2015 Bernardin Award Winner Helps People See Seamless Connection Between Charity, Justice

Pope Francis' admonition that a shepherd must have the "smell of the sheep" is frequently referenced in the work of pastors and bishops. But for Edith Avila Olea, 22, it applies to any leader in the Church, especially those working on behalf of the poor and vulnerable. Edith, who serves as the Parish Outreach and Board of Young Professionals Coordinator for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, is the 2015 Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award winner.

"Catholicism calls us to be anything but silent," she says. "Fighting for justice for all people isn’t an option for Catholics, it is our mission."

The Bernardin Award is sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the domestic anti-poverty program of the U.S. bishops. It honors a young person who has dedicated him or herself to addressing the root causes of poverty in his or her community. Edith will be honored during the U.S. bishops' annual Spring General Assembly, June 10, in St. Louis.

Edith describes her work for Catholic Charities of Joliet as one of building relationships -- between Catholic Charities, parishes and the people she serves.

"I visit with pastors, religious, and lay people. I educate about our programs," she says. "The relationship opens a door for education about Catholic Social Teaching – learning how to create a preferential option for the poor with what is currently available. To address systematic change and future laws, I point people to the Peace and Justice department at the diocese. We should be actively working together."

So Edith's work takes her beyond direct service to those in need and into the realm of giving Catholic Charities' clients "their own human dignity back." It's about showing Catholics and community leaders that charity and justice are seamlessly interconnected. And then it's about getting everyone involved in the process, whether that's working for just wages or immigration reform.

"In our offices, we seek to find long-term solutions that lead back to self-sufficiency," she says. "Advocacy plays a huge role in this process. Every person who is a part of this process is answering their baptismal right of helping those in most need."

It's here that her own story imbues her with the "smell of the sheep." One of six children, Edith's family emigrated from Acapulco, Guerrero in Mexico when she was still a little girl. Edith says that growing up poor wasn’t easy. She attended five different elementary schools and two middle schools. Her family eventually settled in Georgia, where she witnessed the burden poverty placed on her parents, the stress of working multiple jobs and the failures of a broken immigration system. Through it all, faith provided the strength necessary to move forward and address the systemic issues of poverty.

This involved moving 12 hours away from her family to serve as the CCHD intern for the Diocese of Joliet, eventually becoming a full-time employee. Her twin responsibilities -- of outreach to parishes and the Board of Young Professionals -- are both initiative she started. The newly formed Board of Young Professionals, comprised of about 50 members, encourages young adults to serve and lead in the community.

"Our goal is to serve and lead in our community. They say that the best leaders are those who smell like their flock. This too requires relationships, most importantly relationships between the poor and rich. My goal is to have every service project give our board members an opportunity to see and interact with our clients," she says. "In this process, we are all learning how to see each other as neighbors. Together, we can advocate and create systematic change in society."

Pope Paul's Call for Peace and Justice Challenges us More Than Ever

By Jill Rauh

Pope Paul VI spent the first years of his pontificate shepherding the Second Vatican Council to its conclusion, visiting the United States and the Holy Land and, in doing so, brought the Catholic Church into the modern world, began healing ancient divisions among Christians and challenged the entire world to peace. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that his 1967 contribution to the Church’s social tradition, the encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples) has been called the “Magna Carta on development.”

Paul VI, who will be beatified October 19, builds on the already rich social teaching of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) and his successors and focuses on inequality and underdevelopment. Pope Paul offers a global vision for economic justice, development and solidarity. This vision is as challenging in 2014 as it was almost 50 years ago.

Here are a few major themes of enduring relevance:

Ending poverty: a mandate for all.
Paul VI writes: “The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every man to hear his brother's plea and answer it lovingly.” Ending poverty is the responsibility of all of us.

Economic justice
We must work towards a world where all people can be “artisans of their destiny” and where “the needy Lazarus can sit down with the rich man at the same banquet table.” The economy must be made to serve the human person (instead of the other way around).  We must address inequality and restore dignity to workers.  And we must remember that the needs and rights of those in poverty take precedence over the rights of individuals to amass great wealth. The Church has a preferential option for the poor.

'Development is the new name for peace'
Pope Paul’s challenge on poverty leads directly into his appeal for peace. Development is “the new name for peace,” he writes. Development leads to peace, since “peace is not simply the absence of warfare.” And war, which destroys societies and the individuals who inhabit them, and which the pope railed against in his 1965 address to the United Nations, is, to borrow a phrase, human development in reverse. Authentic development responds to the needs of the whole person, including both material and spiritual needs. It results instead from fighting poverty and establishing justice. Pope Paul would distill this in his theme for World Day of Peace 1972: “If you want peace, work for justice.”

Solidarity
True development requires a true commitment to solidarity—the idea that we are one human family, each responsible for all. Without solidarity, “there can be no progress toward complete development.” Those who are wealthy can also be poor—morally poor—as they live blinded by selfishness.  We have to overcome our isolation from others, so that “the glow of brotherly love and the helping hand of God” is reflected in all our relationships and decisions.

Think global, act local
Inequality is a global issue, and wealthy countries should act to help nations in need through “aid,” relief for poor countries “overwhelmed by debt,” “equitable trade relations,” “hospitable reception” for immigrants, and, for businesses operating in foreign countries, a focus on “social progress” instead of “self-interest.”  Sadly, these are all issues still in need of our attention.

So enduring was Paul VI’s vision, John Paul II revisited it in Sollicitudo rei Socialis (1987), as did Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate (2009). Its themes are also strongly apparent in the teaching of Pope Francis, who witnessed the “globalization of indifference” and lives destroyed by war and poverty in Latin America. Pope Paul and Pope Francis both challenge our current response to poverty and violence. They challenge us with the alternative of a vision that is cohesive and global, Catholic in the truest sense.

Jill Rauh is assistant director of education and outreach of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pope Francis and The Disposable Garment

By Bishop John Wester

Pope John Paul II, to be canonized on April 27 by Pope Francis, was one of many people who've decried a "culture of death" in recent decades. The description was warranted, but Catholics also believe that natural death is a part of life and can be beautiful and dignified.

So Pope Francis offers an alternative view, in which the problem isn't so much death as it is "a culture of waste," in which everything, even human beings, are treated as disposable commodities when they are no longer "useful." Pope Francis tied this mentality to throwing away excess food at his June 5 general audience and later on Twitter, saying that "throwing food away is like stealing it from the poor and hungry." He revisited the "throwaway culture" July 22, en route to Brazil for World Youth Day, this time using the term in reference to society's treatment of young people. He invoked it yet again on September 20, regarding abortion.

The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago brought together disparate voices in the Church by showing how our teachings fit together in one "seamless garment." Pope Francis offers the flip side, how the Church's teachings fit together even when the world ignores them. "Pope says wasting food is a sin" may make for entertaining headlines, but it misses the genius of the cohesive Catholic vision Pope Francis offers the world, of how much Catholic teaching can be encapsulated in this "disposable garment."

It applies to how we relate to:

• The poor, who have been a focus of Francis' pontificate, explicitly mentioned by the pope as those excluded from society at a local, national and global level.
• The unborn, whether they are destroyed in the name of convenience or personal freedom with abortion or in the name of scientific progress with embryonic stem cell research.
• The elderly, sick and disabled, when voices in our society suggest that physician assisted suicide ought to be the law of the land because some lives just aren't worth living.
• Immigrants, who have been treated as a convenient source of menial labor, but have not been recognized by society or rewarded for their contributions.
• Workers, who are not a means to an end, profit, but people deserving of a living wage and whose work deepens their sense of human worth.
• The imprisoned, who are easier to write off and forget, or even dispose of altogether, than to rehabilitate and restore. Pope Francis showed us, through the gesture of washing feet, that these people are still to be loved and supported.
• The environment, not a commodity to be used up as we please, but something precious, created by God and left in our care.
• Young people: as Pope Francis has explicitly pointed out, young people are the future, and yet society perpetuates circumstances in which they cannot find jobs and face crushing educational debt.
• Our relationships: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has spoken frequently of a vocations crisis, not just in the priesthood, but in marriage. Many people treat their marriages as disposable, not as lifelong commitments. Fewer people are bothering to get married at all. News stories profile "hook-up culture" on college campuses in place of young people pursuing lasting relationships.
• The Internet: Whether it's pornography, a news story or even a meme, the Internet provides endless opportunities to use people as disposable pleasure objects, laugh derisively at them, yell at them or otherwise dismiss them. Digital technology can build up human interconnectivity like never before. It also allows us to demean on a dizzying scale, whether by perpetuating the "rape culture" that trivializes violence toward women or through a political discourse built on demonizing people. Which brings us to...
• People who are different from us: whether it's unrest in places like Syria and Egypt, conflict between countries or our own discourse, people of different cultures, countries, religions and points of view deserve our respect, not acts of intolerance and violence that degrade or even eliminate them.
• Our vocations, both religious, personal and professional: Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told members of the Catholic Press in 2012 that a new problem exists in the world today: "people have forgotten how to dream." People have lost the sense that God has a plan for every person. We are not here to waste time, but to pursue the vocation that makes us ever more the person that God intends us to be.

Benedict XVI frequently emphasized all the Church says yes to, because Christianity ultimately is a positive proposition of God loving every person and drawing the entire world to himself through Jesus. For Pope Francis, this means saying yes to a "culture of encounter." To overcome a throwaway culture, every person must go out into the world, encounter other people as more than commodities, and learn to treat everyone with the dignity they deserve. For Catholics, this pervades the teachings of our Church and is fundamental to our ability to encounter Jesus Christ.

Bishop Wester is bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City and chairman of the Communications Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Today, a Social Teaching Triple Header

One of the pope's most prominent and important roles is to be a moral voice in the face of suffering and confusion in the world. That's the lesson the Church celebrates in triplicate today.

On May 15, three popes made major contributions to the development of Catholic social teaching: Pope Leo XIII with his landmark encyclical letter Rerum Novarum (1891), Pius XI with Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and John XXIII with Mater et Magistra (1961). The last two encyclicals honored the first on its 40th and 70th anniversaries, respectively.

So what did Leo XIII say that was so worth commemorating?

New Things

"It must not be supposed that the Church so concentrates her energies on caring for souls as to overlook things which pertain to mortal and earthly life," Pope Leo wrote in Rerum Novarum. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the world faced issues it hadn't faced before. Even the name of the encyclical translates "new things."

As some called for outright socialism while others insisted on an unrestrained laissez faire economy, Leo XIII applied the moral voice of the papacy and the timeless teachings of the Church to this upheaval. In doing so, he launched the modern era of Catholic social teaching, the hallmarks of which include:

• The right of workers, which include fair wages, time off for religious and family life, safe working conditions and the ability to organize.
• The duties of workers to perform their duties and refrain from vandalism and violence.
• The rights and duties of property ownership.
• The preferential option for the poor.
• The common good.

Forty Years and What a Mess

When Pope Pius XI sat down to reflect on the 40th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, he did so against a backdrop of the worldwide economic turmoil of the Great Depression. And it shows: "Unbridled ambition for power has succeeded greed for gain; all economic life has become tragically hard, inexorable, and cruel."

In Quadragesimo Anno (literally "Forty Years"), Pius XI reaffirmed the earlier teaching on just wages, unions and the role of government (paragraph 71). He critiqued both unbridled capitalism and communism (paragraph 46). He also introduced the principle of subsidiarity (paragraph 79), which states that decisions affecting the common good of a society be made at the lowest possible but highest necessary level of authority. This means delegating to the grassroots level in some situations and action by national and international bodies in others.

Enter John

When John XXIII honored the 70th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, he didn't face the disaster of the Great Depression, but a spirit of optimism and a world feeling more confidently equipped to tackle challenges like global hunger and the development of nations.

As a result, in Mater et Magistra (literally "Mother and Teacher"), Pope John took the global view: "The solidarity which binds all people together as members of a common family makes it impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights. The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist."

Down to Present Day

The development of the Church's social doctrine continued with John's Pacem in Terris (1963), issued 50 years ago in April. Subsequent popes have also carried it on in encyclicals including Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (1967) and John Paul II's Laborem Exercens and Centesimus Annus (for the 90th and 100th anniversaries of Rerum Novarum,  in 1981 and 1991, respectively). More recently, Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate (2009) responded to the financial crisis of 2008.

Pope Francis has already entered the narrative too, albeit in a considerably shorter length than an encyclical, a tweet on May 2 that read, "My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centered mindset bent on profit at any cost." However, with a name choice guided by a concern for the poor, peace and the environment, it would seem only a matter of time before he says more.

UPDATE: May 16

Well, that didn't take long.

Just this morning, Pope Francis addressed the world financial and economic crisis, telling an audience of diplomats that the source of these problems "is in our relationship with money and our acceptance of its power over ourselves and our society."


(CNS photos)

Five Things to Remember on Dec 3

1. The budget angst pervades Washington. It’s helpful to recall that Catholic social teaching calls for budget decisions to be made according to whether they protect or threaten human life and dignity, how they affect poor people including those who are homeless, hungry and without work. Also worth remembering is government’s responsibility for the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and their families who struggle to live in a manner worthy of their dignity in difficult economic times.
 
2. An Advent/Christmas custom is lessons and carols, a series of nine sets of hymns and biblical readings. They can be found here. A few moments with one of the series can be a reflective way to start or end the day.

3. With the Religious Retirement Collection coming up this weekend, the USCCB will post blogs by some people whose lives were touched by religious. The first blog is by ABC News analyst Cokie Roberts.

4. Dorothy Day (1897-1980), whose cause for sainthood is in an early stage, is attracting media attention. Now titled “Servant of God,” Dorothy Day was a social activist and pacifist and lived a life of voluntary poverty. She had an abortion in her early years and regretted it all her days afterwards. Her cause for sainthood was introduced at the Vatican by theArchdiocese of New York, where she died. 

5. God loves you.