is no way she will leave the Church, but it bothers me that she isn’t getting her needs met either.”

I agree with Peggy and Sherry. I love the comfort that comes with tradition. I love living out our call to be Christ to one another. However, I want to be challenged–not just by life and a cancer diagnoses but by my parish community. Catholic Social Teaching is a call to action for me, not just a topic of discussion or reflection. Are the men right and the women wrong? Does a parish have to cater to one group or another? Can a parish realistically serve the needs and expectations of both men and women to say nothing of other groups with different expectations?

How unique is my 40-something group? Are we the only ones with tensions about Church running through our marriages and friendships?

Tags: Are you ever mad at God, brain cancer, Catholic Social Teaching, child psychology, convert to Catholicism, cradle Catholic, health insurance, life expentancy, life insurance, oncology, parish community, pathology, radiology, raising our kids with Catholic Social Teaching, steroids, surgeries, tensions about Church, vacines

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Meet Good Ground Press, Our World Today, Reflections
Author genhoward

Search

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Subscribe to Keeping Faith Today

Subjects

Contact Us