Catholic Church: December 2004 Archives

Joyeux Noël

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Il est né, le divin enfant. . .
chantons tous son evenement.

May Jesus, as infant Son of God, dwell with you in this season and throughout the year.

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My Parish Moves Forward

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And then get points for having lots of heart. They are just in the process of moving first Friday adoration to all Fridays. This is the first step of a campaign to institute perpetual adoration. I don't care how much hand-holding goes on in the Church, when their heart is set on making the Eucharist the center of parish life, they are going the right direction.

Wanting to encourage this trend, I immediately signed up for some Friday hours. You could choose one or more Fridays of the month. Knowing that I can't do anything halfway--I signed up for all Fridays at the last hour available. This was before I looked at the brochures.

Well it turns out that the Friday hour I chose will have Rosary in English and Spanish followed by Benediction. In other words, virtually no chance of any quiet at all, with the additional penance of public Rosary.

Well, for a change the Holy Spirit led, and I listened. Thus, I am absolutely certain this is what is meant for me and I am deeply grateful for being able to participate.

Another thing my Parish is doing is bringing to our attention "Equal Exchange" or "Fair Trade" coffee and cocoa. Yes, this is exactly in line with the mushy-headed thinking of people who hold hands during the "Our Father." And I love it.

It means ultimately that we pay a bit more for coffee that might not be so good as some of the more exotic brands and roasts, and as a result the people growing the coffee get what amounts to a living wage in their part of the world. This is not to say that they make princely sums, but that they make a good deal more than the average person in the same place in the world.

This is one of those way to implement economic justice that just doesn't hurt all that much. (But then I (1) don't drink coffee at all; and (2) I'm not a conoisseur of coffee and cocoa. ) Linda was enthusiatic about supporting this cause.

I sincerely hope that my parish continues efforts in these directions. Implementing true social and economic justice without trying to level the playing field (hardly "just" in any sense of the word) is part of the Catholic Christian message. If we can help simply by buying coffee, what a wonderful privilege!

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So many groups have names that are so much alike, that I am left to wonder. I stumbled across this site, thanks to an e-mail I received and found some interesting information on it. I will explore further, but I welcome any input. Economic and Social justice are incredibly important to me, but given the experience of the Methodist Church, a large part of which became derailed with the Social Gospel movement of the 50s and 60s, I am wary. The two documents on the site that I saw do bear imprimaturs, but if anyone has anything to share about the group, I would love to hear it.

However, the following passage does give me a clue:

Let us start with a simple thesis. Political democracy cannot preserve the institutions of a free society unless everyone can participate on an equal basis. An economically free and classless society - another way of describing economic democracy - is therefore both a goal and a means for supporting political democracy.

Is an "economic democracy" an necessary concomittant of a political democracy? I don't think so. And while I do not necessarily reject the validity of an economic democracy, I find this kind of argument vaguely manipulative. But then I'm leaping to conclusions. And, I really wanted to get TSO's goat this morning. Now I'll be classed with the Marxists of the world (get a clue people--it hasn't worked on a large scale ANYWHERE where the government wasn't absolutely horrendously oppressive and rife with corruption). But, so be it. I like the idea of economic democracy to a greater or lesser extent. Particularly when I hear about the spectacular contributions so-and-so made to the economy, when those contributions were the results of the workers actually producing the product, not necessarily the CEO watching the bottom line. But now I know I'm entering really dicey territory both because (1) I don't really know what I'm talking about except anecdotally; and (2) this isn't a passion (see TSO's post of yesterday or this morning about that--wonderful work.)

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About this Archive

This page is a archive of entries in the Catholic Church category from December 2004.

Catholic Church: November 2004 is the previous archive.

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