Speakers call for faith rooted in social justice

By Nancy Westlund
Herald staff

Achieving social justice as a Catholic is as basic as one, two, three.

That was the message delivered by speakers to more than 80 people from 35 parishes attending a gathering for social justice at Mercy Center in Auburn Sept. 7.

“There are three places we go on our journey,” Franciscan Brother Ed Dunn said in a keynote address.

“First is the journey inward…to discover where God is moving us,” said Brother Dunn, whose ministry focuses on social justice issues. “The second is the journey outward where we see the needs of our neighbor and act in direct service.”

JoAnn O’Donnell, center, a member of Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Rocklin, joins in a small group discussion at a social justice gathering at the Mercy Center in Auburn.

Moving forward on the final leg of the journey, he added, involves asking tough questions like why people are hungry.

He spoke also of the unrelenting presence of hunger among farm workers’ children, the woeful lack of adequate low-cost housing for the working poor, and the growing lines at food programs serving people in need.

In addressing the Catholic Church’s response to poverty, Brother Dunn said one of the most profound “calls to conscience” for American Catholics was the Catholic Worker movement, begun in the 1930s by the late Dorothy Day.

That movement “forced us to see the poor not as recipients of our charity, but as the presence of Christ in unexpected places…in the hard faces of those who have had to struggle through hunger and homelessness,” he said.

Among the major challenges facing the church in this century, Brother Dunn emphasized, is recovering the tradition of the church as part of an international global community.

“It’s impossible for us to practice our faith only in our own town, our own diocese or our own nation,” he said.

Al Hernandez, associate director for Hispanic affairs with the California Catholic Conference in Sacramento, responded to Brother Dunn’s address by noting that for Catholics doing nothing about social injustices is not an option.

“Try to promote your values, the Catholic vision of what a just society should be…because if we don’t speak out, like Jesus Christ did, we become accomplices,” he said.

JoAnn O’Donnell, a member of Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Rocklin and a teacher at St. Joseph School in Auburn, said she plans to introduce the three journeys of social justice to her students.

“We want to make students understand there is a life beyond Auburn, that there are people suffering who need help,” she said. “Their responsibility as Christians is to reach out to others, to turn faith into action.”

One current project at St. Joseph School is planting a vegetable garden to help feed hungry families in the Auburn community.

Olivetan Benedictine Brother Steve Coffey, director of evangelization and catechesis at Mission San Luis Obispo, spoke to participants about the significance of making the connection between liturgy and social justice.

“Catholic action is seeing ourselves as members of the mystical body of Christ and then from liturgy…demonstrating to the body of Christ where the body of Christ is broken,” he said. “We need to know we’re being sent out to feed the poor, to clothe the naked.”

Larry Machado, social justice coordinator at the Newman Catholic Center in Davis, said Brother Coffey’s message is one he plans to share.

“We have our congregation going to Mass every Sunday for liturgy, but the point is to connect social justice to the liturgy, giving people the idea that we need to be inspired to go out and be advocates for social justice,” he said.

Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Garcia thanked participants for their commitment to social justice and encouraged a continued mission to “bring justice and peace, warmth, security and love to many broken hearts and many broken people.”

Other presentations included a discussion of the pastoral role of women in church by Mercy Sister Maura Power and a panel discussion featuring three perspectives on organizing for action on social justice issues.

Father Michael Kiernan, diocesan director of social service ministry, which sponsored the gathering, said broad representation from parish communities at the event could go a long way in building solidarity among Catholics to work for peace and justice.

“It creates a network on which we can build to highlight the church’s social teaching,” he said.

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