What's become of the pastoral?
Smith, Karen Sue
WHArS BECOME OF THE PASTORAL? THE ECONOMICS PASTORAL, A YEAR LATER - II KAREN SUE SMITH ne year has passed since the final version of the bishops' letter on the economy was adopted. Economic...
...In November 1986, the diocese held a major conference on unemployment which included hands-on, how-to sessions preparing participants for job interviews and for organizing job banks and job clubs...
...6000 was set aside to fund unemployment projects: a conference on unemployment in the eastern part of the diocese where a new factory is opening up...
...Such companies could help with schools...
...It would have been great if candidates had had to answer questions on war and peace...
...Since universities are decentralized institutions, finding out what is happening on campus is difficult and time-consuming...
...The market does not have a self-correcting mechanism to account for these groups...
...the great abortion issue came up...
...The U.S...
...In addition to study guides and training materials, the economics pastoral has stimulated about a half-dozen volumes of serious essays...
...50 percent of high school students drop out...
...There have been countless lectures, panel discussions, and workshops on university campuses, in parishes, and at the meetings of Catholic organizations...
...On the other hand, Robert Williams likes to point to places like Pittsburgh with a full-time director overseeing an Office of Programs for the Unemployed and currently buying a building to house its several programs...
...The only thing we did last time was to have half a dozen presentations, though the education office also brought the peace pastoral into the school curricula...
...An increase in the Campaign for Human Development collection...
...O'Lcary wrote to Bishop Peter Rosa/za of Hartford and offered his help...
...And there are Karen SUE SMITH is an associate editor of Commonweal and director of the Iona Center for Pastoral Liturgy at Iona College, New Rochelle, New York...
...Marty Iott, O.P., said, "We haven't started yet...
...These leaders will later on enact parish action plans throughout the deanery...
...The group did voice considerable interest in further events focused on the pastoral...
...Jesuit Colleges, Washington, D.C...
...18 December 1987: 745 One goal of the Sioux City diocese is to set up a peace and justice committee in every parish, which can look into employment and fair-wage issues, among others...
...There are ways in which business can exert a positive influence now...
...and has just begun to provide on-site consultation with dioceses seeking assistance in how to move from information to action...
...Louisiana is losing some sixty square miles of wetlands every year through soil erosion, and wetlands mean fishing and homes...
...Together, both conferences of bishops are sponsoring a seminar on coastal restoration...
...All implementation efforts face the problem of preaching to the already converted, or if not the converted, those who are at least attached to the institution's chain of authority...
...Five hundred graduates, mostly middle-aged professionals, attended, including some present and retired Pentagon and State Department officials who aired their views in lively discussions...
...I think they let off the economy rather easily, though it was a powerful statement...
...Of course, information is still the most immediate objective: how to let some 52 million U.S...
...public-works projects, for example, be the best way to tackle unemployment...
...The following comments are excerpts from a recent conversation with Oittrich on the pastoral on economic justice...
...how and when it will be taught...
...Whom to hire...
...The Office of Implementation does not keep tabs on activities that fall outside the ken of diocesan directors...
...this philosophy that the free market deals adequately with poverty, there is something to it historically, but in the last eight years the distribution of wealth has worsened: and the idea simply has not worked...
...With 256,000 Catholics, sixty-five parishes, eighteen missions, and fourteen schools, the archdiocese of Atlanta is large geographically (about half the state of Georgia) but sparse in Catholics (2.9 percent of the state's population...
...in economics...
...When asked how all this compared with the implementation of the pastoral on peace, Boes says, "We didn't organize ourselves this way...
...This initial year has been spent setting up ways to integrate the letter's principles and recommendations into existing church structures...
...O'Leary's involvement with the pastoral began three years ago when he read a New York Times Magazine article about the letter's preparation and the Simon-Novak response...
...The notion behind the ordinance is that people low on food and work could be employed as grass cutters and/or secure a no-strings-attached agreement to use the fallow land for vegetable gardens, private or commercial...
...and almost 5,000 copies recently translated into Spanish...
...A large class taught at Harvard University by Harvey Cox — composed of undergraduate and graduate students, including a significant number of Hindus, Buddhists, etc...
...or someone with marketing expertise in need of a product to sell...
...While I see business nudging in this direction...
...In it, Bishop Ott pledged to allocate 10 percent of the annual diocesan collection to the unemployed...
...Where to invest...
...a job search project...
...How can the union member, the small contractor, the personnel administrator, or the responsible consumer and taxpayer see that the pastoral speaks to daily economic decisions...
...Next semester the Peace Institute is offering through the law school one course on both the peace and economics pastorals...
...At this level, the response has been very good, generating hard-hitting questions, such as: "Is the idea of economic rights a good way to express Christian responsibility...
...If that is information a statistician might dream about, it is also information that might help get at the more basic questions for church leaders: Whom is the pastoral really reaching...
...Weigert said that in the spring of 1985, a resolution was put to the Academic Council: "to mandate that students be exposed to the implications of the Catholic social teachings for their particular disciplines and professions...
...bring huge social costs...
...Catholic Social Services (CSS) has helped to form BYOU [Build Your Own Opportunities Unltd.], an economic development organization formed to encourage the diversification of small businesses in an area overly dependent upon one industry, oil...
...Liturgy Training Publications has produced a book of excerpts from both the peace and economics pastorals that correspond with the Sunday Scriptures during Lent...
...Williams reports that some type of training session for clergy and laity has been held in each of the dioceses with an implementation coordinator...
...Clearly there is an overlap here with the question of what is being presented...
...Implementation Director Robert Williams and his staff of four have produced models and resources for teaching the pastoral, including a newsletter which reports briefly on what dioceses around the country are doing vis a vis economic justice...
...Dog eat dog' won't cure poverty...
...offer incentives like jobs upon graduation...
...86,972 of the summary by James Hug, S.J...
...You've got to live Catholicism every day in your workplace...
...The first year each team will study the document...
...Next, they held small-business development seminars at the state university for ten-week sessions which were so successful they may be repeated...
...The letter can't be implemented from here," Williams says, noting that his goal is to go beyond simply supplying information and help people begin to act on the basis of the pastoral...
...We need to open up the receptivity of the businessperson to see that labor-force needs are a societal problem...
...whether it should be mandatory in Catholic schools...
...bishops — savvy about the price tag needed to promote a nationwide discussion focused on economic justice — allocated $525,000 for "implementation," in other words, to ensure that this letter reaches the grass-roots Catholic community...
...Indeed, the whole idea of initiating further research on the substantive issues the pastoral only began to discuss has apparently been consigned to limbo by the bishops' conference...
...bishops' pastoral...
...The regional pastoral letter, "Hope: The Church Responds to Unemployment," by Bishop Stanley Ott (one of several modeled after the U.S...
...Kenneth Jameson, professor of economics, has taught the ecoI nomics letter in one core course, using the videotape "God and Money...
...The letter is beginning to have an impact politically...
...During the last three fall semesters, Charles Wilbur, professor of economics and a key advisor to the bishops' drafting committee, has offered an upper-division course on ethics and the economy which discussed the letter for three solid weeks...
...Kentucky currently ranks forty-fifth in the nation in the monthly sum allotted each welfare recipient...
...Robert Gorman, assistant director of Catholic Social Services, and Melinda Keane, SHCG, coordinator of parish social ministry, have worked with food banks and clothing stores before...
...Ho reviewed each draft, though he never testified himself...
...Jim Lund, the newly hired director of the diocesan Peace and Justice Center, has become involved with a state-wide coalition for welfare reform, which is lobbying for benefit increases, adjustment of standards, voluntary training and education programs, and for an unemployed parent program for AFDC recipients...
...but that the letter failed to mobilize most of the Catholic citizenry, let alone the wider community, to take up the discussion of government responsibility, and it left untouched the whole question of the private sector's role in shaping a just economy...
...that leaders gain skills in networking and community organizing...
...Will its messages filter down into mainstream Catholic thinking and acting...
...935,000 of the "Catholic Update" summary...
...How many of which materials have been purchased...
...The office convenes groups, espouses the pastoral's vision and themes, keeps in close touch with some 130 diocesan coordinators of implementation (out of 174dioceses in the U.S...
...Its gross intake in October was $3,400...
...here are distinct limits to the work of the implementation office...
...The organization conducts panel discussions and speakers' scries, publishes a newsletter, leads retreats, prayer groups, and Bible studies...
...How many ongoing programs (weekly or monthly study and action groups, for example) are in existence...
...What is the message actually being presented...
...He holds a Ph.D...
...Now they work with an ecumenical group of churches and agencies, the Alternative Development Task Force...
...What can we say about human motivation...
...To me the bishops .seemed right on target...
...though I've heard it talked about informally over lunch among professors here...
...In New York City, for example...
...One company started workers at $5/hr., below poverty level for a one-wage-earner family of four...
...But it would be a small achievement if the pastoral were systematically disseminated only by diocesan offices and parish priests...
...but it never got that far...
...Unemployment there is the highest in the country, 10-15 percent overall, and as high as 30 percent in some parishes...
...Frequently, the liberal political agenda of these groups (conservative groups, needless to say, have not rushed to disseminate the pastoral) creates a barrier to mainstream Catholics who hold diverse political views, who are apolitical, or who just shy away from what they feel is a distinct political bias...
...Economy is currently making its way into parish programs, Catholic school curricula and course materials, justice and peace activities, and conferences of laity, religious, and clergy...
...Only a small number are grabbed by it," Jameson said.' 'For some of those students, the pastoral articulates an alternative to the dominant cultural vision...
...Which dioceses have examined the justice of their own personnel practices...
...College faculties need to ask themselves just what place study of the bishops' letter has in their curriculum...
...No long-term system for monitoring pastoral-related activities has been developed, let alone research to track the pastoral's impact...
...We have to go after the general public...
...BYOU is now looking into credit union formation—a project devised in light of the number of bankruptcies filed by small oil-related businesses in the area...
...Yet it should not be said of the pastoral five or ten years down the road that it merely inspired some more people to volunteer in soup kitchens and shelters, which might be considered very worthy but "extracurricular" efforts on behalf of the needy...
...Marvin Boes, diocesan coordinator and chairman of the Peace and Justice Committee, describes a three-year diocesan implementation plan which revolves around six teams of diocesan personnel, laity, specialists, and volunteers who will direct their attention to management, education, clergy, family life, communication, and social ministry...
...How to bargain...
...Apartheid in South Africa...
...One danger with these pastorals is the perception that special interest groups have the bishops by the jugular: 'Mondaic in a miter.' " 'The higher you go, the more breadth of vision you can expect, the more willing people are to look openly at the letter...
...the priests, deacons, and other key parish leaders attended two days of training...
...Using alumni rolls, the Washington Conference of Graduates of Jesuit Colleges invited thousands of its former students now living in the greater Washington area to an all-day conference on the pastoral last October...
...Incorporated in 1987, A la Main has seventy members and one full-time employee...
...ioux City, Iowa...
...to explore how the pastoral's principles can be integrated with existing agency plans...
...The planning session recommended that 10 percent of the parish collection be used for local social action activities...
...The Houma-Thibodaux diocese, unlike others in Louisiana and unlike most of the South, is 60-70 percent Catholic, and the prestige of the church here is high...
...Social justice is not an ornament on the Catholic Christmas tree...
...Already, through BYOU, a handcrafts...
...Less receptive are middle-level executives and administrators of public programs who say it's all a good idea, but wait till you try it...
...however, much still needs to be done to communicate the bishops' letter to Spanish-speaking Catholics...
...However, that resolution was later amended to read: "that the faculty of each college shall explore . . . ways in which students encounter curricularly the implications of'the Catholic social teachings...
...ouma-Thibodaux, Louisiana...
...not only read and discussed a draft of the letter, but students were required to send a personal response to the U.S...
...A staff member of the archdiocese of Atlanta thought that the Emory University campus ministry and Aquinas Center were using the pastoral, but Rev...
...Coalition members deserve some credit for the 5 percent increase in welfare benefits to take effect in January...
...Here in Bridgeport, young businessmen are immediately turned off...
...or that the letter inspired the creation of a new diocesan program here or there, or boosted the morale of the hardy few who were already engaged in social justice lobbying...
...Many people moved out of small towns and large corporations moved in, buying up small businesses like meat-processing plants, and reducing wages of the workers...
...The widely used "Catholic Update" condensation published by St...
...Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S...
...I think the economics pastoral gives credibility to justice as a constitutive part of the Gospel...
...The archdiocese has formed a task force from thirteen different diocesan agencies (Catholic Charities, Peace and Justice, etc...
...Or the creation of economic development projects...
...Yet, the local fishing industry — shrimping, oysters, crabs, red fish — is in need of assistance...
...Kenneth Goodpastor, who teaches-the business ethics course, only said, "I'm aware of the pastoral, its content...
...Initially, the coalition invited together business experts in fabrication welding, farming, construction, crafts, and other fields, with the purpose of forming linkages with the unemployed...
...They will not be reached...
...Conference...
...It is fundamental, of course, that the letter begin to inform the activities of the church's own social agencies—and of the church itself as an employer and inves...
...30,000 was divided equally among the six deaneries for direct assistance (up to $500 per family...
...The church being the church, implementation has been strikingly uneven...
...a pastor/leader training program focusing on the economics pastoral...
...At the end of October, 76,000 copies of the complete text of the pastoral had been distributed...
...I hope others in the business community will be open to this...
...Leon Kendall, and Peter Grace...
...The peace pastoral is included on the bibliography given to every sophomore...
...How fast...
...know Bill Simon...
...now retired, is a former vicechairman of the board of United Trust Company and has served on eight or ten corporate boards, including the Federal National Marketing Association and the Bowery Savings Bank...
...Emory University's Aquinas Center participated in the training sessions, as did fifty-one newly ordained deacons...
...Twenty to 30 percent of U. S. seafood ports are in Louisiana...
...Too few have even read it...
...As long as the pastoral appears to belong either to the clergy or to liberal activists, a great many Catholics in economic life will not feel that their own experience and concerns are adequately represented...
...It is fiction that it will...
...It is crucial that the pastoral be made known to the American electorate before the next election...
...Who is being reached by the pastoral's message...
...Given the process of dialogue and wide-ranging consultation which forged the letter, it's not surprising that all sorts of groups —some lay-led, others sponsored by religious orders—are jumping in to prepare teaching materials and to promote programs appealing to the Catholic in the pew...
...Someone else thought that the Harvard Business School used the letter as required reading — and perhaps some professor does — but Dr...
...Andrew Dittrich, S.J., is an economist on staff at the Wall Street Jesuits, an organization which promotes dialogue between the business community and the church...
...The Notre Dame bookstore ordered no copies of the pastoral for coursework this semester...
...Fred Kammer, S.J., has referred to the pastoral in some fifteen of his columns for the diocesan newspaper during the last three years...
...About...
...In response to the pastoral, the Louisiana Catholic Conference has sent a slate of legislative priorities to the governor...
...Why was the language weakened...
...Lund countered by asking: "Does success with the economics pastoral mean the struggling of a business executive...
...The office has made one survey of "start-up activities," and says that another one is in the works...
...To the question "How do you measure successful implementation...
...Kathleen Maas Weigert, of the university's Center for Social Concerns, has found in teaching the pastoral that students need to review the whole concept of the church's teaching role, the authority of the bishops, and the Christian's responsibility to act in the political arena, before they can understand the letter...
...A handful of people got jobs that very night," Keane said...
...This year that sum amounted to $36,000...
...Perhaps most creative of all is an idea the coalition calls ' 'the tall grass ordinance.'' This ordinance requires that absentee landlords would have to pay fines if the grass on their property isn't cut...
...but it is not used in my course...
...By Easter, Ott's letter had been inserted in the diocesan paper, distributed to every registered Catholic in the diocese...
...It isn't Christian...
...Anthony Messenger Press is only four pages...
...co-op has been created and christened "A la Main" [by hand] and has spun off to independence...
...soon after the vote approving the final draft...
...For the present, answers to those questions remain guesswork...
...Kammer refers to the letter when discussing such local events as the severe budget cuts in Louisiana now that the oil and gas industries have flagged...
...The superficial view is that the letter is socialistic...
...When you unpack the pastoral, it raises questions about fair wages, benefits, how we invest and spend our parish money, what companies are in our diocesan investment portfolios, etc...
...Two early concerns raised about the letter's language (written on a thirteen-year educational level) and its length have been addressed by the producers of several shorter, plain-language versions...
...Catholics know what the bishops have written, now that the secular media no longer find the pastoral newsworthy...
...Xavier Society for the Blind has produced a cassette for its constituency...
...The third year, the whole diocese will be involved in studying and applying the letter...
...The Louisiana Catholic bishops stated that this coastal protection has moral implications and merits urgent action...
...And what are its lasting effects...
...bishops' letter) grew out of this conference...
...In 1986 CSS founded the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana to educate and organize voters for political activity...
...K.S...
...The pastoral is published in Spanish (also in Dutch, French, and German), and one Spanish video is available...
...The pastoral is more appealing to women, perhaps, because they're less affected by the pat line about how great the economy is...
...It is, to be sure, but not only about poverty...
...Still, according to a recent National Catholic Reporter survey, 71 percent of the adult Catholics questioned said they had never heard of the bishops' letter on the economy...
...A dramatic/musical presentation on the pastoral (now on video) has been produced by "Between the Times," a Chicago-based, four-member performing arts group which has 742: Commonweal been invited to dioceses around the country, as parishes try to reach their members via artistic and creative means...
...The 25 percent of children now in poverty are tomorrow's voters and workers...
...What is the relationship of economics to faith?'' Brassington said...
...tor...
...The pastoral letter's section on agriculture, clearly written with the Midwestern farm crisis in mind, has been re-worded in Lousiana parlance...
...tlanta, Georgia...
...These days, Catholics must learn about the pastoral from locally sponsored workshops, speakers' series, and parish homilies, or they must read about it in publications not available on the newsstand...
...that wealthier parishes adopt a poorer sister parish within the diocese...
...I don't think we can wait to convert individuals to the bishops' way of looking at the U.S...
...Naturally those "who have ears to hear" will be the most receptive to the bishops' letter...
...giving information to the media so it gets on the political agenda...
...By no means are all those diocesan coordinators full-time...
...How much of such activity is there altogether...
...There is also a natural tendency for those engaged in lobbying on behalf of social programs to use the pastoral as a source of "proof texts" legitimating their activities...
...There is a widespread impression that the pastoral is "about poverty...
...That means dioceses and parishes primarily, starting at the top and working down—so far, mostly at the top, with diocesan agencies and clergy education...
...What to build...
...that unemployables (one-parent families, e.g...
...There are obvious dangers in connection with the first question...
...Should a Catholic organization sponsor companies that invest money in nuclear weaponry...
...aton Rouge, Louisiana...
...Only if the full array of the pastoral's concerns is presented, as well as its nuances, can Economic Justice for All be effectively interjected into Catholic life and the public arena...
...Soon after this pronouncement, the state's Methodist bishops passed a similar resolution...
...But ihe whole philosophy behind the counter-letter was Michael Novak's: the best economy is one where everyone relics on his own self- interest and the devil take the hindmost...
...Between 1981 and 1986, land values in agriculture decreased some 60 percent in Iowa, putting pressure on the local communities when access to farm loans was decreased, foreclosures were forced, and farm-related businesses suffered...
...They think you're Karl Marx or something...
...There are not enough honor students to meet employers' needs...
...will government A view from Wall Street...
...Since the pastoral's adoption, O'Lcary has been a sought-after speaker for panels and workshops...
...are people lazy, and the pastoral too idealistic in those parts calling for cooperation rather than competition...
...Students like the tape and the exposure to the bishops' ideas, but otherwise, reaction was not overwhelmingly favorable...
...I niversity of Notre Dame...
...How is the letter being communicated...
...a parish food bank...
...The diocese has allocated $2000 of its own budget to stock materials for further education on the letter...
...Church leaders can seed political discussion with questions, formulating questions political representatives will have to answer...
...People looking for jobs, machinery, or specific skills might connect with one another—a boat builder who had equipment but no skills in marketing his boats...
...Several video cassettes, some regionally produced, are available, as well as the bishops' own video, "For All the People," and the nationally-televised film "God and Money" (reviewed, Commonweal, November 7, 1986...
...What is happening on Catholic campuses...
...The second year the teams will identify the diocesan leaders within each area outlined in the pastoral...
...The> may bring a radical program with them, more radical than many business people are comfortable with...
...Here, farming means fishing and soil means wetlands...
...offer high school students jobs through internships...
...plus 47,000 of the Origins text...
...Has there has been any push to incorporate the economics pastoral into the core curriculum...
...The priorities were formulated by the Catholic education, social concerns, and charities agencies within the state and stressed the economic plight of the poor...
...And more important, which types of people (age, sex, income, occupation, education, etc...
...For parishes, the diocese held a two-day conference which brought out representatives from half the parishes in the diocese...
...wo questions remain to be sorted out before the implementation of the pastoral can really be evaluated...
...What and what not to buy...
...Leadership by the laity themselves cannot be emphasized too strongly— leadership that has to transcend the political commitments of activist groups, often staffed or run by lay people as well as members of religious orders...
...i ev...
...Getting the Kentucky legislature to reform some system...
...An informal telephone survey of several universities as well as five dioceses, suggested to me by Mary Baudouin of the Office of Implementation, yielded the following: ouisville, Kentucky...
...How many people are attending these single-shot presentations...
...I hoped that this would happen in 1984 regarding the peace pastoral...
...Many recent recipients of the Nobel prize would applaud the letter...
...Several participants were reported saying they would not have attended a parish or diocesan function, but came "out of 744: Commonweal loyalty to the Jesuits...
...Half of America's output is from companies with over a thousand employees...
...women planned it...
...The task force has formed a food bank noted for its economic development arm, through which the Catholic diocese has begun to structure its social change efforts...
...It took five years to put the document together," says Boes, "so it will take us some time to implement it...
...build bonds between students and employers...
...And one-quarter of the dioceses have no coordinators at all...
...I doubt if the economics pastoral has had much impact yet on business people...
...Not even that kind of presentation, especially if limited to workshops or discussion groups and not woven into Sunday homilies, is apt to reach the majority of Catholics in working life, in the business sector, including college students and young professionals, whose involvement in the parish seldom goes beyond Mass attendance...
...Tom Brassington, Director of Religious Education for the archdiocese, said ten parishes have begun implementation...
...to being less worshipful of Adam Smith and the 'invisible hand.' "I think the bishops' critique is widely accepted by the academic economics profession . . . F showed a copy of the pastoral to Walter Heller before he died and he was ecstatic about it...
...At Stamford, there was an excellent meeting...
...746: Commonweal This is one in a series of articles, to appear in Commonweal over the next several months, that will examine different aspects of the U.S...
...six diocesan letters (one in process) that have been written, applying the pastoral's insights locally...
...are participating in discussions of the letter...
...A national Office of Implementation — funded for three years — was set up in Washington D.C...
...One wonders what will happen when the threeyear funding for implementation runs out...
...K.s...
...Republicans seem to have ,(,'<>/ religion about compassion in the economy...
...The ordinance has not yet been adopted...
...And at what level of seriousness...
...And from the corporate boardroom ^^|^F ames O'Leary...
...Are the pastoral's specific proposals likely to be effective...
...I haven't been a very good Christian all my life, but the bishops arc calling for conversion — to reform your life and that's what's happened to me...
Vol. 114 • December 1987 • No. 22
