Service? Sure.

(But How?)

Moreau Center for Service & Leadership

December 3, 2011

Agenda/Overview

1. Warm up

2. Charity, Justice, (Project)

3. Examples

4. Large Group Exercise (Debate)

5. Discussion/De-Brief

6. Immersion Group Discussions

Who Thinks This is Service?

Catholic Social Thought

Let each one examine his conscience, a conscience that conveys a new message for our times. Is he prepared to support out of his own pocket works and undertaking organized in favor of the most destitute?

(Pope Paul VI, 1967)

St. Vincent de Paul Societies

• Food programs

• Emergency financial assistance

• Emergency transportation

• Disaster relief and victim services

• Rent/mortgage assistance

• Low-cost housing

• Shelters for the homeless

• Shelters for the abused

• Assistance for victims of AIDS, substance abuse, and crime

• Thrift Stores

• Free pharmacy services

St. Vincent de Paul Societies

• Employment services

• Job training

• Counseling/Information

• Referral service

• Education programs (GED)

• Homemaker services

• Budget counseling

• Nutritional education Youth programs

• Camp programs

Catholic Social Thought

Love for others, and especially for the poor, is made concrete by promoting justice.

Pope John Paul II,

1991

The social order requires constant improvement: it must be founded in truth,

built on justice, and enlivened by love: it should grow in

freedom towards a more humane equilibrium. If these objectives are to be attained there will first have to be a

renewal of attitudes and far-reaching social changes.

Second Vatican Council, 1965

CCHDCatholic Campaign for Human Development

• The domestic anti-poverty, social justice program of the U.S. Catholic Bishops

• Promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education

• www.povertyusa.org • .

Omaha Together One Community(OTOC)

• Receives funding from CCHD• Conditions in Meat-Packing Plants“abuses and gross indecencies . . . “

– fast processing lines– repetitive motion injuries– lack of bathroom privileges

“I think a lot of peoplethought those days were past.”

Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

The Right to Form a Labor Union

• Catholic social thought insists on it

• Needs support from groups like CCHD & OTOC

• In Omaha, people of faith defended the right of meatpacking employees to vote yes/no for union

Omaha Together One Community(OTOC)

City bond issueto fund sewer improvements

No projects in older, poorer

areas

“I knew the peoplewho had raw sewagebacking up in their basements.” Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

Successful Postcard Campaign

for the poorer neighborhoods

We had an impact on a

serious problem.

Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

Fishbowl Debate

Social justice/social change is an intrinsically better or more mature form of service than charity or direct giving, and each of us should strive to advance (grow) along a continuum, from charity toward justice.

.

Charity and justice

are equally valuable

and I could devote

my time and resources

toward either approach,

as long as I do it well.

“Charity is immoral.”

• Midwest Urban Community Organizer

In the first centuriesof Christianitythe hungry were fedat a personal sacrifice,the naked were clothedat a personal sacrifice,the homeless were shelteredat personal sacrifice.And because the poorwere fed, clothed and shelteredat a personal sacrifice,the pagans used to sayabout the Christians“See how they love each other.”

. . . In our own daythe poor are no longerfed, clothed and shelteredat a personal sacrifice,but at the expenseof the taxpayers.And because the poorare no longerfed, clothed and shelteredthe pagans say about the Christians“See how they pass the buck.”