Lately I have come across several articles pertaining to adoption. Most of them discuss the trauma felt by an adopted child as a result of their perceived rejection by their birth parents, particularly their biological mother. I don't have a horse in this race, being neither adopted myself, nor having any adopted children. However I do know several people who are adoptees, and some adoptive parents, as do most of us.
The best article that I have read was this one by NCR's Heidi Schlumpf. As someone who placed a child for adoption when she was young, and also someone whose children are adopted, she is a credible witness:
"During the U.S. bishops' meeting in November, buried in the middle of discussions about pro-life politics, plans for a eucharistic revival and the church's new penal canon law, there was a presentation about the Walking with Moms in Need initiative, which encourages parishes to help pregnant and parenting moms.....The initiative does not try to replicate the work of pregnancy help centers, as Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chair of the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said in the presentation last month. "
Rather it provides "educational, pastoral and action-oriented resources" to parishes so they can "facilitate the accompaniment of mothers in need at the parish level," according to the initiative's website.
There is certainly nothing wrong with promoting a more open, less judgmental attitude toward women with unplanned pregnancies, as Naumann encouraged — especially as the U.S. Supreme Court decision on abortion's legality looms.....In the discussion following the presentation, however, Bishop George Thomas of Las Vegas made several seemingly innocuous comments about adoption that most contemporary adoption professionals and many in the adoption community would find problematic.
"....The reality of adoption is that it always begins with loss — and that loss can haunt adoptees throughout their lives. It is a traumatic loss not to be raised by one's birth parents, or to never even know who they and other birth relatives are. There is a reason genealogy is fascinating to so many people, and why the PBS series, "Finding Your Roots" is such compelling drama. That sense of belonging is robbed from adoptees, and while some find it after long searches, others never do."
"For transracial or transcultural adoptees, their losses can also include loss of culture, knowledge about their ethnic or racial heritage, and their first language."
"I write about this as both an adoptive parent and as a birth parent who placed a child for adoption when I was younger. Certainly I am beyond grateful that my husband and I were able to create our family through adoption. And I believe that the choice to place my child with an adopted family was the best one, given the circumstances, for me and for him at that time. But it was my choice, not his."
"The most impacted person in the "adoption triangle" is the adoptee, and I have learned much from adult adoptees, who in the past generation have been vocal about speaking out about their experiences — ones that don't match the photos of beaming adoptive parents with their babies celebrating Adoption Awareness Month each November."
"My point is not that adoption is terrible and should be abolished — although some do argue that — but rather that adoption is complex and complicated and traumatic. There is much joy in adoptive families, but adoption is a wound and a continuing struggle for many adoptees. It also can haunt birth families, especially if the mother was coerced, although that was not my experience."
"....We all need to listen to adoptees themselves and birth families, not just to adoptive parents who tend to have more power and thus often control the narrative about adoption in our culture."
"Adoption can be the best choice in some very difficult circumstances, but we also should be asking hard questions about the kind of societies that put women and their children in those circumstances — whether it is poverty, sexual violence, lack of access to birth control or an overall lack of support systems for children and families."
"If the bishops or other pro-life Catholics want to promote adoption as an alternative to abortion, they should educate themselves about the reality of adoption and avoid painting adoption in "rainbows and sunshine" language."
It is interesting that this article in The Atlantic states that "...For the most part, women are not choosing abortion instead of adoption. In fact, both adoption and abortion rates have fallen over time, while births to unmarried women have risen over the past few decades. This suggests to some researchers that women are choosing between abortion and parenting, and more and more, unmarried women are choosing parenting."
This represents a change from the 1950s and 60s when I was growing up, and there was much more of a stigma associated with unwed pregnancy. It was not unusual for a high school girl to go "away" for awhile, and nothing was said about the reason.. Of course those on the "grapevine" thought they knew.
Now, for better or worse, the DNA tests on the market mean that there is no longer such a thing as a "closed" adoption. The genetic information is out there, even if the records are sealed.
Open DNA registries may lead to many complications
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/10/oregon-doctor-says-his-donated-sperm-was-used-to-father-at-least-17-children-sues-ohsu-for-525-million.html
Wow, what a can of worms. I have read other similar stories. I think a lot of people have thought of sperm donation being comparable to blood donation. The consequences are a lot different. Bet a lot of broke medical students and others are going to be looking for a different way to make a few bucks.
DeleteThey've used DNA registries to identify serial killers and you only need relatives of the serial killer in the database to zero in. It will be interesting to see if this affects the willingness to pollinate for dollars. It assumes some foresight on the behalf of young men which I don't. I always thought the practice of insemination from anonymous sperm donation was weird. Often the Church and I totally agree.
DeleteI think we'd file that Atlantic story under "Research confirming what everyone already knew". The purposes of abortion and adoption are fundamentally different: to put it as baldly as possible, abortion is to make the *pregnancy* go away, while adoption is to make the *child* go away. It should surprise nobody that mothers bond with their children and so 99% of them choose not to put their newborns up for adoption.
ReplyDeleteIf (as I fervently hope and pray) abortion can be made much less available, and so making the pregnancy go away won't be an option for some mothers, then we might expect the incidence of adoption to rise as more children are brought to childbirth. The percentage of children given up for adoption might not rise, but as the number of childbirths rises, the number of adoptions also would rise.
How the declining stigma (which surely is a good thing) of being an unwed mother plays into all this is not immediately clear. My supposition is: even though the stigma has receded somewhat, it has far from disappeared, and so continues to play some role in both sets of decisions (whether or not to abort; whether or not to put the child up for adoption).
""Adoption can be the best choice in some very difficult circumstances, but we also should be asking hard questions about the kind of societies that put women and their children in those circumstances — whether it is poverty, sexual violence, lack of access to birth control or an overall lack of support systems for children and families.""
ReplyDeleteWhat a curious omission from that list of root causes: "I had sex with some guy for whom I have no long term life plans or aspirations such as marriage or shared parenthood, and he impregnated me." Not everything in life has vast, sweeping macro causations. Sometimes things occur in our individual lives due to our own personal decisions.
"Sometimes things occur in our individual lives due to our own personal decisions." Yep. This goes for both men and women. Barring sexual assault or violence, both have choices that need to be exercised intentionally prior to causing a pregnancy. If this grandma could get one thing across to the younger people, it would be that there isn't any such thing as casual sex or free love. Your body takes it seriously even if you don't.
Delete"Your body takes it seriously even if you don't."
DeleteKatherine, I love that. You're pointing to a sort of un-science-y way of living our lives. I guess we could say analogous things about COVID or climate change: we live as though we hope a bad thing doesn't happen, despite the massive amounts of evidence that the bad thing can certainly happen and may even be likely to happen. Rather than taking the facts, and the risks they represent, seriously and tailoring our behavior accordingly. I really think we're fact-challenged sometimes. We make decisions according to our hearts, and ignore our heads. (And in some cases, our heads may not be properly educated to make good decisions.) I'm not exempt from bad decision making, either.
Sometimes things occur in our individual lives due to our own personal decisions.
ReplyDeleteMaking this the personal responsibility of the pregnant person is just another way like abortion and adoption of "making the problem go away."
We whether as a civic society, or in the case of Catholics a religious society are making the child someone else's problem not our problem. One of the most beautiful pro-life signs that I have experienced is the practice of the local Orthodox church of praying specifically for the unborn child of N and N, of welcoming this new life into a larger community even before birth or the rite of baptism. That local community seems to have a lot of pregnancies and treats its babies and toddlers very well during liturgy.
Making it solely the responsibility of the pregnant woman, Jim, reveals a mindset that is very troubling. The equally responsible male generally walks away. If he works for a Catholic school or organization he is not fired, unlike an unmarried pregnant woman. Her life is impacted in multiple ways for the entire rest of her life. His is untouched unless he is forced to contribute a little money in child support. She is the one who is up feeding the baby every two hours, the one taking the child to the doctor when sick, the one teaching and loving and caring for the child every single day. She is the one who has to find a new job after being fired by the church. I wonder how many pregnant Catholic Church employees get abortions out of desperation because they can’t afford to lose their job - or their health insurance. Some women face this in non- church jobs, even though it’s illegal. The Catholic Church can flaunt the law, claiming “ freedom of religion “. But who will hire the pregnant woman who was fired by the RC church because of her pregnancy.
DeleteThere is a mindset revealed in your post, Jim, that is sad evidence of the persistence of the same blame-the- woman mindset that Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about.
Tell me, if someone’s fondness for fast food, sweets, and overeating in general ( the majority of adult Americans are overweight)results in coronary artery disease and a heart attack ( as it so often does), would you judge them as harshly as you are judging women on their personal responsibility? Does pro- life extend to judging people who eat irresponsibly , putting their lives at risk, as unworthy of compassion?
Perhaps a re- read of The Scarlet Letter is in order.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter
It's not solely the responsibility of the woman, but she's half of the equation. Personal responsibility isn't a bad thing. There's actually two different questions here. One concerns our collective obligation to care for people in difficult circumstances and not judge them. The other is a person's need to exercise the virtue of prudence.
DeleteBut Katherine, people judge the women’s lack of personal responsibility far more harshly than they do the men. It didn’t even ocCur to Jim to mention the male role in this. He came down hard but only on the pregnant woman,
DeleteIn fact, many admire men who have sex with lots of different women. The men seldom pay a price - not physically, not emotionally, not financially, not in judgmental people criticizing their lack of personal responsibility. This last is extra true among “ religious “ people, including the officials of Catholic institutions who fire pregnant women but not men who might make them pregnant- all shrouded in secrecy. This includes Catholic priests who impregnate women, There is an international organization of children of Catholic priests - who grew up without a father. If the bishop learns of it, and is a decent guy, sometimes the mother is given a small amount of financial support. The biggest problem is the sexual abuse of the young, and the focus has been on that, but there are hundreds - thousands most likely- of cases of women being impregnated by Father Not-So- Pure. He generally skates free. She does not. She is blamed - a seductress. But very often he seduces her. Nor do the children of these priests skate free.
Do these priests, like most men, get a pass because “ she is half the problem”. The men don’t even begin to suffer the consequences that the women do - not even half the consequences. Especially not Roman Catholic priests or male teachers, coaches, or other staff.
I guess things vary from state to state but isn't there something called a paternity test now with DNA positivity that makes the father financially responsible (if the mother doesn't exercise the abortion option)? I suppose if the father is a minor and/or has no income, they get away with it. But a young employed man won't.
DeleteYes, Stanley, there are laws mandating at least minimal financial child support. I know from one of the projects I once worked on that very often the woman have to go to court to try to get an order for enforcement as many, many men simply ignore the child support orders. If the woman succeeds, and if the father has regular employment, and if he doesn’t try to disappear or move to another state - then the government might garnish a portion of his salary and send it to the mother. And IF she succeeds, the money usually is not indexed to inflation. When a friend, the mother of one of my son’s girlfriends got a divorce, her husband was ordered to pay child support of $200/ month. The amount never changed during the next 15 years. He was a lawyer working for the federal government. She was an editor of a small publication for educators. Their salaries and benefits were not even close to being comparable. There was no alimony of course. Fortunately this woman had a college degree and regular employment with healthcare benefits. Few single women who get pregnant collect any child support for very long. They can’t afford the lawyers to keep going back to court to try to get the orders enforced, much less to get more money as inflation goes up. And, of course, unless she has a supportive family. EVERYTHING needed by her child - love, food, medical. Education, clothing, shoes, dental care, movie tickets, field trip fees, and, most importantly, love and security are up to the mom alone. My friend’s mother abandoned her and her younger brother when she was 12. Her father did the legal minimum raising her to age 18. Then she was on her own. She finished college via scholarship and loans. She married a law student whom she supported while he finished school. But she ended up alone too and her child did not have a loving dad to carry her into the ER, or to root at the soccer games. Many women do not even have the advantages she had. Men get off lightly ( as did my friend’s mother who simply disappeared for 25 years but usually it’s dads, not moms who do this) . I have never forgotten an office mate I had early in my marriage. He was divorced with one child and bitter about the child support payments. He admired a friend tremendously because the man skipped the state, moved to New Mexico and gave not a single dime of the child support ordered for his four children after his divorce. He simply moved away and abandoned them financially as well as physically. You are very naive if you think employed men - single or even previously married to the mother of their children- don’t get away with it. They do - especially if the woman isn’t savvy enough to have the court ordered amount adjusted for inflation and for future increases in the father’s income. Or simply move to another state.
DeletePerhaps naive or perhaps a different database. I know a father who fought for partial custody and was financially zeroed out in the process. He pays child support even though the ex makes more. He doesn't complain because he loves the girl. I'm not an admirer of our court system. It either falls short of justice or commits outright injustice to the people who need justice the most. The variance in state laws and the very system of states only exacerbates the problem.
DeleteI wrote, regarding pregnancy: "Sometimes things occur in our individual lives due to our own personal decisions."
DeleteJack replied: "Making this the personal responsibility of the pregnant person is just another way like abortion and adoption of "making the problem go away.""
Hi Jack, I think we're talking about different things here. I admire the approach of the parish you mentioned. But what I was referring to was the act which brought about the unwanted pregnancy / unwanted child. I think it's a little absurd to say, "Poverty caused that pregnancy", or "lack of access to contraception caused that pregnancy". It's important to note Katherine's qualifier, as rape and abuse are very real, but barring those circumstances: the pregnancy was brought about by two consenting individuals. Even persons who are poor, even persons without access to contraception(!) retain their right to consent - or not consent.
Is it a rare or a commonplace gift to be able to listen to one's brain when one's body is screaming for one to engage in risky activity? I don't know. But I suspect that, if one has a supportive and loving network of family and friends, one is less likely to make bad decisions.
"people judge the women’s lack of personal responsibility far more harshly than they do the men."
DeleteAnne - quite right. Fathers should share lifelong responsibility for their children. My comment was in response to this statement from Heidi Schlumpf's article: "Adoption can be the best choice in some very difficult circumstances, but we also should be asking hard questions about the kind of societies that put *women and their children* in those circumstances". I took her overall article, which was quite sensitive and aligned with the experiences of adopted children I've known over the years, to see the relinquish-for-adoption decision primarily as the mother's.
The circumstances described in your anecdotes of the many ways men can be pigs are rather infuriating. As Katherine notes, men are half the equation in these situations.
For the record, when you made your generous offer to fund a ministry in our parish that would go beyond formula and diapers, I responded privately with the URLs to a handful of ministries outside our parish which our parish already supports. You replied that those non-parish ministries aren't what you had in mind. Fair enough. As I mentioned in our correspondence, I don't actually run our parish pro-life activities, and didn't think I had the time or resources to start up a new venture. As it happens, our parish now is looking for a new leader for our Respect Life ministries, so I may be getting more involved.
I offered the pro- life group at Jim’s church a several thousand $ donation to try to start a program that would offer tangible support to single women contemplating abortion. It has been my observation that “ pro- life” programs in parishes stop with diapers and formula. Nothing long- term. No child care support so mom can work, and not go on welfare. No volunteer medical clinics. Nothing after the bare minimum for a few months. Their efforts and money go to fund politicians who oppose not just abortion, but the social safety nets that might allow some women to “ choose life”. The money is going to St. Ann’s in the DC area instead. It is the only program I know of personally that offers real support, including transitional housing, educational support, job counseling etc. What if the millions that the “ pro-life” movement has spent on political activities had instead gone I to creating more programs like St. Ann’s?
ReplyDeleteHere is the link that I posted a month or two ago. This program has grown and expanded over the years. But if parishes would join together and pick just one of these areas for long- term support than the “pro-life” self- description might actually mean something more than pious posturing.
Deletehttps://www.stanns.org/about
It would be a great transformation if parishes could become engines of charity and communion. The existence of charitable organizations is great but I think it would be great to fold it into parish life. I guess the problem is that it can't be too amateurish but professionals could be involved to keep things from going stupid. I know that parishes have charity programs but these seem to be rather limited.
DeleteI didn't get the impression that Jim was trying to make unwanted pregnancy *only* a personal responsibility issue.
ReplyDeleteHowever, here are some stats from Guttmacher (and the CDC has the same info): https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states
Stats seem to indicate that unwanted pregnancy is less about moral behavior than about a gap in access to contraception.
The women most likely not get pregnant are 18-24, high school education at best, working in minimum-wage service jobs, and often living with their boyfriends. Women of color are represented at higher rates because more of them happen to be in lower education/income groups.
It goes without saying that the women most likely to have an unwanted pregnancy will also have less access to good prenatal care. They are also more likely to be women of color. Their babies will be less desirable in the adoption market (sorry, but that's what it is), especially if they are low birth weight or otherwise compromised health-wise because of poor medical intervention.
If we want women to bring their babies to term, whether they keep or adopt, it makes sense to address the education and economic challenges that they face.
There probably could also be conversations about how single mothers and fathers beget future single mothers and fathers. But we are now two or three generations deep in that trend and unlikely to turn back the tide.
Jean, thanks for that Guttmacher link. As a side comment, I wish they'd update their statistics more frequently. If I'm not mistaken, there is no data referenced beyond 2014 in that fact sheet, and much of it is from 2011 - now more than a decade old. It's a big deal because sexual behavior seems to have been changing in the last decade; and also because the last decade has seen (or one would think it would have seen - I guess we'd need metrics to confirm) the continued adoption of Obamacare's contraception mandate by sexually active women.
DeleteThis bullet point is from the Demographics section of the sheet: "Unintended pregnancy rates are highest among low-income women (i.e., women with incomes less than 200% of the federal poverty level), women aged 18–24, cohabiting women and women of color.2 Rates tend to be lowest among higher-income women (at or above 200% of poverty), white women, college graduates and married women." My comment: all those demographic distinctions probably are a function of income differences. Does poverty "cause" unintended pregnancies? Or do unintended pregnancies lead to poverty? Or is there some sort of mutually reinforcing relationship?
You mention lack of access to contraception as a factor in unintended pregnancies. I guess I don't know what can be done to make contraception more available than it already is. Certainly, for those age 18 or over, it seems one need simply ask a doctor; for nearly all patients that age, it's available free of charge. This Guttmacher fact sheet notes that 27 states and the District of Columbia allow minors to have access to contraception without parental involvement. (I would need to dig deeper to see which states those are, but assuming they constitute the majority of "blue" states, that would seem to cover the majority of the population.)
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-minors-consent-law
My supposition is that contraception is available - in nearly all cases at no charge to the patient - for virtually all women over the age of 17, and most teens over the age of 14. If birth control isn't being utilized, and the sex is consensual, I have to think it's because of the sexual partner's decision/choice.
Yes, I thought the stats were also outdated, and the CDC has not updated theirs, either.
DeleteIt takes a certain amount of experience with low-income women to understand why and how they end up with an unwanted pregnancy despite the availability of contraception.
I would expect that clergy and faith-based orgs working with these groups take the time to get to understand their backgrounds, their attitudes, and their resources.
If you are in touch with other clergy in poor parishes or congregations, it would be interesting to hear their insights.
"Sometimes things occur in our individual lives due to our own personal decisions."
ReplyDeleteThis phrase is particularly troublesome for me because it includes two perspectives which I disagree with. First is the American individualistic perspective which make individuals responsible for behavior regardless of the circumstance. In the case of pregnancy, it disregards all the propaganda in our society which makes sexual behavior highly desirable. In other words, I think we should be taxing all the stuff we see on television and in the movies to provide housing, childcare etc. for any young people who get pregnant so they can raise those children. I would give those resources to the fathers and well as the mothers.
The second perspective is the Catholic moral acts perspective which reduces sin to individual acts which has gotten us into much difficulty especially in the area of contraception.
Both of these place excessive burdens upon young people, that one mistake can ruin a life. Definitely not the work of a merciful God.
In my Catholic socialist utopia, there is a universal right to health care, education, shelter, and a job that is endowed at conception. If the mother and/or father don't want to exercise the resources that go with those rights, then the child goes to adoptive parents. If the resources that went with those rights were sufficient, I think many parents would accept the job of being a parent. It is a job and I think it should be well paying.
ReplyDeleteJack, I think it boils down to the fact that we are all sinners and make stupid choices. The richer merely have more money, info, and access to cover their sins up. Poorer folks have to live with their sins and listen to other people comment on their personal choices.
ReplyDeleteI think social capital has a lot to do with it. Those who are well off tend to have supportive networks which (a) reinforce moral norms and the exercise of prudence; and (b) provide a safety net to mitigate the consequences of bad decisions.
Delete20 years ago, when I spent a lot of time in preschool pickup lines, I saw a lot of grandparents in those midday lines. A very simple example of a support network.
So are you saying that richer people are more likely to conform to moral norms and exercise prudence because they have better examples than poorer people?
DeleteThe social networks of yesteryear were different from those of today. Back decades ago, when research was done on the superiority of Catholic school systems, it was because of the whole parish network helped raise the kids, including both social norms and support when they failed. And it was rich and poor kids.
DeleteIn those days social networks crossed class lines. Rich people often lived in the same neighborhoods as poor people, only they had bigger houses. Their sons and daughters often went to the same schools. They often helped poor people get ahead.
Today we are slowly but surely being segregated by class. The rich live in gated communities with the rich and can help one another, the poor live with the poor who often cannot help each other.
Nice catch, Jack. In my working class neighborhood, the next economic level was represented by physicians, dentists and funeral directors. Their workplaces were also their residences. So they WERE embedded.
Delete"So are you saying that richer people are more likely to conform to moral norms and exercise prudence because they have better examples than poorer people?"
DeleteJean - It seems likely to me that young people with lots of social capital are less likely to end up poor.
I expect we get our moral norms from many places; I doubt churches are the primary source for most people (even though we try to get our message out!)
A supportive social network can be a safety net in a lot of practical ways for a single mom, from helping with school pickups and dropoffs to helping with childcare to providing job opportunities to providing a place to live.
Some of this has seeped into politics and policy discussions over the years: cf the concerns about lack of father figures in poor neighborhoods; the lack of marriageable men for poor women; Big Brother/Sister programs to give poor children responsible mentors. I see all these as identifying, and/or seeking to address, problems of social capital.
The local suburban high school my kids attended is sort of a college factory: it churns out kids who are relatively prepared for college; nearly all of them go to college; most of them graduate; and then they end up living someplace where college-educated people live, they work with other college-educated people, they marry college-educated persons, and send their kids to a college-prep factory similar to the one my kids attended.
DeleteThe Catholic high school I attended was different in some ways: it wasn't suburban; on the whole, it was more working class; and in some ways it was less diverse than my kids' suburban public high school. But it also was a college-prep factory.
When I was a young adult, I was an adjunct for a few years in the Chicago City College (community college) system. In the program I was affiliated with, our students were almost entirely from the Chicago Public Schools. Nearly all of them were poor and most of them were Black. This program offered job placement services. The premise of the program was to impart some employable technical skills to these kids, and then help them get a white collar job with one of the downtown Chicago firms. The kids did pretty well learning the technical stuff, but getting them employed proved to be tough sledding. According to our placement people, the kids would "flunk" the first interview. No doubt, plain brute racial prejudice was one of the reasons. But our placement people also concluded that these Chicago kids didn't know how to communicate effectively in the business world.
By contrast, the kids graduating from our local suburban high school communicate with ease. And why wouldn't they? Their parents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, friends' parents, et al all live in the world of college educated, middle class (or higher) adult employment already. That's the water these kids learned to swim in. The Chicago Public School kids grew up swimming in different water.
I'm making these observations because I think the kids from the suburban high school, on the whole, have more social capital than the kids from the Chicago public schools. I think it's likely that relatively well-off kids have more social capital than relatively poor kids. Being more prosperous has to be part of the reason. But I think it's sort of a self-reinforcing cycle: having social capital makes it more likely that a young person will end up being relatively well-off, with a stable family in a low crime community.
I also think the kids from my Catholic school had a lot of social capital, but it's of a somewhat different kind than the public school students: it's the kind that comes from kids growing up in close-knit extended families within strong ethnic and religious bonds.
I actually do ministry with low income people. Every one of them has a history. We try not to analyze or judge - we just help.
ReplyDeleteResearch has found that low income people prefer receiving help from parishes and congregations rather than from large government funded agencies. Mostly because they receive less judgmental help. In our parish the SVDP people often see themselves as being with the people whom they serve, trying to help them get government and other services before using SVDP money as a last resort.
ReplyDeleteJack, all those points are interesting.
DeleteFWIW, we see ourselves as emergency, short-term assistance. We lack the means to provide a long-term stream of financial assistance, e.g. by paying someone's rent or electric bill for a long series of months. But we can often do a one-time payment. And our food pantry can be used weekly, and many clients do so. We also provide food, gas and public-transportation gift cards - clients are entitled to so much (actually, it's not very much) per month. Everything we do is self-funded by the generosity of our parishioners - they donate food, gift cards and funds.
For clients who need more assistance than we can provide, usually owe can refer the clients to ne of the local agencies, some of which are public and some are private, but virtually all of which are funded by government programs (local, state and/or federal). The professional agencies employ social workers who have expertise in navigating the many government assistance programs. We're amateurs when it comes to that. But the government programs often attach strings and/or have stringent requirements, and sometimes a client is a "square peg" who doesn't always fit in a program's "round hole". And then there are undocumented immigrants, who barely trust us, much less a government agency or program, but who still need food and transportation.
Yeah, not to be a bitch, but these discussions about "the poor" and their lack of personal responsibility (or social capital, which sounds a lot like "lazy bad families") strike me as fairly judgmental and shaming. As someone who has fallen into the low-income category, some of these conversations have always rubbed me the wrong way. Not sure those who are comfortably off really understand the extent to which the poor in America suffer from self-blame and shame.
ReplyDeleteA poor woman who aborts a fetus or gives up a child for adoption when a better income would allow her to keep it is something that can keep me up at night if I think about it too much.
I agree.
DeleteI think poverty is a function of the economic system. Poverty is a gravity well from which it's hard to escape. Only systematic changes can reduce poverty. This system has worked well for me. But it should work better for everybody. Universal health care would be a good start.
Getting rid of judgementalism would get rid of another road block.
I don't perceive Jim as being judgemental of the poor.
But I would say that social and family breakdown are caused or at least exacerbated by economic hardship. Which feeds back into the poverty.
Sure. And I'm not trying to pick on Jim, just question the assumptions.
DeleteI think that many dysfunctions run across the socio-economic spectrum. These include substance abuse, unwanted pregnancy, lack of family time due to high-pressure work environments, mental illness, lack of community connections, preoccupation with status, domestic violence, etc. Those with money can hide or treat these problems. When these problems trip up poor people, there is a tendency to assume that at least some of the fault lies with "personal responsibility," i.e., loose morals, laziness, and ignorance. We don't level these judgments at those who are self-supporting.
I don't want to undercut the need for emergency assistance efforts--soup kitchens, gas cards, etc.--but I do sense that many middle- to upper-class Christians who contribute to them have the notion that "the poor will always be with us" and that charity ends with the stop-gap measures rather than an awareness of how the economic, health, and justice systems are stacked against people without money.
When someone tells a poor person to try to live on a budget, they're not realizing that even a strict budget will not be enough to cover the bills. Here's Katie Porter explaining this to the suits at JP Morgan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLuuCM6Ej0
"Those with money can hide or treat these problems. When these problems trip up poor people, there is a tendency to assume that at least some of the fault lies with "personal responsibility," i.e., loose morals, laziness, and ignorance. We don't level these judgments at those who are self-supporting."
DeleteI'm sure this is largely true - although I think being judgmental of others is an equal-opportunity sport and nobody is exempt from being victimized by it. But people who are well-off are able to be more resilient in the aftermath of their poor decisions/unfortunate circumstances than people who aren't.
To take an example unrelated to sex and pregnancy: there are people of any and all income levels who don't get vaccinated for COVID-19. A hospitalization to treat COVID probably is going to be less devastating for a well-off person. In my particular case, I have a corporate health care insurance plan; and my employer, for a while, was providing special COVID benefits to employees - including that hospital stays wouldn't consume an employee's sick days and vacation days. (That benefit was discontinued after vaccines became widely available. Probably there is a sort of institutional judginess going on there: 'If you get COVID now, it's your own fault; we're not going to bend over backward to accommodate you anymore.'
Some of the factors which correlate with poverty surely are not the fault of the poor person: mental illness; and catastrophic health issues like cancer or auto accident injuries; and growing up in a single-parent household; and race. Some other factors are things over which an individual has some agency. Most pregnancies out of wedlock would fall into this category. So does curtailing one's education. Even addiction has some level of agency, at least insofar as some poor decisions brought about the addiction. If that sounds like blaming the victim - well, what can I say? Some things that happen to us really are our own fault, or at least partially so. Unless we are children, we are responsible for the things we're able to control. We do all make bad decisions from time to time - and as I say, a well-off person can bounce back from those better than a person who is less well-off.
Put a different way, social capital can be interpreted as people in your life who are there for you, and who are willing to lend a helping hand if needed. As Stanley pointed out, social and family breakdown can be exacerbated by economic hardship.
ReplyDeleteI don't think any of us here are trying to judge poor people.
I would say that's a two-way avenue, that family breakdown and social support exacerbates economic hardship. Certainly Jack has often pointed out the opportunities parishes have in the well being of their members. Ex, a friendly mask policy helps reduce the medical costs associated with illness, lost wages, and, in some cases, hospitalization.
DeleteThanks for entertaining my views. Sorry to be a pest.
ReplyDeleteJean, you're not a pest!
DeleteDefinitely not.
DeleteSome basic psychology may be at play in our perceptions of the poor (and rich). Human behavior is much more determined by situations, e.g. certain situations produce anxiety rather than by person traits, i.e. some people are more anxious than others. However, when we see consistent behavior, e.g. anxiety, we are more likely to attribute that to a personality trait rather than that the person has encountered a lot of situations that would be anxiety producing.
ReplyDeleteIf people observe other people solving problems in which the difficulty of the problem is not apparent, they are more likely to say that persons consistently solving the problems are talented or motivated, and those who consistently fail to solve the problems are untalented and unmotivated.
We likely over attribute agency to people because we need to predict other people's behavior. When we encounter a poor person, we are unlikely attempt to discover all the situations which made that person poor most of which we probably could not change. However, we might easily develop hypotheses about which behaviors of that person might change their poverty situation.
Jean: I think that many dysfunctions run across the socio-economic spectrum... Those with money can hide or treat these problems. When these problems trip up poor people, there is a tendency to assume that at least some of the fault lies with "personal responsibility," i.e., loose morals, laziness, and ignorance. We don't level these judgments at those who are self-supporting.
ReplyDeleteYes - there are multiple layers of complexity and so multiple ways to misjudge situations and people. And the rich can indeed "solve" these problems more easily than the poor.
Some anecdotes.
One of my husband's older cousins got pregnant shortly before graduating from college in 1956. The father was one of her professors. She was from a "good" family, socially, financially etc. She was sent away to a city in another state, to a maternity home, where she gave birth to a daughter. She held her for 10 minutes before they took her away. It was a tight family secret for decades. She had been made to feel that she had no support from her affluent family, that she had disgraced them, and that she had no choice but to sign the adoption papers. For some reason, I was the first of her cousins she told her story to - and I am a cousin by marriage only. She stayed in the city where she had been sent, not wanting to return to her family. She was a college grad, had a successful career, but never married. She told me that she had gotten pregnant again, some years after her first pregnancy, and that she had chosen to abort because it was much easier emotionally - she didn't relate to a microscopic cluster of cells, but she had related with her daughter before birth, in the last several months of her pregnancy. She is now 85, and, eventually she reunited with her daughter, who was a woman of 37 at that point. Not a normal mother-daughter relationship, but a good relationship. They live on opposite coasts, but get together a couple of times/year.
Several girls in my high school, pre-Roe, got pregnant. There were a couple of shotgun weddings. There were a couple of families that moved away where they were not known. I don't know what happened to the babies - raised by the family? Adopted? Never heard. They cut off all ties, even with their former neighbors and friends. I know of a couple of abortions - illegal then. But that doesn't stop them. In my Catholic women's college there were a couple of "quick" marriages but the women returned to classes, pregnant, and they graduated. They had wedding bands. There were a couple who left for "vacation" but never came back. And I know of at least one abortion - one of the class leaders, very popular with the nuns. Again - pre-Roe.
All of these cases, pre-Roe, were middle to upper middle class families. Of those who left town from my high school days, one was the girls' PE teacher - impregnated by the cute math teacher, a recent grad of Loyola U. She had to leave without explaining to us why (we found out soon enough). He of course stayed at the school, teaching, no worries about an inconvenient child messing up his life as a young bachelor.
Continued...
I have lived among professional, upper-middle class families since 1972. I have not heard of even a single teen or college pregnancy in the neighborhood or schools or parishes. But one of my nieces did get pregnant in college. Her father wanted her to get an abortion, but she was a rebel, and s chose to give birth. They supported her and her child all the way through law school. They could easily afford it and the scandal by then was minimal.
DeleteA friend was a volunteer who worked with troubled teen girls. She told me that there are plenty of pregnancies in this community but that they are aborted. This includes girls from the private Catholic schools as well as the public schools. As Jean notes, the affluent can hide the problem, or just get rid of it. Lots of payments to shrinks, expensive rehab programs, and I know of two cases where the child was sent to an extremely expensive boarding school ($100K or more) to "fix" their problems.
Unlike Jean, I sometimes do deliberately pick on you, Jim. Sorry, Jim - it's not because I dislike you, or disrespect your views and your right to them, but because you are the only one among us who literally has a bully pulpit. As a clergyman, you have religious and moral authority. So I admit to pushing a bit, because I think it would be good, Jim, to learn to think outside of a National Review mindset,to open your mind to the complexities of these issues. It's one I understand because I was raised in the same mindset, and embraced it for much of my life. But I changed after a while, as did my husband, and one of my sisters. We are the family outcasts these days.
Since I was a freelancer, I had an interesting array of jobs over the years. Although about 75% were in the field of international economics, the jobs varied. I also did volunteer jobs. I was a volunteer writer of grant proposals for a free health clinic for the working poor (too much $ for Medicaid, too little to buy their own insurance), set up by one of my former parishes I learned a lot- by being forced to dig into the data. I realized I lived in a bubble, believing that everyone had either private insurance or at least Medicaid. I learned a whole lot about the working poor - those in the abortion data who are just above the poverty line.
In another non-economics job I became immersed in the studies and data about poor teen-age girls, those at highest risk for pregnancy, and to drop out of high school. I learned a lot about sex ed in American high schools. And I learned that abstinence only is not a formula for success if one wants to prevent teen pregnancies and keep kids in school. The "comprehensive" programs are much more successful. They include abstinence as the ideal, but teach about condoms, pills, etc, and teach kids how to get them. Some inner city schools keep condoms in the nurse's office. The girls are often referred to free clinics - such as those operated by Planned Parenthood. (I am not a fan of PP, and one thing pro-life groups could do would be to set up clinics, maybe staffed by volunteers, to do some of this work - birth control information and products, STD education and testing, etc.
I also spent time in the poorest part of the Dominican Republic, visiting our sister parish. Another eye-opening experience. The poor there didn't live with drug gang violence, which is driving the immigration attempts from the Northern triangle countries, but the poverty was something I had only seen in photos - far more real when you are standing in the middle of it. So I now think we need to make it easier for people to enter our country because of the dangers in their own, AND for economic reasons. Most of our ancestors came here for one of those reasons - to flee wars or violence or religious oppression, or because they might starve to death if they didn't cross the Atlantic.
I guess my volunteer jobs exposed me to a world I had not been really aware of, and my mind and heart changed.
Anne, if you have been reading Jim's comments, you will see that he does work with programs for the poor, I think St. Vincent de Paul is one of them. I don't get the impression at all that he lives in a "National Review" type of bubble.
Delete"you are the only one among us who literally has a bully pulpit."
DeleteJust in the interest of clarity: what I have literally is not a bully pulpit but - occasionally - a literal pulpit.
I think the meaning of "bully pulpit" is one who leverages his/her access to a public speaking role in order to talk about anything/everything s/he wants to.
That is indeed a temptation for a preacher! - and one that should be rigorously eschewed. Our charter is to preach the Good News of God's wonderful works. As soon as we start straying into politics or "current events" we can easily get ourselves in trouble.
I do preach about current events from time to time, but only if they happen to intersect with the day's readings and if I can see a way that our parishioners can do anything about them in their daily lives. We all can do things regarding the Coronavirus, racism and climate change, and I have preached about those topics. Most of us probably can't do much about inflation and immigration policy except talk about how bad or good it is. There are other people and other venues to talk and write about that stuff.
Anne, off topic, I hope your family in Colorado are safe from the fires.
ReplyDeleteAnne, are you back home? Saw all those canceled flights and the wintry mess in DC and worried you might be stuck in an airport somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone. Made it home in a heavy snowstorm. The flight was delayed because they needed to get another flight attendant in at midnight - one called in sick. This was true of other flights scheduled around the same time. People were camped out on the floor, some sleeping. But we did take off finally! The roads were ghastly when we got in and we had to wait for a taxi. Usually there are a couple of dozen taxis lined up. Fortunately he was a skilled driver, very careful, and we made it. The Colorado family are about 15 miles away from the fires - they could see the glow. They lost electricity for about 36 hours. Apparently the high winds were incredible.
ReplyDeleteI know that Jim works at a soup kitchen with poor people. But, believe me, that kind of experience gives only the slightest taste of what serious poverty involves. All of the volunteer ministries at the churches I’ve attended, both Catholic and episcopal, offer pretty much sanitized and minimal experiences and insights about the lives of the poor. The challenges they face, the vicious circle of their generational lives. I honestly have no answers to that. I often study the data from European countries and dig into studies ion different topics. In general they do far better than the US on multiple aspects of healthy culture and society - healthcare, education, violent crime, policing, divorce, abortion etc. I haven’t really looked into how they prevent the worst poverty, minimize the dysfunctional cycle we see in the US. Maybe that would be a good winter project! We could learn a lot from others if we weren’t so convinced that America is best at everything. We are not, and we are in serious trouble. The swing to Libertarian ideas has really been bad for our country.
But in the US with both government programs and a plethora of non- profits offering soup kitchens, groceries, used clothes, furniture etc. volunteers really don’t get the big picture. I know - I was one and the help provided is very needed. But it’s not enough to change the root causes - the unjust structures that are the cause of so many of the dysfunctions. Jim frequently cites National Review - which at least had more intellectual credibility than other conservative sources, such as Fox. But that aspect of NR holds dangers - my husband and I, and my sister, bought into the NR mindset for years, and some of our family members and friends still do. Unfortunately their best - most credible and objective - writers have left the publication. NR was staunchly against Trump in 2016 - but they caved after he became President. Some staff writers didn’t like what happened there. I know that Jim is not a trump person, thank goodness, but he sometimes looks at the complex issues like abortion, poverty, immigration etc through the often foggy NR lenses. I still believe in capitalism. My experience with international economics, including developing country economies taught me that it is the best economic system for lifting the worlds poorest out of extreme poverty. Free trade is part of the reason for that success. BUT, there is a downside, and, through my work, through a network of European friends and family, and via extensive travel in Europe over a 50 year period, I came around to believing that European style democratic socialism, which is rooted in capitalism, offers the best culture for the most people to be able to thrive, instead of the stark situation we have with too many people failing to thrive, in spite of being the richest country in the world.
Apologies to Jim for sometimes picking on you. Your heart is in the right place most of the time. You actually give me occasional hope that there are a few conservatives left who aren’t yet extremists.
I am glad to be a beacon of hope :-). You're not all wrong about National Review; a couple of the conservative writers I liked best (David French, Jonah Goldberg) split off from NR and co-founded The Dispatch. If you or other folks here watch any of the television network Sunday morning political gabfests, Sarah Isgur from The Dispatch occasionally appears. There still are some excellent writers at NR, and I don't believe any of their regular writers are generating propaganda for Trump - which, as you note, can't be said for Fox News and even further-to-the-right cable news outfits.
DeleteIn my view, the difference between democratic socialism in Western Europe, and whatever it is we do here in the US, is one of degree rather than kind. True socialism would involve, among other things, nationalizing companies and industries; that doesn't happen in Western Europe today (although I think it has happened in the past, at least in the UK). Western European countries tend to offer more entitlements and government-administered social services, and tend to tax more than we do here in the US.
Here is a piece from NR, by David Harsanyi, which offers one take on the difference between the US and Europe. The things he is highlighting - Americans are more entrepreneurial, more comfortable with risk, and less likely to see failure as an insurmountable disaster - are cultural; I don't think a government policy can change something like that.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/europe-and-the-u-s-a-tale-of-two-economies/
I've read or heard somewhere that succeed-or-get-left-behind has been part of the (white) American culture for centuries; a good deal of it would have been self-selecting, as the Europeans more comfortable with risk are the ones who took the risk of immigrating here, while their family members who were more risk-averse stayed put.
The church's role in all this surely is to tend to those who have been "left behind". As an American Catholic, I can (and, I hope do) exhort those Americans who have been successful to show solidarity with those Americans who haven't.
The idea that we can get to root causes of poverty is not a bad one, but we must be skeptical of the technocratic implication that, if only we could identify the root cause, we'd know exactly how to fix it. The least bad way to fix poverty, as Anne notes, is what she refers to as capitalism - a term I don't like, as I view it as Marxist terminology, and no system of governance and economics in the history of the human race is as discredited as Marxism. Also, the capital markets really are just one aspect - albeit an essential aspect - of a free market economy. I prefer terms - and ideas - like democracy and the free market. But I'm not laissez faire, and I'm not Libertarian. Laissez faire was tried in the 19th century. It led to child labor and workhouses; price-fixing and other forms of monopolistic collaboration and connivance among investors and executives; widespread corruption of and by elected officials; and many other excesses and evils. Entrepreneurial business must work within legal constraints and regulations which are devised and enforced by democratic governments.
Jim, I'm fine with not saying "capitalism" but it seems that insisting on not using that word (using the narrow definition rather than how it's more broadly and commonly used) in favor of something that "sounds better" like "free market" is a way of trying to conceal the reality - which still includes corruption, labor abuses, collaboration among investors and executives etc - of the less desirable features of our economic system. It seems to be more about soothing the consciences of some conservatives rather than facing up to the realities of the distortions and abuses that still exist in our system and that have become much worse since January 20, 2017.
DeleteI've always seen some of this in the very cozy relationships between corporate executives, lobbyists and politicians and Cabinet officers and high level DOD executives, etc in DC, but the trump administration took these practices to never before seen levels of corruption, especially at the Cabinet level. All the trump people are crooks basically. This no-holds-barred level of corruption was supported and defended all the way by "free market" conservatives.
BTW, David French now writes a weekly newsletter for The Atlantic, which I subscribe to. Maybe it's the same thing he writes for the Dispatch. He hasn't yet gone off the rails totally and I can read his stuff without screaming aloud and spiking the blood pressure.
Sorry, Jim - it's not because I dislike you, or disrespect your views and your right to them, but because you are the only one among us who literally has a bully pulpit. As a clergyman, you have religious and moral authority. So I admit to pushing a bit, because I think it would be good, Jim, to learn to think outside of a National Review mindset, to open your mind to the complexities of these issues.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoy sparing with Jim's sometimes conservative views, I don't think he should be made responsible for the policies and practices of his parish or the church at large. My impression is that not only deacons but most priests who are not pastors really don't have much of a bully pulpit. If any of them attempted to walk outside the status quo in the parish, the pastor would probably hear a lot of complaints and likely place formal limits on them
Some pastors do have the autonomy and skill that they could challenge how things are done, though I do not see many of them doing that. Most of the time I see them using their autonomy and skills to shape the parish in ways they desire rather than liberating the laity to do the many things we could do to reshape both church and society.
Jack, you are right. Jim has told us more than once about the pushback they get if they dare teach something perceived as controversial - such as the gospel. Apparently they can't teach much of what Francis teaches, or the Social Justice Teachings of the RCC., etc.
DeleteIt's rather sad evidence that the clerical class is afraid to ruffle the waters, afraid to challenge the people in the pews. I assume this is because they fear losing even more people. They lost a few million during the conservative papacies of JPII and B16, and even more with all the sex abuse reports. The church's teachings on homosexuality and the "proper" roles for women (definitely NOT priesthood) also ate away at church attendance. And now the RCC has a whole lot of young, very conservative priests to go along with the old conservative bishops.
So ....how can Jim and other like-minded priests and deacons get through, since homilies aren't available to them - generic stuff only?
Once upon a time my former Catholic parishes were very involved with social justice projects and education, to raise awareness, and to encourage thinking and discussion. (not so much now - all EWTN stuff) This can still be done by really ramping up adult ed
1. Bible study that is NOT Barron or Jeff Cavins or similar If you want to be really open to progressive christianity, try something like Richard Rohr, or, God forbid, a protestant like Marcus Borg - "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time" . Many choices out there.
2. Create adult ed courses on Catholic Social Justice Teachings -multiple resources including a video series at the USCCB website. We built a program around the Seven Themes of Catholic Social Justice Teaching. https://tinyurl.com/2p93me3j
3. Speaker series - we invited speakers to give talks to the parish. Being in the DC area, some were professors at GU and CU, some were invited from special groups that do the work - in the mid-east, or on the ground elsewhere. DC is rich in resources, but so is Chicago!
3. Try to implement - We invited a speaker on Fair Trade, after we finally convinced the Parish Council to fund fair trade coffee at the Sunday doughnuts/coffee hours. We also left brochures on the table.
4. The parish twinned with an inner city parish in DC, and with a parish in the Dominican Republic. There was little interaction with the DC parish unfortunately - mostly money. But we did get up a group and projects for the DR, which I was part of. Besides raising awareness by visiting there, taking teenagers, we pushed the pastor to go there (he was a bit chicken to immerse himself in an environment of such poverty). The priest from the DR parish visited our parish and the DR bishop came also. When we visited the DR, we picked up a hitchhiker (cars were rarely seen – only one real road from the town we were in to villages (sometimes we had to hike or ride a mule to get to them). He was with a Miami group (started by a nun, of course) that had two major projects there - one was a medical mission to bring med professionals and medical supplies. We had a number of docs, nurses, and dentists who joined with them for their trips to help the poorest of the poor. The other project started by the nun in FL was funding a coffee processing operation so that the local farmers could do it themselves and sell through Fair Trade groups instead of accepting the meager prices the multinational coffee companies paid them. At the Christmas fair we invited local vendors, and tried to get vendors whose profit went to help others (such as Ten Thousand Villages - https://www.tenthousandvillages.com/
6. One parish had a small group that was joined with a community group formed by multiple local houses of worship to promote county policies to help the poor, immigrants, including the Dreamers. They had some amazing successes.
Delete7. Short courses on different topics for adult ed - no shortage of topics to teach and discuss. Commonweal might be a good source of materials there, as Jack has mentioned. Recruit priests from Loyola!
8. Book groups - a huge number of choices from across the spiritual/theological spectrum, touching on the social gospel.
9. A Habitat for Humanity group. Other practical help - Volunteers to help people prepare for job applications, for interviews etc. One woman in our parish collected business attire for women being released from jail, so that they could have something decent to wear to apply for jobs. But they needed help just knowing how to search for jobs, or how to improve their skills to qualify etc - a good project for parish full of well-educated professionals.
10. English conversation groups for immigrants
11. The usual - food collections, homeless shelter nights, back-to-school backpacks, pro-life baby bottle collection, Christmas toy collection etc.
12. Expand offerings for prayer or spiritual development beyond the standard - Centering Prayer, Lectio, Ignatian Spirituality, introduction to the prayers of the daily office, etc. Provide a few choices besides mass, rosary, Adoration, and litanies. People respond to different ways of praying.
12. Build or expand the parish library with books about different views on theology, the bible, prayer, spiritualities (esp Benedictine, Franciscan, Carmelite and Dominican) and, since people don't read as much tese days, offer a range of journals - from National Caatholic Reporter to National Catholic Register, First Things to Commonweal, the Christian Century and Sojourners. Lots of choices. Great article at Commonweal on neo-liberalism - good discussion points for people to agree or disagree with.
Open people's minds and hearts however you can, especially if homilies are required to be the same old, same old stuff.
Lots of things that can be done to "preach" without homilies. Pick a couple and recruit a few people to get started.
DeleteAnother idea - a film series - it could include Maid, The Biggest Little Farm (regenerative farming, climate change), Babbette's Feast to slip in a traditional choice, Schindler's List, Amistad, and lots of others. Chocolat might be good. My Episcopal church did this during Lent with a pot-luck dinner. I don't watch many movies but I'm sure I could think of many more given time.
OK - I'm gone. Won't bother everyone anymore.
"My impression is that not only deacons but most priests who are not pastors really don't have much of a bully pulpit." That is correct. And actually, it shouldn't be a "bully" pulpit, in any sense of the word. Most parishes consist of people of diverse points of view, even out here in "red" country. Preach the gospel without a political spin. People are always in favor of preaching it with their point of view. If we are on board with the !iberal spin, then we have to be okay, for instance, with the pastor down the road who attended the Capitol Insurrection (supposedly to cast out demons) and wants the women to cover their heads in church. Actually we have to make room for everyone unless we want to just be a silo church. Some people would be fine with that. But very glad we didn't end up with that priest down the road.
DeleteFWIW, our parish has done at least half of the things on Anne's list, maybe not all at the same time. Our freebie bookshelf (not really a library) consists more of the books on spirituality and prayer than of journals such as either First Things or Commonweal.
Parish activities tend to reflect the spirituality of their pastors, and the pastoral staff they recruit. So, there are some parishes like Anne's. Other parishes have other emphases.
DeleteWhat is very rare is diversity within rather than among parishes. Parishes usually do not emphasize the diversity of spirituality within Catholicism and that there are many ways of living a Catholic life. Usually new programs are one size fits all, and they are presented as suitable for everyone.
Jack - Parish activities tend to reflect the spirituality of their pastors, and the pastoral staff they recruit. So, there are some parishes like Anne's. Other parishes have other emphases.
DeleteWhat is very rare is diversity within rather than among parishes.
So very true - note my comment to Stanley. The parishes I mentioned with the programs are former parishes - I finally had to seek out an Episcopal parish. I could go downtown to DC to Holy Trinity - Jesuit parish that was established for Georgetown Univ way back in 1779. My husband doesn't want to commute that far and parking in Georgetown is a nightmare. It's a very old church with little of its own parking, so doesn't have an enormous suburban style parking lot. Besides, if I go downtown I would probably choose the Washington National Cathedral instead of Holy Trinity.
Socialism doesn't necessarily mean state ownership. It could mean employee ownership and not just token sharing of some stocks. This might depend on some state support to set up the legal structures.
ReplyDeleteMondragon of Spain (founded by a priest), Scott-Bader of Britain, and I believe Karl Zeiss may have been similarly set up for employee ownership. Maybe other methods of economic organization are possible.
Although employee ownership is considered a form of socialism, it's very rare. True socialism is government ownership and control of all the factors of production - North Korea and the former USSR, and Cuba (I think Cuba still has all government ownership and control. China gave it up, but kept the communist reins on government. Viet Nam now has an expanding private sector. It is true, as Jim notes, that the UK experimented with expanding government ownership/control over massive public companies, but mostly gave up and returned them to private ownership. The USA also have government ownership of a number of huge enterprises - sometimes only partial, but they are not purely privately owned. Most of the countries in Europe have government owned airlines. I don't think we need that as they do, but as a frequent enough flyer, I know we need to re-regulate that industry. It's a disaster for passengers these days.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the_United_States
Forgot to close the parens; the USA ..has....
DeleteIn a hurry so didn't check for typos. But since this is a very smart group of people, I have absolute faith that you will all figure it out. ;)
King Arthur flour became employee-owned in 2004. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/about/history
DeleteI also did a contract job for Harley-Davidson when it was employee-owned. The absolute nicest bunch of people ever.
Here's a list of other employee-owned biz: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/americas-most-successful-employee-owned-companies/ss-BB1e7Kfo#image=1
It would be nice if the movement spread more widely. United has, or had, at least partial employee ownership. Not sure of the situation now.
DeleteEmployee-owned companies have a hard time making a go of it. Often employees are trying to keep a company going in the face of financial difficulty, so they are already in straits. They may have a hard time attracting capital. And a lot depends on the management team they hire.
DeleteYes - I believe that's a big reason there are so few of them around.
DeleteStanley, both of my two former Catholic parishes made sharp right turns about 10 - 12 years ago when the last of their Vatican II formed pastors left, replaced by JPII and B16 pastors. I moved to the second RC parish after 30 years with the first. Then the pastor retired and it also changed. The programs I mentioned were at both parishes for the most part. After the second changed to EWTN/Scott Hahn, Barron, Alpha mode, dropping most of their SJ programs, I left. Between the swing to the right, the dropping of RCC Social Justice Teachings, and the continued failure at the top to truly address the sex abuse scandal - holding bishops accountable as well as priests - it was time for the ECUSA. Our first RC parish, where we were married, baptized the kids etc and were members for 30 years, still does publish some of Pope Francis' letters and homilies - in the bulletin. I have no idea if the priests ever preach about them though since I'm no longer there. Their focus on Social Justice is now limited pretty much exclusively to anti-abortion based on the info on the website and in the bulletin.
ReplyDeleteBut - we have basically been un-churched since our EC pastor and associate left, and they had a truly terrible interim whom they eventually had to replace and then Covid hit. They no longer have a permanent pastor and are beginning a search for the second time in three years. They extended the contracts of the second interim co-pastors. If I watch liturgy online (which I don't do very often I admit) I watch the one at the Washington National Cathedral.
DeleteKatherine - And actually, it shouldn't be a "bully" pulpit, in any sense of the word. Most parishes consist of people of diverse points of view, even out here in "red" country. Preach the gospel without a political spin
ReplyDeleteI don’t go to RCC parishes very often, so my opinions may not be based in the real world. But - based on comments here, and on other reading, and on comments in those other places like America or NCR online, it seems that there has been plenty of political spin in preaching in recent years, mostly directed at Democrats, and it comes from the bishops too. At the very least it seems many bishops, while toeing a legal line - not mentioning names -, passively bless the pro-GOP preaching of the priests in their dioceses.
But if the preaching seems to support efforts to mitigate climate change, or ease immigration restrictions, or take in more refugees, or policies to provide some form of universal healthcare, or to study ways to reduce systemic racism, or enact policies to genuinely reform the police, or.....then the pastor hears from angry parishioners as does the bishop. So the preaching stays safe on those instead of emulating Jesus, or even Pope Francis. Jesus was poor, his family were refugees for a while. He preached a whole lot about what we now call social justice issues. The Catholic priests today seem afraid to preach the parts of the gospel that make people squirm a bit.
Daniel Horan has a good column in NCR online today, about how impressed we are when a multi- millionaire shows Christmas generosity with big tips to a few fast-food workers, but are horrified when the policies that have created extreme gaps between rich and poor are pointed out.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/why-stefon-diggs-good-deed-reveals-bad-system
Anne, the point I was trying to make was that we like preaching that makes other people squirm. When it's ourselves doing the squirming, not so much. I have to say that for the most part, our priests have avoided political homilies, aside from the occasional pro-life mention. Maybe to an extent they are chickening out, but I'll take it if it means I don't get subjected to EWTN/Fox News talking points all the time.
DeleteKatherine, you have a point. And you are lucky not to hear a lot of right wing talking points at your parish. As I said, I don’t know what really happens since I no longer go to RC churches.
DeleteBut from what I read, it seems that EWTN/Fox talking points are far more common than are NYT, National Catholic Reporter, or even America magazine talking points in Catholic parishes these days. Jim has mentioned more than once that they have to not mention certain topics in homilies because they make too many of their congregation squirm. These aren’t EWTN talking points that they have to avoid.
Jesus made people squirm. Francis makes people squirm. I have squirmed at times, especially in years gone by when I was still a conservative Republican in a Catholic pew. I squirmed a lot over the years in my slow evolution from conservative Republican to now - more of a European style democratic socialist these days. And some of that squirming made me think, and it sometimes resulted from something said by Catholic priests in Vatican II parishes. A lot of it resulted from reading progressive Christian writers, , including a few Catholic priests. Few homilies ever stayed with me. Few ever kept my attention even when I would make a determined effort to focus on the homily. Seriously, I wonder why Jim, and your husband, and priests everywhere have to spend so much time writing homilies when most of it is repetitive, said by many others, and often quite boring - because they aren’t allowed to challenge the people.
"Seriously, I wonder why Jim, and your husband, and priests everywhere have to spend so much time writing homilies when most of it is repetitive, said by many others, and often quite boring"
DeleteRight, it's like baseball - if you get a hit 1/3 of the time, you're an all-star.
I do it because, well, I'm on the schedule to do it once a month, and genuinely believe this is something God wants me to do. I believe being a deacon is one of my vocations, and it's much healthier to live my life in harmony with God's plan than the alternative.
For the record: I have complete freedom to write or say whatever I want. Only once in my 17 years of ordained ministry have I been given a topic to speak about (all of us had to write about abortion one January, around the anniversary of Roe v Wade - this was back in Cardinal George's day), and only once have I really gotten in trouble for what I said (I lambasted church officials for not dealing effectively with the sexual abuse crisis). FWIW, I received applause - not unanimous, but here and there in the congregation - both of those times. That doesn't happen very often.
But if I wax too political or too controversial, it usually isn't me that bears the brunt of the complaints, it's the pastor. I don't think I should wax too political, period. As for controversial - sometimes it probably needs to happen, and if I feel compelled to be controversial, I would give our pastor (who is a really good guy and a good pastor) a head's-up that it's coming, and would let him know that, if he really doesn't want me to go there, I won't. He's fine with my talking about racism, immigration, climate change, the moral perils of being wealthy, and any number of other things likely to rile certain factions of the assembly.
As a child I sat through absolutely idiotic Unitarian-Universalist "sermons" about everything from home canning to reincarnation to The God Superstition. So for me, even a dull homily full of platitudes and comfy middle-class metaphors at least keeps people thinking within the parameters of a shared faith.
DeleteIn Heaven, only the talented preach. Down here, the homilist is just some poor sod trying to work out his own salvation, same as everyone else.
Sorry, I thought of another "assigned topic" for preaching: once or twice I've had to do the thing during homily time which around here is called the "Cardinal's Appeal". It's basically diocesan fundraising. Everyone is given a pledge card and a golf pencil. The homilist's role is to step everyone through the process of filling out the pledge card. "Where it says 'Name', write your name ... now, where it says 'Street Address', write your street address ..." It's truly one of the most penitential acts of the year.
DeleteWhen I was still Catholic I mused about changing the way things are done related to homilists and confessors . Most homilies are uninspiring, but usually do no harm ( unless it’s a homily threatening eternal punishment if you don’t vote for Republicans). Confessors often do harm, and if not harmful, seldom lead a person to true change in how they live. There’s a reason so few Catholics go to confession very often.
DeleteThe parishes I went to hired extra priests on weekends because too many masses and too few priests. But Catholic University and Georgetown had priests on their staffs who were willing to travel on Sunday to earn some extra cash. Usually they gave pretty good homilies and I sometimes checked the schedule so that I could attend the mass where the imported priest would give the homily. I never experienced confession as a positive thing, ever, and gave it up when I was 30 ish. But I did go to parish penance services and sometimes one of the priest extras said something worth hearing. So - I decided that maybe there should be roaming homilists and confessors who are not attached to a single parish but who are attached to several, with their main role being to give homilies or hear confessions. Specialists.