According to an IRS rule, churches (and other non-profits) “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in or intervening in any political campaign.” The current Republican Party platform, reports Kevin Baker (N.Y. Times, 8/28/16), wants the rule overturned. The platform plank is a response to some evangelical organizations that desire more direct electoral influence. Catholic institutions wisely know that the current “no politicking” rule is better politically and better theologically.

The current tax-exemption rule is better politically because it saves face for Catholic institutions. They simply cannot deliver the vote. Catholic voters no longer take their cues from Church employees. In fact, when a pastor or bishop wades too deeply into a partisan area, his parishioners drift to the other side.
Likewise, a change in the tax-exemption rule would be bad for Catholic institutions because neither electoral party clearly reflects the moral positions of Catholicism.

A change in the no-politicking rule is also bad theology, or to use jargon, bad ecclesiology.

If a Catholic is prompted to reflect on models of the church, she or he might reply: “My parish uses a collaborative model” or “Our pastor has an authoritarian model.” There is, however, a less parochial way to think about models of the church. That is, to think about how the church is situated within society and culture.
Back in the Middle Ages the church was nearly synonymous with society. Its bishops were the primary influence agents and—for better or worse—acted directly in the palaces and courts of the elites.
With modernity Catholicism (now differentiated from Protestantism) experimented with different models in different locales. For example, in what could be called the lay auxiliary model, Catholicism developed parallel organizations (unions, professional guilds, Christian Democratic parties) in order to offset some secular trends and, after 1848 specifically, to combat atheistic communism. This model was more popular in Europe than in the U.S.
Eventually at Vatican II (1962-1965), Catholicism adopted the cultural-pastoral model. Church institutions in this model are fully separate from civil and secular support. Not because Catholicism is opposed to modernity, but because it has better credibility if its institutions are apolitical. This model is premised on lay Christians taking full, independent responsibility for diminishing injustice in workplaces, bringing harmony to family and neighborhood life, promoting the common good in civic associations and enhancing dignity in culture. Lay people act not as representatives of their bishop, but as baptized Christians, eager to cooperate with God’s on-going creation and redemption.

It is true that 50 years after Vatican II a bishop here and there speaks too specifically about partisan topics. Why? Perhaps because he doesn’t understand or accept Vatican II? Or maybe because he is bored with his proper duty? A bishop is to constantly and sometimes loudly teach Catholic doctrine, including its planks on the right to life, the right of workers to make independent decisions about labor unions, about the integrity of the family, about hospitality to strangers, about dignity regardless of race or sexual orientation, about the social sin of poverty and more. It is a theological and political mistake, however, when a bishop in his ecclesial role expresses an opinion about a zoning matter, about increasing or lowering government farm subsidies, about what he thinks is the best legislative approach for reducing the number of abortions, about allocation of police personnel in various city districts and more. In recent years a few bishops have even tipped their miter toward the Republican presidential candidate. (They cannot do so in the 2016 race because the Republican candidate is blatantly anti-immigrant among other objections.)
When told he is getting a tad too specific and thereby violating Vatican II’s cultural-pastoral model, a bishop says in effect: “Well, the laity are not properly formed in the faith. They even support some anti-Catholic public policies. I therefore have to set the record straight.” This is a circular argument. The more Church employees in their role as employees talk about partisan positions, the less interested are the laity in the teachings of our faith.

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

When the US Catholic Bishops invoke the rich history of Catholic social teaching to defend the rights of labor, all of the faithful can learn from their words. When Catholic hospitals, schools and universities respect workers’ right to organize, the faithful can learn from their actions.

Today the Catholic Labor Network is pleased to release its 2016 Gaudium et Spes Labor Report, featuring a list of approximately 500 Catholic institutions employing union labor.

Did you know, for instance, that more than 350 Catholic elementary, middle and high schools in the United States have union contracts with their teachers? Read more

by Bill Droel

All ethnic groups experience a tension between the old world and the new world. First generation immigrant parents, for example, are distressed when their children prefer social activities among their schoolmates over family gatherings. The children are angry because these obligatory family events occur every weekend. Daughters say their parents are over-protective; parents say their daughters have succumbed to the worst of U.S. culture.

Sam Quinones profiles Chicago restaurateur Carlos Ascencion Salinas in Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream (University of New Mexico Press, 2007). Salinas arrived here nearly 40 years ago. He took a job in one of the restaurants of a regional pancake chain. He saved some of his earnings and he studied his workplace. Salinas eventually opened his own taqueria, and then a few more. Salinas also assisted many other Mexican-Americans to start their own business. Today, Chicago features hundreds of these family-operated taquerias. There is one, for example, out the back door and then just across the alley from my home and then a dozen more within another four blocks.

Along the way Salinas and others had to sort out what was healthy in his old world culture and what was of no use in the U.S. In Quinones’ excellent book, Salinas repeats a version of the oft-told crab story. The fisherman, it seems, had no lid on his bait bucket. Another angler comes by: “Aren’t you afraid the bait will escape?” “No,” replies the first. “These are Mexican crabs. Whenever one gets too high in the bucket, the others drag it down.” (This story, by the way, has been told about Italian crabs, Pilipino crabs and even Catholic crabs.)
To be a success in business, explains Salinas, it wasn’t enough to learn about food distributors or about wage and hour regulations. He had to learn the soft arts; how to work in a pluralistic environment. In Mexico there is envidia, a jealousy embedded in the culture. There is an expectation that one gains status by trash-talking anyone who is further ahead. Envidia can even include sabotage. Salinas knew that envious behavior had to give way to cooperation for success in the U.S.
Quinones tells us that Salinas preached teamwork “without envy and backbiting.” He shared his knowledge and made loans to others interested in starting a business. The loans “weren’t that important,” says Salinas. It was “recognizing the strength of unity, this support, backing each other up, this confidence we all need… We have to break the pattern of those famous crabs.”

Not everything from the old world should be forsaken upon arrival in the U.S. Research shows that parochialism actually aids assimilation. A strong family network gives children a nourishing harbor in our individualistic, often rootless culture. The seemingly old world ethnic family has resources more valuable than those in a superficial culture that is fixated on the vacuous Kardashians and the talent-deficient Miley Cyrus.
Every ethnic family struggles with this. What belongs to private life but is not useful in conducting public life? What is healthy in the home-based culture and what is dysfunctional there? Sorting through these matters is difficult. It helps to have a business leader like Salinas, perhaps a considerate foreman, maybe an Anglo pastor in one’s Mexican-American parish (or in a Polish-American parish), maybe an involved teacher. Thousands upon thousands of immigrants to our country have made a way from poverty to success by using one culture to create the next.

Droel edits a free newsletter about faith and work: NCL, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629

Contract Ratified in Spokane, Strike Brewing in Buffalo

At Providence Health, a Catholic Hospital system embracing 34 hospitals in the Northwestern United States, many nurses and other health care employees have union representation. Even when both labor and management exhibit mutual respect, bargaining a contract is not always easy – but it’s often edifying and can go a long way toward helping each side understand the needs and priorities of the other, paving the way for a compromise reflecting the common good. After many months at the bargaining table, where staffing levels were a major sticking point, members of the Washington State Nurses Association ratified a contract August 3 covering nurses at Spokane’s Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. The nurses secured staffing commitments in some priority areas of the hospital; a management spokeswoman said that the contract “benefits both parties and meets all our needs.”

In Western New York a different story is unfolding. Nurses and other hospital employees at Buffalo’s Mercy Hospital argue that the facility is “understaffed and underpaid” and have voted to authorize a strike. While hospital administrators say they have made offers to improve staffing and wages, CWA Local 1133, representing the employees, argues that these offers are inadequate. The union has worked with community groups to publicize their views with white papers and informational pickets.

Who are the “sea slaves?” They’re maritime workers duped into service onboard ship under false pretenses. Apparently common in the fishing industry, the employer will extend promises of good wages and working conditions and a limited term of service – promises that evaporate once the vessel hits international waters. And because these ships are serviced on the high seas, they may not return to port for months or years. Church ministries serving seafarers and migrants have come together in an effort called COMPASS (Coalition of Organizations and Ministries Promoting the Abolition of Slavery at Sea) to fight this abuse.  Kari Johnstone, who runs the US State Department office fighting human trafficking, recently visited the Vatican to coordinate with Catholic organizations in this effort; check out Catholics Praised for Coming to the Aid of Slaves at Sea.