Voces de la Frontera's March on MAY DAY 2024: Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Gather at Voces' Office, 1027 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI.  

March to the Fiserv Forum on 6th Street and Juneau Avenue

9:30 a.m.  RALLY AT THE VOCES' OFFICE

10:30 a.m.  MARCH TO THE FISERV FORUM

11:30 a.m.   RALLY AT THE FISERV FORUM

The Working Catholic, Immigration Part Three by Bill Droel

 

Archbishop John Hughes (1997-1864) of New York is probably not a suitable role model for a bishop today. And yet…

Hughes was born in Ireland. He once tellingly wrote: For first four days of my life, I was “on social and civil equality with the most favored subjects of the British Empire.” But then I was baptized a Roman Catholic.

Hughes emigrated to the U.S. in 1817 where he worked in a quarry and in landscaping. He was eventually ordained for the Philadelphia diocese and within 12 years was appointed as a bishop to New York City. From the time he arrived on these shores, Hughes strongly felt that Catholicism was in harmony with our Constitution and our democratic ideals. He was consistently positive about pluralism, the electoral process and the law. At the same time, Hughes was a controversial opponent of certain assumptions and attitudes embedded in the dominant culture of his day. Using today’s term, Hughes was a cultural warrior.

Machine Made:  Tammany Hall by Terry Golway (W.W. Norton,  2014) explains the tension that made Hughes a champion of immigrants and a threat to others.  The dominant culture of his time was associated with New York's elites, with evangelical Protestants.  They fancied themselves as reformers, as technocrats.  They knew what was best for society.  But Hughes judged them to be an outdated aristocracy whose hypocrisy denied opportunities to immigrant families.  He saw heavy-handed moralizing in their campaigns for temperance, child welfare and the like.  In fact, to him their notion of social improvement was anti-Catholic, anti-Irish American.

Concurring with the First Amendment of our Constitution and anticipating a key insight of Vatican II (1962-1965), Hughes believed that a religion does better within pluranlism than in a theocracy.  "There is no such thing as a predominant religion" in the U.S., said Hughes.  Ours is not "a Protestant country or a Catholic country or a Jewish country or a Christian country in a sense that it would give any sect or combination of sects the right to oppress any other sect."  A minority, he continued, 'is entitled to the same protection as the greatest majority."  further, a minority has 'the right to reject the values of a dominant culture."  

Hughes was best-known for applying his understanding of the Constitution to education. To Hughes, as Golway writes, the public schools “were imbued with Protestant assumptions and attitudes.” Hughes judged that they were sectarian and thereby undermined our Catholic style of Christianity. The school system “conveyed cultural disrespect.” Hughes first attempted to gain public funding for a small number of parish schools, but his political and legal efforts were thwarted. Hughes then concentrated on bricks-and-mortar. “Build our own schools first,” he said. Church buildings can come later. Today, Hughes is considered a founder of the Catholic school system through which thousands upon thousands of immigrant children and their descendants have moved into the mainstream.

Hughes “was outspoken, aggressive and political to his very marrow,” Golway writes. His nickname was Dagger John. His style would not go over among Catholics today, accustomed as they are to breezy, polite clergy. Further, his style is unacceptable in post-Vatican II theology in which lay people, not Church employees, are expected to be competent leaders in civic affairs. But Hughes’ insights are still relevant.

§  The Gift of Immigrants. All immigrant groups are, allowing for a period of adjustment, a source economic growth and social energy for our country.

§  Genuine Pluralism. People learn and exercise virtues through the give-and-take of family life and in their particular parish/neighborhood. By contrast, the diversity movement in our schools and businesses does not help people find meaning or propel them in society. As it turns out, Catholic particularity within ethnic communities and parishes makes for citizens sensitive to the greater good.

§  Disabling Help. Many immigrant families arrive in the U.S. needing resources. When government funds are involved, self-sufficiency stalls. Instead of dealing through a bureaucracy, help is ennobling when it is funneled through proximate institutions (ethnic networks, a parish, a precinct, an independent settlement house, a neighborhood clinic and a union hall or worker center).

§  Quality Education. The mix of races and ethnicities in today’s public schools can encourage social awareness and genuine tolerance. So too with the philosophy of a Catholic school—more so these days because those schools admit a significant number of non-Catholic students and a number of Black students.

§  Religious Liberty. Our Constitution’s First Amendment is a two-way street. Government shall not meddle in a church’s religious affairs nor favor any one religion. No distinctive religious doctrine shall dominate any part of government. In the other direction, when clergy and other Church leaders enter the public square they must argue their positions in civic terms. Catholic clergy must stop short of partisanship. (Hughes admittedly inched over the society-partisan politics boundary by running a slate of local electoral candidates.)

Droel edits a printed newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

 

 

The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers   Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox  Watch for Matthew Fox's video meditation -- now appearing every Monday!  Harriet Tubman, A Holy Worker Par Excellence   03/12/2024 In yesterday’s DM we honored work as a forge of holiness. And in recent DMs we remembered black heroes and sheroes of old.   Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1911) is one of those sheroes. Called the “Moses of her people,” she escaped from slavery and then committed herself to assisting others to escape.      Called a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, she made about nine precarious trips south to free others–around 70 people in all, historians tells us.     On these nine very risky journeys, she assures us, she never lost a single person in the process. Harriet Tubman, 1895. Photo by Horatio Seymour Squyer, National Portrait Gallery. Wikimedia Commons As an enslaved child in Maryland, she was already put to work at five years of age. When 12 years old, she intervened when a master was beating a black man and in the process was hit with a metal object that rendered her with severe headaches and narcolepsy the rest of her life.   She served as a scout, spy, guerilla soldier and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War and is recognized as the first African American woman to serve in the military. She would dress as an old woman and wander streets of Southern cities talking to slaves and gathering reconnaissance for the army that way.  Trailer of the 2019 movie Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo. Focus Features. As a nurse she dispensed herbal remedies to black and white soldiers alike who were dying of infection and disease.   She worked with the army in Union-held portions of South Carolina and participated in one of the more daring  raids of the Civil War–a nighttime raid at Combahee Ferry in June, 1963.    She helped guide Union soldiers along mine-filled waters, and then coming ashore, they rescued 700 enslaved people from plantations nearby. All the while, slave owners and Confederate soldiers were shooting at the rescue team. After the war, she entered the battle for women’s suffrage, joining Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony in that quest.     She also cared for her aging parents and worked with a writer to develop her autobiography.  Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Auburn, NY, U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Wikimedia Commons.   With very modest financial resources, she opened a Home for the Aged for impoverished Black people near Auburn, New York and died in that home of pneumonia in 1911.   We recognize in her accomplishments the same courage and bravery, vision and generosity, commitment to action for justice—in short, holiness–that we find in her sister Sojourner Truth and brother Frederick Douglass.

The Working Catholic: Big Tech by Bill Droel

The popular use of a term sometimes differs from its original use. Such is the case with Luddite, which now usually refers to someone who fiercely opposes most technology. Blood in the Machine by Brain Merchant (Little Brown, 2023) takes us back to the term’s origin: the Luddite Movement in England from 1811 to 1816.

Textile workers were opposed to certain types of automated machines, not wholesale opposition to all technology. They also believed that employers deceived them about manufacturing changes. The workers damaged some factory machines, but eventually lost their battle when military force was used against them.

In our day, some tech companies warrant resistance over their treatment of employees and consumers. Those companies include the social media--Meta (Facebook), Tik Tok, and X (Twitter) and others. Plus, the big tech retail giant Amazon and probably the app-based delivery/rider companies.

The harmful side effects of these companies derive from their operating philosophy, as summarized by Adrienne LaFrance in “The Despots of Silicon Valley” for The Atlantic (3/24). The authoritarian titans of tech are dangerous, she writes. They believe “that technological progress of any kind is unreservedly and inherently good; that you should always build it, simply because you can; that frictionless information flow is the highest value regardless of the information’s quality; that privacy is an archaic concept…[and that] the power [of tech experts] should be unconstrained.”

LaFrance continues: The tech giants “promise community but sow division; claim to champion truth but spread lies; wrap themselves in concepts such as empowerment and liberty, but surveil us relentlessly.”

Our Congress is concerned about the side effects of big tech. Both House and Senate routinely summon one or another tech executive to address those concerns. Those hearings are perhaps a modest start. Collective and individual action on the part of the public is urgently needed. A few groups are on the case. For example, Collective Action in Tech (www.collectiveaction.tech/unions) maintains a list of organizing efforts among employees in the big tech sector. Mothers Unite to Stall Technology (www.mothersunite4kids.org) advises parents on the harmful effects of mobile devices and more. (Ironically, these citizen efforts rely on tech platforms to spread their ideas.)

 Citizens should keep basic principles in mind. First, as Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) warns us, all technology individuates. Contrary to the propaganda of the social media platforms, communication through mobile devices puts users further apart. One’s so-called friends on Facebook are likely not genuine friends unless honest and vulnerable face-to-face contact also occurs. Second, as Marshall McLuhan preaches, “the medium is the message.” That is, the content is less relevant than the hardware (the device itself, the satellite and the earthbound transmitters and cables). Merely having a TV in one’s home changes the household environment, no matter the content of one or another TV show. A mobile device in one’s pocket changes one’s outlook, no matter who is texting whom.

These principles and others should, by the way, cause reflection on the part of church leaders—particularly those in liturgical denominations. For example, a camera inside a church in itself makes the worship a little bit more entertainment and a little less participatory liturgy. Say it this way: There is no such thing as reality TV or reality streaming. The image from a camera signal sent up to a satellite and back down to a TV, a computer or a mobile device is not reality. It is a projection and it necessarily individuates.  Be honest: Do you drink coffee or surf channels while watching TV Mass?

Droel is the author of Public Friendship (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $6)

St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, Santa Fe, New Mexico

with symbols of theologies of faith, expecting understanding

After meeting our London family in Las Vegas we visited Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It was an exciting trip.

Our grandchildren learn about the beauty of nature by cuddling a large snake. 

  We learned more about the Native Americans of the Southwest and the Spanish culture that violently dominated them. 

Our visit to the Cathedral for Mass was enlightening for us.  Archbishop Wester presided.  His homily was excellent.  In my opinion, it seemed it was based on the Creation Theology of M. D. Chenu, O.P.  He opened with a quote from Elizabeth Barrett Browning:  

 Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

     From Aurora Leigh, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

His words were meant to spark meditation for Lent.  The question is, did this indicate a ‘me and God Theology?’ 

Moses was given the duty to liberate the Jews from slavery.  In Exodus, God speaks to Moses:  “I have heard their outcry against their slave-masters…you shall bring my people Israel out of Egypt.”  (Ex 4:7-10) 

Could there have been more said by the Archbishop considering the crises we now face?  It was the week of the Novalny murder.

The Cathedral as it is now is reminiscent of an older adobe church, La Parroquia, (built in 1714-1717). A side chapel contains a statue of Our Lady of the Conquista. The current building was constructed in 1859-1886.  The structure of the building and its accoutrements present an eclectic series of theologies including Vatican II. 

A statue of Kateri Tekawitha, Native American Saint, is in front of the Saint Francis Cathedral Basilica in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The people of the congregation were very kind to us.  Because of my handicapped situation, Communion was brought to us.  Some talked to us and asked where we were from. It was indeed a Post-Vatican community.  

THE WORK OF HUMAN HANDS - CREATION

Hands - a gift of the Creator for creation.  

Hands have intuitive knowledge and act with immediacy.  

"It is interesting to see how much like human hands the wings of the angels are."  [Matthew Fox, regarding a painting by Hildegard of Bingen, "All Beings Celebrate Creation" in Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen, p. 77.]

The photo shows the hands of new parents, Bill and Joanne Lange, and their baby daughter. Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1973.

The Working Catholic: No Contract, Yet by Bill Droel

n recent times employees for some well-known companies have voted for a union at their store or warehouse. These apparent employee victories do not, however, signal improved labor relations in our country.

It is difficult for employees to achieve a pro-union vote. The parent company retains union-busting lawyers and consultants who, in round one, teach executives and branch managers how to disrupt an organizing effort by making side promises to a few quiet workers, discrediting the leaders, telling the public that costs will increase and more.

In round two (after a pro-union vote) the local manager might continue to intimidate employees with threats of layoffs and decreased benefits. Meanwhile the company challenges the vote. When the company loses its challenge, it proceeds to appeal the decision. More months go by.

In round three the paid negotiators for the company move “with spectacular slowness,” reports Steven Greenhouse for The New Republic (2/24). They pick an out-of-state meeting place. They ridicule the thoughts of the unpaid employee team. They take long lunches and often break-off negotiations for weeks or months at a time.  The goal is to wear down the employee team and to discourage their fellow workers.

It was December 2021 when baristas at a Starbucks in Buffalo voted for the first-ever union at that company, Starbucks Workers United (2495 Main St. #556, Buffalo, NY 14214; www.sbworkersunited.org). There is no contract as yet in Buffalo. About 30% of newly formed unions have no contract even after three years, Greenhouse details.

Why does Starbucks invest in expensive union-busting lawyers and consultants over one, small outlet near Lake Erie? “Because reaching a good contract will obviously provide enormous incentives for workers in their nonunion stores to organize,” Greenhouse explains. Yet knowing of the delays in Buffalo, baristas in 385 Starbucks shops around the country have recently voted for a union. By the way, Starbucks can afford its lawyers. Its cash registers ring up more than $30billion per year. Profit is up less than Starbucks would like—an increase of about only $2.6billion per annum. Starbucks says its slow profit performance is due to the raises it gives employees. (Those raises can be interpreted as another tactic to stare off unions.)

Howard Schultz served as CEO of Starbucks for 14 years, retiring in 2000. He came back for nine more years at the helm. After a second retirement, he came back once again for two more years, leaving the position in April 2023. Schultz has a net worth of about $5billion. He owns about 2% of Starbucks.

Schultz is a prominent neoliberal. He is big on individual free choice, though free choice doesn’t seem to include choosing a union. "I was convinced that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union," Schultz says.

Among its presumptions, the neoliberal “ideology holds that both parties to an employment contract hold equal power and can easily walk away,” writes Anthony Annett for Commonweal (1/24). The presumption assumes that “if a worker feels mistreated, she can always quit and find another job.”

Catholicism values freedom, but “the notion that employers and employees enjoy equal power” is nonsense, Annett writes. He provides references. For example, Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) explains the principle of a just wage and notes that if through necessity or fear of a worse evil, an employee accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give no better, the worker is a victim of force and injustice. (On the Condition of Workers #34, 1891)

 Our 2024 Catholic Compendium of the Social Doctrine puts it thus: “The simple agreement between employee and employer with regard to the amount of pay to be received is not sufficient for the agreed upon salary to qualify as a just wage.” In Annett’s words, “Mutual consent alone does not guarantee a fair contract.”

What can be done to make organizing and negotiating at Starbucks and other places efficient and just? Some suggest that the technicality of organizing store-by-store give way to a company-wide vote on a union. Catholicism proposes the industry council plan (what in Germany is called co-determinism) in which a quasi-legal body of representatives of executives, employees, consumers and government set some sector-wide standards. Another idea is currently banging around our Congress. The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize), among its reforms, might include a penalty for employers who unnecessarily stall negations with a new union. The bill was first introduced and passed in the House in May 2020. Its latest version (HR #20), introduced in February 2023, awaits proper voting. 

Readers of this column might sign a pledge of solidarity on the website of Starbucks United (www.sbworkersunited.org). And why not freely choose another coffee shop until Starbucks acts in good faith?

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a free newsletter on faith and work.