Service? Sure. ( But How?)

1. Service? Sure.(But How?) Moreau Center for Service & Leadership December 3, 2011

2. Agenda/Overview • Warm up • Charity, Justice, (Project) • Examples • Large Group Exercise (Debate) • Discussion/De-Brief • Immersion Group Discussions

3. Who Thinks This is Service?

4. Catholic Social Thought Let each one examine his conscience, a conscience that conveys a new message for our times. Is he prepared to support out of his own pocketworks and undertaking organized in favor of the most destitute?(Pope Paul VI, 1967)

5. Food programs Emergency financial assistance Emergency transportation Disaster relief and victim services Rent/mortgage assistance Low-cost housing Shelters for the homeless Shelters for the abused Assistance for victims of AIDS, substance abuse, and crime Thrift Stores Free pharmacy services St. Vincent de Paul Societies

6. Employment services Job training Counseling/Information Referral service Education programs (GED) Homemaker services Budget counseling Nutritional education Youth programs Camp programs St. Vincent de Paul Societies

7. Love for others, and especially for the poor, is made concrete by promoting justice. Pope John Paul II, 1991 The social order requires constant improvement: it must be founded in truth, built on justice, and enlivened by love: it should grow in freedom towards a more humane equilibrium. If these objectives are to be attained there will first have to be a renewal of attitudes and far-reaching social changes. Second Vatican Council, 1965 Catholic Social Thought

8. CCHDCatholic Campaign for Human Development • The domestic anti-poverty, social justice program of the U.S. Catholic Bishops • Promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education • www.povertyusa.org • .

9. Omaha Together One Community(OTOC) • Receives funding from CCHD • Conditions in Meat-PackingPlants “abuses and grossindecencies . . . “ • fast processing lines • repetitive motion injuries • lack of bathroom privileges “I think a lot of people thought those days were past.” Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

10. The Right to Form a Labor Union • Catholic social thought insists on it • Needs support from groups like CCHD & OTOC • In Omaha, people of faith defended the right of meatpacking employees to vote yes/no for union

11. Omaha Together One Community(OTOC) City bond issue to fund sewer improvements  No projects in older, poorer areas “I knew the people who had raw sewage backingup in their basements.” Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

12. Successful Postcard Campaignfor the poorer neighborhoods We had an impact on a serious problem. Fr. Norman Hunke, St Cecilia’s Cathedral

13. Fishbowl Debate

14. Charity and justice are equally valuable and I could devote my time and resources toward either approach, as long as I do it well. Social justice/social change is an intrinsically better or more mature form of service than charity or direct giving, and each of us should strive to advance (grow) along a continuum, from charity toward justice. .

16. “Charity is immoral.” • Midwest Urban Community Organizer

17. In the first centuries of Christianity the hungry were fed at a personal sacrifice, the naked were clothed at a personal sacrifice, the homeless were sheltered at personal sacrifice. And because the poor were fed, clothed and sheltered at a personal sacrifice, the pagans used to say about the Christians “See how they love each other.”

18. . . . In our own day the poor are no longer fed, clothed and sheltered at a personal sacrifice, but at the expense of the taxpayers. And because the poor are no longer fed, clothed and sheltered the pagans say about the Christians “See how they pass the buck.”