NEWS FEATURE: Catholic social action: thinking globally, acting locally

c. 1998 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ Earlier this summer, in urging passage of a statement calling on Roman Catholic schools to aggressively promote social concerns, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., told U.S. bishops that Catholic social teaching is “unfortunately our best-kept secret.” But not in some churches in Northeast Ohio, says Gerard […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ Earlier this summer, in urging passage of a statement calling on Roman Catholic schools to aggressively promote social concerns, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., told U.S. bishops that Catholic social teaching is “unfortunately our best-kept secret.” But not in some churches in Northeast Ohio, says Gerard Powers, the new director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Catholic Conference.

Take St. Jude’s in Elyria, Ohio, which helped build a church center in El Salvador. Or St. Brendan’s in North Olmsted, which is sponsoring a family from Bosnia. Parishioners at St. Basil the Great in Brecksville had to step through a mock minefield on their way to church one Sunday to demonstrate the dangers faced by people in war zones worldwide.


These incidents from churches here can be _ and are _ repeated throughout the country even if they are not as widespread as Skylstad and his fellow bishops desire. But Powers, the prelate’s new justice and peace man, wants such pockets of activism to become a groundswell.

Powers got his start in the practical aspects of Catholic social action in Cleveland. He attended elementary school at St. Clare parish in Lyndhurst and as a teenager began tutoring inner-city kids and working on food drives and “pro-life activities” while attending University School.

In college, his senior thesis at Princeton University was on the Catholic Church and civil rights in Cleveland. In researching the community organizing efforts, housing programs and other works done in the diocese, Powers concluded, “Cleveland was really in the forefront of the church’s civil rights work.”

Now that he is head of the national office in charge of getting U.S. Catholics interested in human-rights issues _ from religious freedom in China to promoting peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East _ his focus remains on reaching people in the pews.

“It’s really got to be something that’s integrated into the life of the parish,” he said.

There have been better times for getting people interested in international affairs. In recent years, attention paid to social issues in both government and church life in general has shifted to meeting needs locally.

The end of the Cold War also has reduced attention to international issues.

“The risk is a practical indifference,” Powers said. “I think we are suffering from practical indifference, or some sort of practical isolationism.”


The challenge facing the church is to show parishioners how they can make a difference in the suffering of people throughout the world.

“It is not always obvious how someone at St. Clare parish … can do anything besides pray about genocide in Rwanda, the troubles in Northern Ireland,” Powers said.

However, he said, Catholics here _ and the same is true elsewhere _ need look no farther than their own diocese to see some constructive ways to work on behalf of suffering people throughout the world.

In the Cleveland diocese, for example, St. Luke in Lakewood helps several Albanian families by tutoring and helping them find jobs. Other churches have established “twinning” relationships with churches in Central America, sometimes sending church members to Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras, and later inviting people from the overseas parish to this diocese.

Once those types of relationships are established, Powers said, the needs become clear, and churches learn how they can help one another.

On public policy concerns, the issues also have changed since the Cold War, Powers said.


Where once U.S. policy, such as support for dictatorial regimes, was under question, now the issue is “more whether the U.S. will use its enormous influence in constructive ways,” he said.

For example, regarding the land mine problem, he said: “The U.S. use of land mines is not the problem. The problem is the United States is not taking a great enough leadership role in finding a global solution to the land mine problem.”

One step advocated by the U.S. Catholic Church is for the government to sign a treaty banning the use of land mines. And part of the solution goes back to events like the land mine Sunday at St. Basil’s.

After churchgoers made their way through a mock minefield and prayed about the issue and for those injured by the weapons, they were encouraged to write letters urging the United States to support the Ottawa Treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines.

“We all are the body of Christ,” Powers said, “and it’s a universal Catholic Church.”

DEA END BRIGGS

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