CCCB Forum with National Associations
Social Justice – From Words to
Action
Presentation by Joe Gunn, Director, Social Affairs CCCB
The Chief Challenges for Social Justice in Canada Today
Ottawa, Saturday April 24, 2004
The Mother House of the Sisters of Charity, Ottawa
Good morning,
I have been
asked to address two questions today. I’ll begin by describing some of the
principal challenges for church-based social justice movements in Canada today.
Then I’m going to begin a retrospective journey, much as has been described in
the little purple book you have before you - Calling Out the Prophetic
Tradition - but I hope to go beyond that and provoke your thinking or your
dangerous memories. Then I’ll try to initiate a reflection (which you can
complete later on in small groups) about when the messages from the bishops
really created an impact in Canadian Catholics’ lives. I hope you’ll agree with
some of the things I’ll say - I’m sure that the experience of Catholic action
for justice and peace is not the same in each region of our huge country. If
you fill out the picture with your own particular experiences, or even (heaven
forbid!) if you disagree, we’ll have a much more interesting conversation!
Challenges for Today
I’d like you to bear with me and allow me to make
some general observations that might frame our discussion of the social justice
challenges we face today.
It was way back in 1977, when I was in my 20s and
working in a diocesan office of social action in Western Canada when the
bishops released “A Society to be
Transformed.” I used that document in many a meeting in frozen prairie
church halls. It stated, “…our country is still profoundly marked by the
founders of liberal capitalism,” in that (even unacknowledged perhaps) “we
carry forward many of the consequences of their lives, for their ideas have
become our institutions.” The bishops went on to paint a negative portrait
of “the materialist aspirations, which now constitute an economic religion.”
(my emphasis.)
I am going to avoid giving you the list of priorities
of the Social Affairs Commission, or worse, a laundry list of all the things
that are terrible in this world - for two reasons. Firstly, as you know, the
world and its human inhabitants are mainly good. (Social justice folks, contrary
perhaps to popular belief, do have a positive and good sense of humour!) Two,
for heaven’s sake, your own organizations probably have their own priorities
and challenges to face; this isn’t a competition, and I’d hate to be accused of
forgetting one or not giving a high-enough priority to another! What I will say
is that the framework for our discussion today can best arise from the 1977
statement – where the bishops got it right, and where our reflection needs to
go deeper. How will we face this “economic religion” that is stifling the faith
of the people of God, that is destroying our ability to live in a global
community of solidarity and justice, and that is leading us to destroy God’s
creation?
No matter what piece of work your Association is concerned
with, no matter what ministry your vocation has led you to, this framework
question is addressed to us all.
Earlier this year I heard an American Protestant
theologian, Douglas Meeks, speak. You may have heard of him, or his book of a
dozen years ago, “God the Economist.”
Meeks reminded us that the word economy is an ancient word that means, (oikos +
nomos), literally, “the law or management of the household.” Up until the 17th
century, to pursue economy meant to pursue the question, “Will everyone in the
household get what it takes to live? Will everyone survive (sur-vivre = “live
through”) the day and where possible, flourish? Economy was bound to community.
In fact, it was clear that economy existed to serve community.
The difficulty with modern economics, especially with
the rise of neo-classical economics at the end of the 19th century,
says Meeks, is that the ancient question of livelihood has dropped out of the
center of economics. Questions of how to form and sustain community, questions
of how the members of the household are related to each other, are in modernity
often divorced from questions of economy. Today we often see communities
existing to serve the economy.
The Market Logic
Meeks describes the difficulty of juxtaposing
theology and economy as this: the absolutely prevailing logic of our society
today is the market logic. (As I
already said, I think that the Canadian bishops beat him to this conclusion in
1977!) Market logic, or what Karl Polanyi in 1944 (The Great Transformation)
called “the market society,” might be the only thing that approximates a
universal presence throughout the world today. Now, we’re not here to deny the
awesome success of the modern market, or its potential good. But many
assumptions of the market “destroy the possibility of Christian discipleship
within economy and increasingly narrow the public space of appearance in which
the church can exist.” (Meeks)
The fascination of the modern market is its claim
that it can shape mass human behaviour without force or authority (the
“Invisible Hand” of Adam Smith?) and therefore that the violence of the state
or the authority of the church can be replaced by simple exchange
relationships. The result is a set of economistic laws that make decisions for
us. As Meeks says, the market “allows us to avoid public encounter and
decision-making and trades citizenship in a polis
(or, in the church, discipleship in a community) for consumership in a market.”
Most of us have not seriously analyzed the free
market effect on our faith lives. World capitalist development has created the
“growing gap” between rich and poor, but also the worldwide depression of wages
for average people, toiling longer hours to pay bills and stay even. The result
has been less time to reflect and pray – split shifts, longer hours and deadly
commutes. The family unit is under siege, even as we heard this week from
Statistics Canada how precipitously the birth rate is dropping. And the
increased mobility in today’s volatile labour market weakens the relationships
with those who have socialized us. Further, as my old high-school teacher Ted
Schmidt writes, “The relentless free market glamorization of the self and of
choice has succeeded in disconnecting us from the suffering Body, the
marginalized losers in whom Jesus specifically locates himself.”
Globalization under neoliberal economics has accepted
the tyranny of free market dogmas: thou shall not tax, spend, intervene, or
temper. (Ted Schmidt) If this were not the case today, if we were really able to
see the economy as the good management of our common household, would we not be
outraged that one in every six Canadian children lives in poverty? Would we
stand by even though the United Nations tells us that 42,000 people will die
today of hunger and preventable diseases? Would we have created a world where
half of us exist on less than $2 a day? And in Canada, how are we able to
explain that since 1997 we’ve paid down over $50 billion on our national debt
rather than respond to the social emergencies that your Associations face every
day?
In a society dominated by market logic, such as ours,
not only manufactured products, but also social goods, are produced and
distributed as if they were commodities.
But the church has always known that you can’t distribute
learning and the generation of the generations according to the logic of
exchange. The reason many of us went to Catholic schools is because our parents
were convinced of two things; that human knowledge should be related to the
Gospel, and that no person gifted for learning should be excluded simply
because they couldn’t pay.
Nor can healing be distributed according to the logic
of exchange. Hospitality is at the heart of the Christian life (Rom. 12:13).
Hospitals were originally the church’s way of practicing hospitality as open
houses for the stranger, the poor, the sojourner and the homeless. The Catholic
Health Association of Canada could speak all day of the struggle to maintain
this charism in Catholic health care today.)
Christians agree that what is necessary for life
cannot be exclusively seen as a commodity, and must also agree that those with
nothing to exchange cannot be left out. In the market society, however, there
is nothing in principle that cannot be distributed as a commodity. (Just look
at the CCODP campaign about water this year.)
Everything is for sale. I’m coming to see in my own life and experience
that the contemporary challenge for Christians is precisely to decide,
everyday, in many ways, how I am not for sale, how my values are not for sale,
and how and where I must say NO! to market values in order to strive to accept
Christian values.
And our Church does not have to conform to this
market logic (any more than it had to conform to slavery, feudal or
mercantilist societies). We can’t and shouldn’t try to reinvent Catholic
hospitals, schools or other institutions in the present context, no. But we can
challenge the Churches to strive to be an “alternative economy,” that is, to
model from our tradition and Biblical roots, the management of the household as
inclusive of the entire earth community. As Meeks writes, “God redeems the
world by becoming a household slave, a steward to the household of creation.”
This, it seems, should also be the role of Christians striving to bring social
justice “from words to action;” allowing us to be participants, rather than
spectators, of the history of redemption.
Reflection on Catholic
Social Teaching and Action in Canada
There have been examples of church social action and
teaching in Canadian history where life with God has propelled Christians into
the humanization of the world. Part of our reflection today is to reflect on
when such activities truly captured our imagination and inspired our action for
justice, and how we might be guided to build such experiences for others in
future. Since I’ve worked at the CCCB for almost a decade, I’ll attempt to use
examples of the work of the CCCB in this exercise. Nonetheless, we all realize
that many of the most successful experiences were indeed, not initiated by the
hierarchy.
To begin with, let me make two general observations
that I think are of immense importance. I think it was Jesse Jackson who said
that any text without a context is a pretext. Canadian Catholic social thought
has to be understood in light of the political and social time in which events
were played out. We can’t just quote the texts for their poetry or their
inspirational value, and suggest that since we’ve said something in the past,
we no longer need to develop this teaching ministry in more profound ways
today. There is a living body of thought that we all can and should be invited
to participate in establishing.
Secondly, it is important to recognize that the
authors of Canadian Catholic social thought had a methodology. And this
methodology has changed and continues to mature, even today. I believe that the
methodological basis of Catholic Action groups, developed by Mgr Cardijn, the
famous See, Judge, and Act trilogy, was crucial to early efforts. By the 1976 Labour
Day statement, From Words to Action, the bishops had suggested a
six-point pastoral methodology to assist Christians to grow in the social
apostolate (read page 25, both English and French editions, of Calling Out
The Prophetic Tradition.) As the text reads, “Some parish programs started
with the sixth step, while others never got past the first.”
Later on, in 1983, a revised pastoral methodology for
engagement in social action was proposed by the Social Affairs Commission.
(Refer to page 32 in both translations.) There were now five steps, not six,
and it is fascinating to note the development of the thinking that lead to this
more mature pedagogy.
Finally, if you’ve seen the statement released last
year on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi on the ecological imperative of
Christians, you’ll perhaps have noted that the Social Affairs Commission now
wants us to imbue this pedagogy with environmental sensitivity and analysis,
presenting a new element and leading to a series of recommended actions.
What has been interesting in my own life has been to
encourage small groups to attempt to use the methodology, and then later to
assist the Social Affairs Commission itself to develop its current work
following these same useful guidelines. My experience has been that when we’ve
been able to stick to the pastoral pedagogy, we’ve had success in our work.
Some Examples
I hope that you have all been able to read the latest
pastoral message of the Social Affairs Commission, “You love all that
exists…all things are Yours, God, lover of life” which touches on the
Christian ecological imperative. This is an important document because the
Commission was unable to develop a pastoral statement on this topic in 1994,
despite working on the theme for over a year. Today, this lovely layout has
brought good results, suggesting that people in parishes will use a document if
it is pleasing to the eye as well as inspirational. What strikes me is that the
letter is not only analytical, but almost poetic and at least evocative, and
includes a section of suggested actions all folks can take. We have already had
to go to a third printing, due to unforeseen demand, but the project has paid
for itself.
But why not begin with 1983, and the most well-known
statement of the Canadian bishops, Ethical Reflections on the Economic
Crisis. No other church document in Canadian history ever created an
equivalent reaction. (For description in both translations, see page 28.)
Why was there such interest? The main reason was that
the message was one that Canadians were ready to hear. People were hurting,
unemployment was a major concern, and there seemed to be a deliberate character
to this made-by-government recession. And even though the church had been
speaking on these issues for years, much of the reaction of the public and
media was surprise that the bishops’ voices were raised.
Another reason that the statement became so well
known was that a major Canadian church leader appeared to disagree publicly
with its contents. (Now, please be assured that I am not asking the bishops
present to “help” the Social Affairs Commission by publicly disagreeing with
its work!!!) But the fact that both Cardinal Carter and Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau publicly took issue with the statement certainly kept the document in
the news!
I must also add that the staff picked a perfect
release time…over the Christmas holidays is usually a slow media time, and the
controversy played well. But not even they had expected the response…my former
colleague Bernard Dufresne (then a co-Director of the Social Affairs Office)
left on paternity leave just as the letter was released and the storm broke!
But the most important reason for the statement
having an impact is, of course, that it really packed a powerful message. The
bishops pulled no punches, and spoke of a “moral disorder” in the economy,
which was “symptomatic of a much larger structural crisis in the international
system of capitalism.” The bishops had something to say, they said it well, and
Canadians responded.
Even though there have been other excellent
statements, only once since 1983 has a CBC newscast begun with mention of a
social statement from Canada’s Catholic bishops. On October 17, 1996 Peter
Mansbridge reported on the statement, The Struggle Against Poverty: A Sign
of Hope For Our World. What was impressive about this statement was that
the bishops did not release it in Ottawa, but in Halifax, that it was released
in a downtown soup kitchen, and that it was released with anti-poverty
activists on an international day devoted to their struggles. I don’t know if
you have read this document, but it was the first statement to be posted on the
CCCB’s new Internet website. (It is referred to on page 37 of the purple book, Calling
Out the Prophetic Tradition.)
I do want to mention, for our reflection today,
another more recent experience of Catholic social engagement, one that I lived
in Quebec City during the April 2001 Summit of the Americas. The first
part of the week was spent at a human rights forum, where I spoke for the
churches and I shared a bunk bed with an indigenous leader from Colombia whose
lands had been flooded by a Canadian-financed dam project. (Less than two
months later, my friend Kimy was kidnapped in his town by members of a right-wing
death squad, and has not been heard from since.) I remember writing an article
in the Catholic Register after the Summit, describing the experience as
similar to having been on retreat for a week. Only the smell of incense was
really tear gas. I spent days reflecting on issues that are vitally important
for any person of faith: issues of peaceful protest, civil disobedience and
violence, the future of democracy, economic and social justice and the
environmental future of the hemisphere. I asked myself, where does the
Christian community insert its wisdom and experience, if we are to be relevant
at all to those who share this questioning?
The church was present at the Summit in many ways.
Bishop Jean Gagnon animatedly told a group of us about his recent trip to the
northern maquila zone of Mexico, describing economic conditions there as
“economic slavery.” This bishop, who was also at the time chairman of the
Social Affairs Commission, also attended part of the human rights forum and
participated in an all-night prayer vigil. The statement of the Canadian
bishops concerning the Summit, “That None Be Excluded,” released by the
General Secretary of the CCCB and Archbishop Maurice Couture at a press
conference in Quebec City, was unanimously well-received by those who read it,
especially by the Latin Americans who expressed the wish that their own
churches would question “free” trade. Archbishop Couture spoke eloquently at
the end of the Peoples’ Summit, as well as at the prayer service for the Heads
of State.
But despite all this activity, I couldn’t help
wondering if the youth that took to the streets in the tens of thousands felt
that the churches cared about the issues of just trade and the environment
which had become overwhelmingly important in their own lives. They were
deciding, many of them, to face the fortress, protected by a wall that
epitomized their distance from influence over the forces that were shaping
their lives. So many institutions like Parliament and elections seemed so
foreign and irrelevant to the youth at Quebec; perhaps their list included the
church. Their incredible and energetic commitment to forge a better world came
from a deep place in many young people. As someone who, at 21 and looking for
his first job, was offered two social justice positions in the church, I
wondered if we were making space for this generation to find a spiritual source
and a worthy example to guide their own yearnings for peace and justice.
Because as you all know, not even our own
parishioners, much less today’s youth, are made aware of the social
pronouncements of the church. The Church’s social teaching is often referred to
as our best kept secret!
(Synod of the Americas story...When I was asked by
the CCCB to assemble all the responses from diocese across Canada to the
lineamenta from the Synod for America, there were three main conclusions: In
every parish, people thought they were doing an amazing number of socially
useful activities, and they were right! Two, these activities were
overwhelmingly of a social service nature, rather than related to social
change. Thirdly, the persons active in this ministry had no idea what others,
even in the next parish or in their diocesan office, were doing in terms of
social justice activities. But they all felt, almost unanimously, that the
Church was not doing enough!)
(Use the two feet of Social Justice page here to
explain the concept of the needed balance between social service and social
change activities. We need both feet to walk well.)
On a deeper level, I wonder if the way statements are
prepared and released by the bishops is not as important as the number and
content of them. Recent social statements of the bishops have been work-shopped
with groups of experts and reviewed by theologians, but perhaps much more
in-depth processes could be designed with a view to serving the needs of the
Catholic community who will eventually read, or even act upon, them. Should
statements be released without fuller processes of prior consultation with
their intended audiences?
What is also clear to many who watch the activities
of the CCCB, is that for any issue to move forward, there has to be a bishop or
two who “champion” the cause. The Social Affairs Commission has been blessed
over the years with several real “champions” of social justice. I for one was
very proud of the role the Church played a year ago as we tried to prevent the
invasion of Iraq. The bishops intervened publicly three times on this issue, but
more importantly, several bishops joined the protest marches themselves
(like Bishop John Sherlock in London and the current chair of the Social
Affairs Commission, Bishop Blaise Morand.) Our challenge however, as Catholic
laypeople, is to mobilize ourselves in such significant numbers for action for
peace and justice, that our bishops cannot but want to be invited to accompany
us.
This is where I want to wind down this discussion:
with a challenge to us all, along with three possible solutions, for your
consideration.
You know, one of the experiences that has been most
illuminating for me over the past years has been participation in the Canadian
Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative. This was how we prepared to address the question
of the international debts of the poorest countries, and in Canada, one in 50
Canadians signed the petition calling for debt relief. This was the biggest
petition in Canadian history, until comedian Rick Mercer (This Hour has 22
Minutes) came along and asked Canadians to sign an electronic petition to
change Stockwell Day’s name to “Doris.” I didn’t want to discuss the Jubilee
movement, because I imagine that Robert Letendre will speak to it this
afternoon. One point, however: of the
645 000 petitions collected, 470 000 came from CCODP,
the only church organization that has animateurs and a network across Canada.
But here’s my question: how do we Canadian Catholics mobilize for social change
if CCODP is not involved?
You see, there is a big hole, not in Canadian
Catholic social thought, but in how we Canadian Catholics mobilize for change.
To use some examples, there was a petition for Aboriginal rights some years ago
that the Social Affairs Commission endorsed, and you probably did not see or
hear about it in your parish. There is currently, just last week, an electronic
petition posted on the website of the Canadian Council of Churches, concerning
the preservation of Canada’s healthcare system. But there is no national
Canadian Catholic network that can animate concerns related to justice issues
in Canada. You likely have not seen this either. What should we laypeople do
about that? I see three options.
Option 1. Following
what the Church in the USA has done, we could decide to form an organization,
to be active across Canada, in both English and French sectors, to educate and
create an impact on national issues. This is indeed a monumental task, and
unlikely to happen over the short term, however. Remember that CCODP is almost
40 years old and has struggled for years to build and mobilize the financial
and human resources necessary to work nationally.
Option 2. We
could decide that the Associations represented here could commit themselves to
coordinated action for justice and choose to meet and discuss major social
justice strategies every year, simply by remaining together for the afternoon
after this yearly meeting. Working upon an agreed upon priority, together,
would definitely make an impact.
Option 3. We
could decide to use the good offices of the already existing organization,
KAIROS – Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives – to encourage social justice
programs with Protestant member churches, and build this network. Alongside the
Canadian Council of Churches, which also has activities in the area of social
justice, there is a thirty-year history of ecumenical cooperation which is unique
in the world. Already funded by many religious orders, CCODP and the CCCB,
KAIROS is a Canadian treasure. Perhaps the deeper challenge is for our
Associations to get to know and fully support the work of KAIROS.
Three Final Messages
1. Whatever the challenges we face today,
let’s keep in mind that the path towards increased depth in the practice of
Christian social ministry is absolutely necessary in today’s world. 2. As well,
as the bishops said in From Words to Action, (1976) “For Christians, the
struggle for justice is not an optional activity. It is integral to bringing
the gospel into the world.” 3. Striving for peace and justice is worthy of the
effort of a life. At least I’ve simply never discovered a better way to try to
live. When we understand what is meant in the Eucharist, “This is my Body,
broken for you,” the bread of life becomes the symbol for all those things
which must be distributed if God’s people are to live life abundantly. In this
privileged manner, we come to understand the economy we are all called to
build.