As If I Need Another Reason to Hate the Red Sox

Cesar (not Hugo) Chavez

In the last post, I wrote of the concerns of Marielana Montesino de Stuart about Pope Francis and his supposedly liberal views.  As I mentioned Ms. Montesino de Stuart represents the intelligent wing of the neo-trads.  Let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. 
Did you ever wonder what happened to the unfortunates that President Reagan turned out of the mental hospitals in ‘80’s?  Well, I found one of them.  She moved to Boston and started a blog called The Tenth Crusade.   I must admit that I am of the school that wonders if anything good can come from Boston so I may be unduly prejudiced but the poor woman snapped again and suffered a relapse Easter Morning when she saw Cesar Chavez’s face on Google.  Not knowing the difference between Cesar Chavez and Hugo Chavez, this is what she wrote:

Google Posts Chavez's Communist Puss On Easter Sunday - Boycott

I was fit to be tied to open up my browser and see a picture of what looked like a Chinese communist on my google page. It turned out to be Chavez, to venerate his 86th birthday.
They could have put up Easter bunnies, Easter Eggs or even chosen to ignore it.
But no, they chose an outlandish and nefarious kick in the head to Catholics and Christians all over the world. I suppose we were lucky they didn't blow up pictures of their genitalia. Though I'm not sure it would have been any less offensive to me.
I couldn't delete google fast enough.
I immediately downloaded internet explorer 10.
I'll be getting rid of my gmail and switching the blog over to a forum outside of google.
I suggest you do the same.

When a respondent wrote in to say that the picture was Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Worker organizer and not Hugo Chavez, she tried to cover her gaffe but quite unsuccessfully, not knowing at first who Cesar Chavez was and certainly not knowing his Catholic ties and his deep Catholic Faith.  She tried to portray Cesar Chavez as a Communist writing

 
I'm sure your super intelligentsia won't get this, but whichever tyrant communist named Chavez they put up to insult Christians, they would have done less harm if they had put up kiddie porn and said bleep Christianity.

In interest of total disclosure, I refrained from printing part of her message because of a racist slur but as if this wasn’t bizarre enough, here is another  rejoinder she makes to one of her respondents who chided her over her failure to know what she was talking about.

TTC said...

Just for the record, long before the first time you dressed like a slut and went to barrooms to find irresponsible men willing to sleep with you, I was working against a group at the JFK School of Government named after Chavez who are stationed here in Boston to destroy the Roman Catholic Church as the first stage of destruction. They led the priests are perverts media blitz with some gays and a drunk lawyer who despises Christ.
Civil rights my foot.

This is one of the same neo-trads that went after Pope Francis for including women in the washing of the feet ceremony on Holy Thursday.  I tell you, it was a huge mistake to close the hospitals and put people like this back on the street.  I can only hope that Massachusetts does good background checks on gun buyers.  This lady is Belfry Betty.

Just so you don’t make the same mistake, let’s do a quick look at the late Cesar Chavez.    
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) was born in Yuma Arizona.  His father was a local grocer but lost both his business and his home in the great depression.  The Chavez family moved to California where they became migrant workers, picking peas and lettuce in the winter, cherries and beans in the spring, corn and grapes in the summer, and cotton in the autumn.  He dropped out of school after seventh grade to work full time in the fields but joined the United States Navy at age 17 during World War II.  Even though it was war time, Mexican Americans in the Navy were allowed only to do menial work in the Navy and not to fight.   Chavez was discharged at the end of the War and returned to California and the fields.  He began organizing Latinos for voter registration and to report and expose police brutality.  In 1962 Chavez and Delores Huerta organized the National Farm Workers Organization , later known as the United Farm Workers.  They also organized a march on the State Capitol to bring attention to the rights of migrant workers.  A five year strike against the growers won support of Americans from across the country and made many Americans aware of the plight of migrant workers.   Like Martin Luther King, Chavez supported civil disobedience but insisted on non-violence. 
The nineteen sixties were a time when American Catholics became much more aware of the demands of the Gospel for Social Justice.  Chavez was a devout Catholic and many conscientious laity, religious, priests and even bishops rallied to his support for the Farm Workers.   According to Dr. Christopher Shannon, professor of History at Christendom College—no liberal and one of America’s most right-wing Catholic institutions—Chavez offered Catholics a model for faithful and effective civic engagement.  Writing last year in Crisis Magazine, Dr. Shannon made the claim that Chavez was “The last Catholic in America to achieve a ‘cultural/political synthesis’ that brought the Church’s social teaching into the public square.”  Shannon moreover wrote that Chavez contributed to the development of an authentic Catholic politics because of his ability “to speak a common language with non-Catholics” while attempting to enlighten them as to a deeper appreciation of Catholic Social thought. 
Chavez made several bad judgments in his career—most notably endorsing the Marcos Regime in the Philippines in an effort to win Filipino support for the Farm Workers. 
Chavez died in San Luis Arizona on April 23, 1993. Almost 40,000 people gathered for his funeral presided over by several bishops and dozens of priests. 
Chavez’ birthday, March 31, is a state holiday in Colorado, California, and Arizona.  This year President Obama suggested that all Americans take time to honor his legacy.  That is how his face happened to show up on Google and drive The Madwoman of Back Bay into her tirade.  Good heavens. 

The Origins of Radical Catholicism VI: The Church and Labor Unions part 2

The late nineteenth century saw the rise of Labor Unions as the working classes in the United States, Canada, Australia, and several European nations developed strategies to protect themselves against the exploitation that was making many of their employers rich.  Indeed American society had a numerically small but very wealthy upper class whose money was being made in industry, transportation, and exploitation of natural resources along with a moderately small middle class of professionals, a “survival class” of rural family farmers, and an immense poor class made of urban industrial workers.  When one sees the great mansions of Newport or the Philadelphia “Mainline” and contrasts them with the urban tenements that blighted so many American cities especially in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, the discrepancy is truly shocking.  What is even more amazing  is that the urban poor accepted their situation with relative complacency while the rich ensconced themselves in their fashionable churches—mostly Episcopalian and Presbyterian—with nary a pang of conscience.  Christianity of every sort—Catholic and Protestant—simply did not question the existing social structures, and when clergymen did raise questions, as Father McGlynn had, they found themselves in very hot water indeed and from their bishops, not from outside the Church.  Even as the Irish bishops sided with the English landlords against their own poor faithful who were the tenant farmers on the English and Anglo-Irish estates, the majority of American bishops failed in their responsibility to look out for the temporal welfare of the vast majority—probably 80 percent—of their faithful.  Of course the majority of bishops, while coming from working class families—or like Dennis Dougherty who would become Archbishop of Philadelphia in 1918) had himself worked in the coal mines as a boy—were setting themselves up in fine mansions in the better neighborhoods of their See cities.  Labor Unions were seen to be socialist, even communist.  They threatened the rights of property.  The poor were to be the objects of charity not the reason for social reform. 

An exception to these establishment bishops was James Gibbons of Baltimore.  He was an unlikely exception in many ways.  He was every bit as much a prince-bishop as Corrigan was or O’Connell and Dougherty would be.   In fact, unlike a number of mitered pigs’ ears who fancied themselves to be silk purses, his manners were naturally genteel without being affected and he moved comfortably in the best circles.  The few other liberals in the hierarchy were not particularly interested in the issues of labor.  Of course Ireland was in the Midwest where most of his sheep were safely grazing on the farms of Minnesota.  O’Connell was still in Rome directing the seminarians at the North American.  Moore was in Florida—not an industrial area.  But when Archbishop Taschereau of Quebec attacked the Knights of Labor and declared its Catholic members excommunicate, Gibbons—like a mad dog awakened from his sleep by a trespassing cat—went straining at his chains to attack the Quebec prelate and let it be known that Knights of Labor in his diocese were perfectly free to continue as Catholics in good standing. 

Taschereau had no right, of course, to make rules for Catholics beyond his Archdiocese but he did not see himself as exercising a universal jurisdiction.  His ban was based on what he perceived to be the universal magisterium declared by popes and councils through the centuries that had defended the right of private property and condemned any form of socialism that threatened that right. 

Archbishops Taschereau and Gibbons received their red cardinalatial hats in the same 1886 consistory.  In fact they sailed over to Rome on the same ship.  They probably weren’t shipboard dinner partners as the atmosphere between them was rather chilly—or hot, depending on how you see things.  Taschereau’s complaints about Gibbons’ public disagreement led to the Pope’s taking the question to himself. 

Leo’s conclusion could clearly be foreseen--or so it was thought.  Leo was aristocratic and doctrinally quite conservative.  Taschereau was consistent with previous teaching.  It came as quite a shock, therefore when Leo published his encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891.  Leo did affirm the traditional right to private property and he condemned communism but he said that while the individual had the right to private property the state had the right to regulate it in the interest of the common good.  He also condemned unregulated capitalism.  And, most germane to Gibbon’s argument with Taschereau, he defended the rights of labor to organize.  He viewed the labor of the worker as a commodity that the worker brings to the production even as the owner provides the capital. 

This was a dramatic turn-about in Catholic social thought.  The economic and political establishment could no longer count on the Church’s unrestricted support.  Prelates like Corrigan of New York who had totally opposed the Church’s support of the working class were blindsided—it may be one of the reasons that Corrigan never got a Cardinal’s hat, the last Archbishop of New York to go so bareheaded to his crypt.  I think more important it secured the loyalty of the working class to the Church.  The workers knew that while their bishop and their employer might still enjoy a glass of port togehter on the terrace of one or the other's mansion,  the pope had blessed their struggle for a just wage.  But this wasn’t the end.  Nor is this the end of the thread on the Radicalization of Catholicism. 

The image today is Cardinal Gibbons  

Origins of Radical Catholicism

Several days ago I published a letter (in edited form) that I had received from a liberal voter-motivational group commenting on the issue in Wisconsin with the governor trying to take away collective bargaining rights from Wisconsin State employees.  I had always thought that American Catholics knew the tradition of Catholic teaching on social issues, and in particular the rights of labor to organize, but I am finding out that not everyone went to Catholic Schools as good as the one I went to back in the 50’s and early 60’s.  (I graduated 8^th grade three and a half months before Vatican II opened—so I qualify as a pre-Vatican II Catholic School grad.)  The nuns—the Sisters of Mercy—beat this labor union tradition into us and the good members of the Society of Jesus (these were their pre-liberal years—Father Arrupe, aka Bl. Pedro, was elected General when I was in High School) drove the tradition home as well, even though I was one of the few students to come to their fancy-schmancy school from a working class family.  So I think I will start a new strand on Catholics and Labor to share what the good sisters and fathers taught me. 

The nineteenth century was hardly a time when the Catholic Church espoused liberal principles.  At the close of the eighteenth century the Church got whacked up the side of the head by the French Revolution.  It was not pretty.  Across Europe, the Church lost huge amounts of property in the social reorganization effected by the Revolutionaries, not to mention the countless victims of the guillotine—priests, religious, bishops, and laity—during the more radical phases of the Revolution in France itself.  The chapter (dean and canons) of Notre Dame in Paris—before the Revolution one of the wealthiest Church institutions in Europe—were reduced to such poverty that they had to beg for brooms to clean the cathedral when it was reopened for Catholic Worship in 1801.  Pius VII came to the papal throne as a liberal but his arrest and detention (I won’t say imprisonment; it is too strong a word) in France by Napoleon moved him considerably to the right.  Gregory XVI (other than for his condemnation of slavery and the slave trade) was totally in favor of the ancien regime, and Pius IX, like Pius VII, began as a Liberal but the 1848 revolution that cause him to flee Rome left him an implacable conservative, indeed reactionary.  In other words this was a papacy that was firmly behind Tradition, Authority, and Property.  It has a justified paranoia about the liberté, égalité, fraternité of the Enlightenment and the Revolution it had brought about.  Its commitment to aristocracy, traditional social order and the rights and privileges thereof understood labor to be subordinate to capital while the middle and working classes (and, of course, the poor) were to be entrusted to the “protection” of the aristocracy.  The Church at this time also saw Monarchy as the divinely ordained social order and was highly suspicious of democracy which overturned the idea that authority is from God to his anointed and chosen rulers; Catholic thought rejected the idea of vox populi vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God).  This was not an atmosphere in which the rights of labor were about to flourish.

Americans, including Catholic Americans, tended to see things a bit differently.  American Catholics had supported democratic government from the time of our revolution which Catholics—then a minority religion located almost exclusively in Maryland and Pennsylvania—universally supported.  American Catholics had never supported Monarchy, which to them represented the repression of their faith as they knew only the British Crown which had so long put Catholics at legal disadvantage when they weren’t actually being persecuted.  A century of republican government had given American Catholics great confidence in the idea that political authority comes from God through the citizenry not directly to civil officials. Moreover, Catholic clergy—and even a few bishops—supported the rights of the working class out of a genuine pastoral concern.  After all, the vast majority of American Catholics in the late 19^th century were working class and immigrants in search of employment.  The economic-capital class who benefitted from the Industrial Revolution were overwhelming the old (and in the case of Andrew Carnegie and a few others, new) Protestant American aristocracy.  Let’s take a look at the example of one of the more forward looking priests of the period—the Reverend Jeremiah Cummings of Saint Stephen’s Church in New York. 

Cummings was an extremely talented man—a linguist, a musician, and a powerful orator.  He was a close friend of the literary convert to Catholicism (from Calvinism via Universalism), Orestes Brownson, and was himself a noted writer.  Sent to Rome by Bishop DuBois for his education and assigned to the Cathedral on his return, Cummings travelled in the best of circles and in 1848 when he established Saint Stephen’s Parish in what is now the Lower East Side he drew “the better sort” of people to the church by his gifts for preaching and good music.  At the same time, he was a noted social thinker whose “outside the box” ideas on everything from seminary education to social welfare stirred a considerable about of controversy.  Although educated in Rome, he was one of the earlier “Americanist” thinkers who wanted to adapt Catholicism to American political and social models without lessening the doctrinal stringency of the faith—indeed as an Americanist intellectual he and Browning and others—saw the Catholic doctrinal tradition to be just what America needed to give its democratic spirit the rich loam in which it could develop healthy intellectual roots that would guarantee its republican ideals a stable future.  People like Cummings, Browning, and Issac Hecker (another intellectual convert) were able to see the forest of Catholic culture through the trees of Catholic customs ((I won’t’ say traditions for fear of being misunderstood for Catholic Tradition).  They were often misunderstood (and still today often not appreciated) for their ability in forward thinking. Cummings’ keen awareness of American society and Catholic faith let him see (and write and preach) that new solutions to the problems of poverty needed to be found and he used his pulpit as a powerful tool to advance the cause of the working classes.  Saint Stephen’s became known not only for its beautiful music and elegant liturgy, but for social outreach to the immigrant and working poor.  More on this subject to follow—the famous Father McGlynn!!!
The image today is a portrait of the younger Father Issac Hecker, founder of the Missionary Society of Saint Paul the Apostle, or Paulist Fathers

History in the Making--Catholic voice in America today

History is not only the past--it is an awareness we bring to the present.  Even as the recent series i have been writing on Is Vatican II in Danger is History-as-it-happens, there are other things going on as well in which we can see History, and here History of Catholic America--unfolding.  I have recently received the following letter.  I have edited it slightly to take out the more partisan passages (as much as I could without hurting the substance of the letter) but it gives some interesting reflection on the tradition of the Catholic Church in regards to the Rights of Labor as it comes into conflict with contemporary events. 

Dear Friends,

The union-busting legislation of the new Republican Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker, has dominated the headlines for several weeks now. By his own words, the Jesuit-educated Walker has acknowledged a hidden agenda, to diminish the collective bargaining rights of teachers, nurses, snowplow drivers and other state workers, with the ultimate intent of breaking the union. This former county commissioner, in a now notorious prank interview, compared himself to Ronald Reagan and said, "This is our moment, this is our time to change the course of history."

Walker's "moment in history" - paralleling actions taken by Republican governors in other states - marks the beginning of an ambitious movement to systematically dismantle a century of social progress.  As Catholics, we must respond to all those who trample these American values, borne out of the Catholic Social Tradition. Your help is needed today, and into the future, to embark on a crusade of sorts ...for the common good.    

The right of labor to organize - and collectively bargain - is a foundational principal of Catholic Social Justice, first enshrined in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum. It has been further developed and amplified for over a century by popes, bishops and theologians. Most recently, Pope Benedict XVI addressed labor rights in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  

Emboldened with an over-reaching confidence from the midterm elections, and led by the one-size-fits-all budget slashing Tea Party philosophy, other states with Republican governors and legislative majorities are in the process of passing similar union busting legislation. Ohio and Idaho are two of the states in a second wave of this ambush. Some Republican led state houses, including those in Indiana, Tennessee, and Florida, appear to be scrutinizing the outcome in Wisconsin before acting. It is also reported that Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine and Pennsylvania are also considering legislation to limit worker's rights.

With the support of progressives, labor unions have taken a stand for justice in response to Walker's bad faith efforts (he did not campaign on breaking the union).  The views of the American public have become clear.  At least three public opinion polls (USA / Gallup,  Greenberg Quinlan Rossner, NY Times / CBS) have shown that both the citizens of  Wisconsin and people across the country support Labor's right to collectively bargain, by a margin of at least 27%, averaging 60% in support versus 33% in opposition.

At the same time, the Wisconsin Catholic bishops and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have also weighed in. The Wisconsin Catholic Conference has issued a statement that supports labor's right to organize, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has spoken out in solidarity with the Wisconsin bishops.  In the USCCB Statement, Bishop Stephen Blaire of the Diocese of Stockton CA says, "these are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous consequences. The debates over worker ... collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy." 

The turmoil in Wisconsin and other States coincides with the budget battles in Washington DC. House Republicans are in a "fire, ready, aim" mode, seeking draconian federal budget cuts that do nothing to address the nation's long-term budget problem, yet cut programs for the most vulnerable in our society today. Speaker of the House and fellow Catholic, John Boehner, speaks of "moral responsibilities" while proposing budget cuts that would eliminate $7.6 billion in support to women and children (the WIC program), $2.5 billion in home heating oil subsidies for the poor, and $4.1 billion on job training programs, to name just a few. These symbolic cuts - which could be paid for by closing corporate loopholes - are not only an assault on the common good, and presumably the morality that Boehner wants to preserve, but are also bad economic policy. The investment bank of Goldman Sachs and conservative economist Mark Zandi of Moody's, who advised John McCain in his bid for the presidency, have projected these cuts would actually hurt the economy and job creation, let alone the people whom it is supposed to serve.

The Massachusetts Catholic Conference has issued a statement in support of working families and the poor that reflects their concerns for the budget cutting frenzy going on across our nation.  The Massachusetts bishops make a pledge to "do all we can ...to help our neighbor's in need." They plead for elected officials, such as John Boehner and all citizens to preserve "for the sake of human dignity, a special place for the vulnerable ...for whom the destination of every dollar is now so consequential."

The union-breaking legislation and the federal budget cuts House Republicans are demanding place an unacceptable and unnecessary burden on working families and the poor. Helping put this in its proper perspective, Newt Gingrich - likely presidential candidate and recent convert to Catholicism who proposed Republicans use the slogan "Jobs not Food Stamps" in the 2010 midterm congressional campaign - has coined the term "replacement conservatism" to describe this multi-front Republican assault on the common good, or as he sees it, on liberalism.

Walker's "moment" in history, Boehner's judgment on "moral responsibility," and Gingrich's "replacement conservatism" represent the strategic zeal brought to a political war being waged by ideologically conservative free marketers. Their goal - under the guise of liberty - is to roll back the social justice progress that defines our nation's growth over the past century. If successful, they would reshape our country and economy to put corporate interests and those of the wealthy first, rather than to serve the needs of people. They do so unapologetically at a point in time when we are facing record poverty and a concentration of wealth that has never been greater. 

If ever there was a time for patriotic social justice Catholics to fight for what we believe in, this is that time. So, we must mobilize our collective efforts like never before and embark on a crusade for the common good. 

What you can do:

1.     If you have a governor or legislature threatening to limit the rights of labor to bargain collectively, call or e-mail them to let them know you support the collective bargaining rights of public employees. Please keep us apprised of your efforts and of what is going on in your state.

2.     Contact your bishop and tell them that you support the Wisconsin Catholic Conference's and the USCCB's statements in support of the public employee's labor unions. Their influence is important in the public square. Ask them to consider doing the same if your state is facing a labor busting bill and to also consider issuing a statement similar to the one issued by the Massachusetts bishops in support of the poor. Please advise us if you learn that your bishops have issued the statement that we are urging them to make.

Thank you for your continued support. Let us all keep one another in our prayers this Lenten Season, particularly our elected officials and those most in need, as we work in pursuit of a more just society.

With warm regards,

Patrick Whelan MD PhD

Suzanne Morse

Lisa Schare 

Steve Krueger

 The image today is Pope Leo XIII whose encyclical letter Rerum Novarum--issued 110 years ago still has much to say for our Catholic values today