Category: USA

Good Samaritan models true ‘ordo amoris’: Pope Francis

Pope Francis has written to the bishops of the USA in the wake of controversial comments by US Vice-President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, to clarify Gospel teaching on human dignity and migration.

“The journey from slavery to freedom that the People of Israel traveled, as narrated in the Book of Exodus, invites us to look at the reality of our time, so clearly marked by the phenomenon of migration, as a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person,” Pope Francis wrote.

“These words are not an artificial construct,” he emphasised. “Even a cursory examination of the Church’s social doctrine emphatically shows that Jesus Christ is the true Emmanuel (cf. Mt 1:23); he did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own. “The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration.”

Francis was responding to Vice-President Vance’s comment on X claiming that Christian teaching on love applies to people in concentric circles of love

The pope continued:

I like to recall, among other things, the words with which Pope Pius XII began his Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, which is considered the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration:

“The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.”

Likewise, Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception. In fact, when we speak of “infinite and transcendent dignity,” we wish to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society. Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.

I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.

This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.

Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.

    In conclusion, Pope Francis praised the US bishops for their work “for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human” and encouraged Catholics and all men and women of good will “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”

    “With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all,” Pope Francis wrote.

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    Pope Francis to Bishops of the USA (Vatican)

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    Vatican Media

    Christian Family Movement celebrates 75 years


    For 75 years, Catholic families in the Archdiocese of Chicago have been gathering to build the bonds of friendship and community, to deepen their faith and to make the world a better place as part of the Christian Family Movement, Chicago Catholic reports.

    The movement celebrated its anniversary 3-4 August at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary with the theme of “Make Friends, Make Disciples, Make a Difference.”

    Coming to Mundelein was a nod to the movements roots, said retired Auxiliary Bishop George Rassas. The movement grew out of the Catholic action movement promoted by Monsignor Reynold Hillenbrand, then rector of Mundelein.

    Hillenbrand encouraged lay movements using the Jocist method of “observe-judge-act” created in the early 20th century by Belgian Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, the founder of the Young Christian Workers Movement. The method calls for people to take a close look at social issues in light of the Gospel, determine what should be done and then do it.

    “Those were very creative years, at the end of the ’40s and in the ’50s,” Bishop Rassas said.

    Pat Crowley, who with his wife Patty Crowley, was instrumental in the development of CFM, was part of a men’s Catholic action group in Chicago whose members discovered that they did not have enough in common in their professional lives for the “social inquiry” part of the process to work. But they were all husbands and fathers.

    That led to the Cana Conference, and, in 1949, to the establishment of what was then known as Catholic Family Action.

    “The name now is Christian Family Movement because we are open to everyone, but it’s based in Catholic teaching,” explained Sally Shewmon.

    Sally and Brad Shewmon have been involved in CFM for 29 years at their home parish, Our Lady of the Wayside in Arlington Heights, and now are serving as national vice presidents for the movement.

    They started as members, then became small-group leaders. Members of the movement meet as small groups once a month, from fall through spring, following the book the movement publishes each year to discuss issues and come up with an action.

    “We observe what’s going on in the world with what our topic is, and we judge according to the Gospels,” Brad Shewmon said. “What does Jesus say about it? We act, so how do we make a difference? How do we make a change in the world for the better?”

    “It promotes a lot of deep conversation based on the programming materials,” Sally Shewmon added. “It’s faith in action.”

    Sometimes the groups do acts of service that are suggested in the CFM book, and sometimes they come up with their own. In the Our Lady of the Wayside Parish community, for example, years ago, when the Shewmons’ three adult children were young, CFM did several projects to help the family of a high school football player who was paralyzed in an accident, raising money for their needs and building a wheelchair ramp at his home.

    “Our kids were involved in that,” Brad Shewmon said. “Our kids grew up with service as part of their life and they still do it.”

    Sometimes service is a part of the monthly social gatherings for the whole family, the Shewmons said, and sometimes they are fun activities, or both service and fun.

    “It makes your big parish smaller,” Sally Shewmon said. “Over time, you get to know more and more people in your parish. And the pastor really likes CFM because they know they can call on CFM families if they need to get something done.”

    The Shewmons and Bishop Rassas said they think many parishes — and their members — would benefit from having active CFM groups.

    “I think it really brings value to families,” Bishop Rassas said. “It’s an easily accessible program. Every year they have a copy of the program book, the meetings are already set out for you. And it creates bonds between families.”

    “It makes a more cohesive parish,” Sally Shewmon said. “It makes us want to help and volunteer for things that are done in our parish.”

    It also has individual benefits, she said, helping people cut through the noise to determine what they are called to do.

    “How do we bring our faith into everyday life?” she said. “How can we make a difference in the all the craziness going on the world, and how do we do it in love and service and kindness?”

    SOURCE

    Founded locally, Christian Family Movement celebrates 75 years (Chicago Catholic)

    RIP Russ Tershy: YCW and Peace Corps pioneer

    Russell Joseph Tershy passed away on 29 June 2022, marking a century that began before the Great Depression and continued into the Internet age.

    Russell Tershy believed in every person’s potential, and he believed that luck and circumstances, not ability, shaped people’s trajectories. He understood this first-hand. Tershy, born in Enid, Oklahoma, fled the Dust Bowl to California with his family in a Model-T Ford in the 1920s. He, his four siblings and his parents, Lebanese immigrants who opened a successful general store on the High Plains, lost everything and became migrant farm workers. They picked peaches in southern California, and through the generosity of a man who rented them a plot of land and a chicken barn in Robla, California but never collected full rent, the Tershy family emerged from financial ruin. They converted the barn into a home with a wood stove and an outhouse, and Russell helped grow and sell fruits and vegetables door-to-door. They started buying fruit from other farmers and reselling it to stores. By age 15 Russell was driving a truck full of fruit back and forth from Robla to Los Angeles and negotiating sales and purchases. Kindness extended was their luck.

    Education was an engine of upward mobility for Tershy, as it was for so many Americans. He attended the one-room Robla Elementary school and New Deal era progressive Grant High School which sparked a lifelong commitment to education. His valedictorian speech was about the role of education in building a prosperous future. He attended Sacramento City College, the first member of his family to attend college. When World War II started, he left college to fight facism with the US Calvary. He was stationed on a cold, remote island off Washington State, but after his basic training IQ test was finally processed, he was sent to Stanford University where he spent two years studying Chinese language and culture, mule packing and survival in preparation to be parachuted with a mule into China to aid the resistance to Japanese occupation.

    Much to his surprise, he was shipped off to the Philippines where he was retrained as a radio operator and undertook countless patrol missions searching for Japanese soldiers in areas transitioning from Japanese to US control. Next he was on a ship bound for the invasion of Japan and was then among the first groups of soldiers to land in the country after the Japanese surrender.

    When he returned from the war after five years overseas, he visited his parents, sister and baby nephew in Robla. They then drove to San Francisco to visit two of his sisters, while his mother stayed behind with the baby. When he returned a few days later, no one answered the door. He climbed in through a window and found his mother dead, his baby nephew asleep in the cradle.

    The family was convinced that his mother would have been alive had they been able to afford good medical care. Russell poured his grief into making money. With his father he rented and ran a residence hotel on Polk St in San Francisco. Within a few years they were making over $US300,000/yr in today’s dollars, and Russell was living the life in San Francisco.

    His family was finally financially secure, but he lingered on his mother’s early death, the devastation of war he witnessed in Japan and the Philippines, and his family’s stint as entrapped migrant farmworkers, which they escaped with the help of the man who never asked for the full rent. He turned over the hotel business to his family and joined the Young Christian Workers, making less than $US6,000/yr in today’s dollars as a labor union organizer and poverty fighter.

    He considered becoming a Catholic priest, got engaged, called it off and reconsidered priesthood before meeting his wife, Ellie Marie Sheridan, in the Young Christian Workers movement. They married in 1960 when they were both 39. Their son Bernie was born the following year, and Russell was recruited by the newly formed Peace Corps to be the Deputy Director for Bolivia. The new family lived in Bolivia for four years until one of Bolivia’s frequent coups forced the Peace Corps program out.

    They returned to the US where Russell, thanks to the GI Bill and Stanford’s generous re-admission policy, resumed his college education after a ~20 year pause. His plan was to return to poverty fighting in Latin America armed with a new degree, but they decided to stay in the US when his 2nd son, Bill, almost died shortly after birth and was saved by the state-of-the-art medical care available at Stanford.

    Russ Tershy

    With renewed focus on poverty in the US, Russell co-founded the Center for Employment Training, a non-profit job training program. Their first office was a small outbuilding behind Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in San Jose, CA, which he shared with Cesar Chavez and the nascent United Farm Workers movement. The bond and close working relationship between the two organizations continues to this day. The Center for Employment training model was to accept all applicants, have them enter the training pipeline at whatever stage matched their level, and have them remain in the program until they were placed in a permanent job with a working-class, living wage. Independent research proved this to be the most effective job training model in the US. The San Jose Center for Employment training was replicated across the country and directly lifted over 200,000 families out of poverty and into the working and middle class. Its model became standard best practice for job training around the world.

    After retiring from the Center for Employment Training, Russell, with his wife Ellie, his son Bill’s family and his nephew Joe Tershay, started the Montessori Community School in Scotts Valley.

    Russell passed away at the home he shared with his wife Ellie (99 YO) and his son Bill & family. He was surrounded by family and friends. He was the oldest surviving World War II veteran in Santa Cruz County.

    He is survived by his wife Ellie, son Bernie, his wife Erika Zavaleta and children Raven, Finn, Russell & Navia Terhy; and son Bill and his wife Regina Tershy their children and grandchild.

    Rosary Friday 15 July, 7pm, son Bill’s home- call 831.246.3463 for address & directions

    Funeral Mass 16 July, open casket 930-1030am, mass 1030am, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 435 Monterey Ave, Capitola, CA 95010

    Followed by memorial celebration Bill’s home- call 831.246.3463 for address & directions

    Burial 18 July, 11am, Central Coast Vets Cemetery, 2900 Parker Flats Cut Off Rd, Seaside, CA 93955

    SOURCE

    Russell Joseph Tershy (1921-2022) (Legacy)

    50th Anniversary (Center for Employment Training)