In late October, nearly 30 Roundtable members along with 10 of their social ministry associates  joined the Roundtable for a webinar on Catholic Social Teaching and the Constitution – the Roundtable’s biggest virtual conference ever! The popularity of the webinar speaks to Roundtable members’ interest  in educating about Catholic social teaching in a way that is relevant to and goes beyond current political rhetoric, highlighting a just vision for our nation, oriented to the common good.

Jude Huntz of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph led the webinar. He opened by mentioning how the current Congress made a point at the beginning of the session to recite the Constitution. Taking ideas  from Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love’s article The Constitution, By Heart, participants discussed the notion of a “more perfect union” and how it relates to the Catholic notion of the common good. The idea of a more perfect union demonstrates the need for continued development both in the country’s Constitution as well as Catholic social teaching, responding to the challenges of the day.

Jude talked about Gaudium et Spes and the notion of communion within the church and its implications for communion in society. Participants examined the lack of communion in society today, and expressed challenges related to society’s polarization and an inability for “reasonable people of goodwill to disagree respectfully.”

During the webinar, participants also looked at the places where Catholic Social Teaching goes beyond the protections of the Constitution, calling for universal access to health care and education, for example, as well as the abolition of the death penalty. Roundtable members shared the successes and challenges they face in educating around Catholic social teaching, and specifically the death penalty. Members cited their work in collaboration with Offices for Respect Life, Family Life, African American Catholics, and State Catholic Conferences in educating about CST and doing advocacy for death penalty abolition. Members shared the need for doing basic catechesis around Jesus’ call to love our enemies, as well as for effectively sharing facts on the costs of death penalty and the number of people sentenced to death whose guilt is in question. Generally, members felt there has been an increase in understanding of Church teaching on the death penalty in recent years.

The culture of American individualism was also brought up as a challenge, both to the idea of a perfect union and the communion to which our faith calls.  This individualism leads to distinct crises like the epidemic of homelessness, for example, and a deterioration of society’s social fabric. Transformation, however, is possible. Two members shared experiences of public officials undergoing conversion and as a result making politically difficult choices in line with Catholic teaching, after being in relationships with Catholic leaders and receiving letters from Catholic parishioners.

We live in a tension, Jude reminded participants, of knowing that the Reign of God is breaking in, both now and not yet fully. While Catholics are not to be assimilated into this culture, we are called to engage with it. Roundtable members are called to provide tools to those in our dioceses so that they are able to form their own consciences. These well formed consciences, Roundtable members shared, will allow Catholics to grapple with the challenges in the world now as we know it, while working to create a world more in line with the vision of the Reign of God.

There was a high level of engagement during the webinar, which highlights how important these issues are to the work of Roundtable members. The conversation is just beginning; please join us on the Virtual Roundtable as we continue to explore ways to educate about the Church’s social teaching while being in dialogue with our society.

If you’re a Roundtable member, you can access a recording of webinar and Jude’s slides on the Virtual Roundtable.

Don’t miss an important opportunity to honor Jan Benton & the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, recipient of the 2012 Roundtable Harry A. Fagan Award, as well as Msgr. Marvin Mottet, of the Diocese of Davenport, recipient of the 2012 Roundtable Servant of Justice Award.

Please see the information below and share it with anyone who you believe might like to honor our 2012 awardees.

On February 11, 2012 The Roundtable will honor Ms. Benton and Msgr. Mottet in Washington, D.C. with our highest awards, The Harry A. Fagan Award (for national‐ or international‐level leaders) and the Servant of Justice Award (for current or former Roundtable members). We will honor them and their exemplary service with spoken tributes during the award banquet, but you may also honor them with an advertisement in the program for the evening.

Each page of the program is 8.5 x 11 inches (portrait orientation, so please design ads accordingly). Ads should use 1/4 inch margins and be emailed to coordinator@catholicroundtable.org. The best format to send the ad in is a high-resolution JPEG image file. Please do not send an Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word document unless you don’t mind it being scanned.
Please send a file created in black & white only. File conversion by printer to grayscale may result in an unfavorable change to the image.
If you use special fonts not installed in Windows XP, send them along too (if I don’t have them, a substitute font will automatically be used by the page layout program).

The prices are as follows:
¼ page: $110 (4” x 5.5”)
½ page: $190 (8” x 5.5”)
Full page: $325 (10.5” x 8”)
Inside Cover: $800 (10.5” x 8”)
Back Cover: $1,100 (10.5” x 8”)

Please make checks out to “Catholic Charities Diocese of Houma‐Thibodaux” and send them to:
The Roundtable
1225 Otis Street NE
Washington, DC 20017

The deadline to submit an advertisement is January 10, 2012.

Thank you for helping us to acknowledge the great contribution our Fagan and Servant of Justice Award winners have made to the social justice mission of the Church.

We hope that you’ll be able to join us for the 2012 Roundtable Symposium on February 11-12, The Constitution & Catholic Social Teaching: A Healthy Tension (Thanks be to God!).

Once again, the Roundtable is pleased to offer a limited number of scholarships to Roundtable members to cover the cost of tuition to the Symposium. Please apply today to join us!

Scholarships will be distributed on a rolling basis. Please email coordinator@catholicroundtable.org with a brief statement on why you are interested in attending the Symposium and how you hope to apply the skills gained at the Symposium to your work when you return home. Final deadline for scholarships is January 6.

The Symposium will feature Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love,professor of International Relations at the Catholic University of America, Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, Secretary for Health and Social Services for the Archdiocese of Boston, and Dr. Daniel Finn, professor of Moral Theology and Economics at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.

At the Fagan & Servant of Justice Awards Banquet, we will honor the work of the Jan Benton, Executive Director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, and Msgr. Marvin Mottet of the Diocese of Davenport.

Please see the informational flyer and share it with your offices and diocesan partners. You can also get more information at http://catholicroundtable.org/events/symposium/ and http://www.catholicroundtable.org/events/awards/.

_________________________________________________________

Verbage for Local Fundraising for Conference Travel

We recognize how crucial it is to gather together in person with key academics, leaders in social action, and your colleagues around the country.  We know, too, that travel budgets have decreased in many offices in recent years, so attendance to the Symposium & Catholic Social Ministry Gathering may require additional creativity.
We continue to make it a priority to offer financial assistance so that we can gather together in person as a community.

We hope you’ll also be able to solicit funds locally to enhance your ability to receive in-person training and development. One colleague shared that she makes funding requests from local parishes & organizations using the following verbage, which she shares as a template for your own funding requests:

Rationale: We also find that the necessary additional training and orientation in Catholic Social Teaching for our staff and volunteer leaders is being severely hampered by cuts in budgets that have prevented attendance at the national Catholic Social Ministry, Social Action Summer Institute, and Catholic Charities USA conferences.

Cost of training for __ people at 2 national conferences: $___ (Breakdown available if necessary. We have $__ available.)

Have you had success in raising funds for training opportunities in your office? Please share your own tips with the Roundtable!

Lent 4.5 is a turnkey 7-week faith-formation program of conversion that inspires and informs Christian communities on how to use the traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving to protect God’s creation, embrace Gospel justice, and nurture spiritual fulfillment. It offers practical opportunities for people of faith to apply the values of Gospel simplicity to their everyday lives.
Why 4.5?
The title and basic content come from the premise that if the earth were to be divided equally among its inhabitants, each person’s fair share would be 4.5 acres. From that, we would have to grow our food, find water, build shelter, and produce everything needed for living. Presently, Americans consume resources at a rate of 22.3 acres, Canadians 14.2 acres, Iraqis, 3.3 acres, and Tanzanians, only 2.6 acres. Lent 4.5 tries to nudge people a bit closer to a sustainable 4.5 acres.
The Components
The program presents this “food for thought” through a series of handouts or bulletin inserts distributed over 7 weeks, during the Lenten season. (For 2012, the first handout is scheduled to be given out on February 12th, so people will be encouraged to order by December 1st.)
Handouts are in English & Spanish, and there is a Protestant series as well.
The handouts may be used alone, or the church may develop a more elaborate program, including large-group events (we suggest particular films and types of speakers), use of our website, and small discussion and faith-sharing groups.
The small groups use an additional one of our products, the book Christian Simplicity, A Gospel Value. This discussion course book provides articles, discussion questions and prayer services based on the weekly themes. While it follows the exact same seven themes, the book does not use the language of Lent, so it may be used any time of the year.
Lent 4.5 also offers a School Resource Book for Catholic elementary schools and Parish Schools of Religion and a Sunday School program for Christian churches.
Finally, we provide large churches that order by December 1st with a toolkit for administering the program—a well thought-out and comprehensive coordinator’s manual, posters for publicizing the program, and a handbook (which we do not produce) for living sustainably.
The Themes
The seven weekly themes of the program and handouts are as follows:
• Christian Simplicity
• Food
• Consumption
• Water
• Energy
• Transportation
• Gratitude and Generosity

Additional information may be obtained by emailing Mary Mattingly at mary@earthandspiritcenter.org, calling (502)452-2749, or visiting http://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/lent45/. See brochure & sample materials below:

Lent 4 5 – Promotional Brochure Order Form – 2012

Lent 4 5 – Intro – Catholic

Lent 4 5 – Insert 3rd Week Lent

Dear Roundtable,

Last month, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 constituted more than 15% of the population, the largest number of Americans in poverty in at least 52 years. Internationally, too, people in poverty face even greater challenges amidst climate-related disasters like the Horn of Africa’s current drought and resulting famine, yet there may be deadly cuts in the  federal budget to poverty-focused development assistance.

Bishop Blaire, Chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development reminded us all in the recent 2011 Labor Day Statement, “These are not just economic problems, but also human tragedies, moral challenges, and tests of our faith.” As diocesan social action directors, Roundtable members are in a unique position to educate about these moral challenges and move hearts toward the action of building up a society more reflective of the Kingdom of God.

The challenges in dioceses across the country take form not only in the need for new ways of educating around Catholic values in teachings, but also in the real, everyday needs of so many sisters and brothers, in our own dioceses and around the world. Catholic Charities members are not surprised by the recent Census Bureau announcement, and have been working for years on a broad approach to poverty reduction – the recent announcement only makes the need for reform more urgent. CCUSA’s National Opportunity and Community Renewal Act was recently reintroduced in the Senate and they also hosted the first annual National Poverty Summit in Ft. Worth last month; read more about how CCUSA is responding to economic challenges on a structural level to reduce poverty.

And internationally as well as in the U.S., signs of hope can be found in good formation work in Catholic social teaching– the Roundtable Report offers a story featuring graduates from Trinidad, West Indies in the University of Dayton’s Certificate in Social Justice Program. Their cap-and-gown graduation included attendance by the Archbishop and Bishop-elect, and their post-graduation follow-up plan shepherded by the local diocesan social action director can serve as a model for dioceses here in the U.S.

In other good news, we had a great 25^th Annual Social Action Summer Institute this July – it was wonderful to see many of you gathered there to discuss Catholic social teaching on the dignity of work & how to support workers today. In this Roundtable Report, you’ll find a number of follow-up pieces from the gathering, including videos of presentations by Bishop Zavala, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, and Fr. Williams.
There is also a reflection from a first-time SASI attendee, as well as highlights from participants, and photos from the event.

Following SASI, the Roundtable board met in-person for part two of a two-part summer meeting. The meeting focused on the future of diocesan social action and how to strengthen the Roundtable as a result of changing diocesan realities. In addition to planning for the upcoming year’s activities, the board brainstormed about how to make the Virtual Roundtable an even more effective information sharing tool, as well as a place for pastoral support among Roundtable members.

While brainstorming & planning for the upcoming year, the board also agreed to engage in a strategic planning process within a year to more intentionally plan for the future and respond even more effectively to the needs of diocesan social action directors. As the board embarks on this process in the coming year, we welcome your feedback – how can the Roundtable serve you better? What are the greatest needs and challenges in your work? How can our national membership organization serve you more effectively?

As a result of board planning, the Communications Committee has also developed a webinar series to enhance the Education and Formation opportunities provided by the Roundtable. There are a number of webinars forthcoming on the last Thursday of selected months on the topics consistently of most interest to Roundtable members. We hope you’ll mark your calendar today!

The most meaningful times for education & formation are often the times we can come together face-to-face. Our next opportunity to gather as an organization will be February 11-12, 2012 for the 27^th Annual Roundtable Symposium, titled “The Constitution & Catholic Social Teaching: A Healthy Tension (Thanks be to God!).” The Symposium will feature Catholic University of America political science professor Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, along with a panel of academics and practitioners to discuss the implications of these ideas for our diocesan work.

And while you have your calendar open, save the dates for the 2012 Social Action Summer Institute, which will take place July 29-Aug 1, 2012 at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. We are delighted that JustFaith Ministries will be a major planning partner for the event.

As always, the Roundtable Roundup offers news of social action office transitions, the good work that you are doing, and upcoming initiatives. Check it out!

In order to continue all of the Roundtable’s work, we depend on your support. Many of you have opted to wait until the start of a new fiscal year to pay your 2011 membership dues. If the new fiscal year has begun, please don’t hesitate – mail in your membership form and dues payment today!

I look forward to working with you this fall in order to continue to strengthen the Roundtable and ensure that our community continues to support your work even more effectively.

Grace & Peace,

Jenn Svetlik
Roundtable Coordinator

By Ruth Liljenquist, Managing Editor, Charities USA magazine

In September, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States. The report shows that 46.2 million Americans are now living at or below the federal poverty level, which for a family of four is set at $22,350 or less in annual income. The recession and the still weak U.S. economy have driven the poverty rate up from 12.7 percent in 2007 to 15.1 percent in 2010. That’s an increase of 8.9 million people in poverty over the last four years.

Many of these people have sought assistance from Catholic Charities agencies across the country, which together served nearly a fourth of all Americans in poverty in 2010. Many are people who have never asked for assistance before but because of job losses, foreclosures, and other factors find themselves unable to make ends meet. This reality is reflected in the census numbers on poverty.

“The U.S. Census Bureau’s report on poverty in America is reflective of the devastating reality in which Catholic Charities USA operates every day,” Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, commented. “With 170 agencies throughout the country, our network of service providers served over 10 million people in 2010, an increase of 12.1 percent over 2009. The fact that the U.S. Census Bureau found that the national poverty rate has climbed to 15.1 percent comes as no surprise to us.”

The high unemployment rate in the United States is driving up the number of people in poverty; the poverty rate is higher now than it has been in 52 years. And until unemployment comes down, which looks afar off at this point, the poverty numbers will remain high.

But even before the recent spike in the poverty rate, millions of Americans were living in poverty, a reality that Catholic Charities USA has been working to address. In 2007, CCUSA launched the Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America, with the goal of cutting poverty in half by 2020. Since then, CCUSA has created awareness about poverty and gathered input from Catholic Charities agencies, other nonprofit organizations serving the poor, national advocacy organizations, government agencies, foundations, and businesses to discover the most effective strategies for reducing poverty. In this process, CCUSA has developed a broad approach to poverty reduction that entails reforming our nation’s safety net service delivery system to help people in poverty move toward sustainable independence, which over time can strengthen our economy and our nation. With the spike in the national poverty rate, the urgency to enact reforms is even greater.

“[The Census Bureau] report is further evidence that the United States of America needs comprehensive reform of the nation’s service delivery system. This reform should be focused on innovative solutions to the individual needs of the now 46.2 millions of Americans living in poverty,” said Fr. Snyder. “To truly respond to these staggering numbers we need a system that is market driven, results oriented, and locally controlled, enabling the country to permanently make a difference in the lives of those living in poverty, and establishing accountability for the investment of taxpayer dollars.”

This poverty reduction approach is being advanced through the National Opportunity and Community Renewal Act, a bill developed by CCUSA and recently re-introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Robert Casey (D-PA). The act would authorize a nationwide five-year pilot project to test the best community strategies to reduce poverty.

“The principles represented in this legislation will be vital to any successful reform of our nation’s service delivery system,” said CCUSA’s Candy S. Hill, senior vice president for social policy and government affairs. “For far too long our nation has remained complacent as regards to the safety net, and as a result, tens of millions of Americans continue to suffer in poverty.”

Central components of NOCRA include implementing individual opportunity plans for those living in poverty, enabling a locally controlled approach to service delivery, incentivizing innovating funding streams, and utilizing waivers to ensure limited resources are focused on precise areas of need.

Catholic Charities USA has also brought together a coalition of national partners to raise up the issue of poverty before our nation’s public and lawmakers. In September, Catholic Charities USA hosted the first annual National Poverty Summit in Fort Worth, TX, which brought together ten national organizations—CCUSA, American Human Development Project, Save the Children, Bread for the World, Corporation for Enterprise Development, Coalition on Human Needs, Feeding America, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul—in a forum to bring attention to the plight of Americans in poverty and to discuss strategies and develop a common advocacy strategy.

Catholic Charities USA is hopeful that the U.S. Census Bureau’s report as well as the National Opportunity and Community Renewal Act and the National Poverty Summit will draw the attention of American policymakers to the moral obligation we have as a country to address this growing crisis.

“What we must remember as we look at these statistics is that every number represents a face,” said Fr. Snyder. “With one out of every six Americans now living in poverty, we must recognize that it may be your neighbor, the person shopping beside you at the grocery store, or your child’s friend from school.”

In 2006, the Roundtable partnered with the University of Dayton’s Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation (VLCFF) to develop a Certificate Program in Social Justice. Five years after the program began, it has expanded and become international, allowing a cohort of pastoral social justice leaders to emerge in the Caribbean. In September, a joint initiative of the University of Dayton and Archdiocese of Port of Spain, Trinidad (West Indies) graduated its first students to complete the VLCFF Certificate in Social Justice, and has hopes the certificate program will continue to grow in the region.

“Many Catholics are still unaware of the social teachings of our Church,” said Leela Ramdeen, chair of the Catholic Commission for Social Justice (CCSJ) in Trinidad. “It is critical the faithful have access to appropriate, well-planned training such as the social justice online course through the VLCFF if they are to use the see-judge-act methodology effectively.”

Sr. Angela Ann with graduating students with a Certificate in Social Justice – Trinidad, West Indies. Back row (left red) Bishop Elect Jason Gordon (Barbados/St. Vincent), Leela Ramdeen (Director of Social Justice for the Archdiocese), Archbishop Edward Gilbert (Port of Spain), Archbishop – Elect Joseph Harris (Port of Spain), Dr. Vena Jules (CREDI Present) and Terry Farrell (Chairperson CREDI Board of Governors)

“The University of Dayton’s collaboration supporting the social justice ministry with the Archdiocese of Port of Spain is an example of the possibilities a quality online program offers dioceses to enhance diocesan ministry formation. We have no doubt that with the combined outstanding leadership of Leela Ramdeen these graduates will be animating gospel social justice transformation within their parishes and country,” said Sister Angela Ann Zukowski, M.H.S.H., VLCFF director.

The graduation allowed Social Justice Certificate students, along with graduates in the MA in Catholic Educational Leadership program, to wear cap and gown and march in procession and receive their certificates with the Archbishop-elect. “It was a fabulous graduation,” Sr. Zukowski said.

The graduation coincides with the 40^th anniversary of the Synod of Bishops 1971 document Justice in the World, which says, “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.”

Msgr. Jason Gordon, bishop-elect of Bridgetown, Barbados, encouraged the VLCFF program to be implemented into the Archdiocese of Port of Spain while he was Archdiocesan Vicar for Administration. “It is said the Church’s teaching on social justice is the Church’s best kept secret,” he said. “But for a Church to be mature, alive and faithful to Christ, its members have to know and live the Catholic justice tradition. The VLCFF Certificate in Social Justice is an important step for those receiving it and [for] the Church.”

Certificate students are enthused with their certificate accomplishment: “This course was tough but so rewarding! The reality of being ‘my brother’s keeper’ was solidified when I engaged these online courses. We were scripturally challenged,” said Anne Marie Richardson.

Already there is an immediate Archdiocesan social action plan in place for the students to apply their new learning experiences. They will be working with CCSJ to prepare a series of five-minute videos on the social teaching of the Church – to be aired on Trinity Communications Network (Caribbean) on a regular basis. These videos will focus on issues relating to the eight modules covered in the course: Conscience, Introduction to Christian Morality, Faith and Human Development, Poverty in the
Caribbean and Around the World, Introduction to Practical Morality, Scripture and Justice, Advanced Catholic Social Teaching, Parish and Social Action.

“What makes this program successful is that the diocesan social action director really encourages and works the cohort through. They also meet apart from the e-courses to design a plan of action for implementing the ideas into their cultural context. This is a great model for the USA!” Sr. Zukowski shared.

Although the program is now independent of the Roundtable, the Roundtable continues to publicize the opportunity and can help provide certificate students with internship opportunities in their dioceses.

The Roundtable asks: How are you celebrating this kind of faith formation in your own diocese? We would love to hear your stories!

For more information on the VLCFF Certificate in Social Justice, visit http://vlc.udayton.edu, or contact Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski.

Archdiocese of Hartford members attend Faith & Hospitality Trip in Mexico

Eight members from the Archdiocese of Hartford participated in the “Ten Days of Faith & Hospitality Experience” in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Supported by the love and guidance of the Mexican Benedictine Sisters of the Guadalupe Center, their journey brought them a greater understanding of the history of the Mexican people and of the current religious, social, and economic realities.

The trip was offered through Office for Catholic Social Justice Ministry under the leadership of Mary O’Brien, our Global Solidarity Coordinator, and proved an effective means to enhance our Global Solidarity Team.  For additional information contact Mary at mobrien@catholicsocialjustice.org or visit http://www.westonpriory.org/mexico/index.html

- Submitted by Lynn Campbell, Parish Social Ministry/Justice Education Coordinator, Office for Catholic Social Justice Ministry, Archdiocese of Hartford, www.catholicsocialjustice.org

Dioceses of Arizona and Mexico Gather for Bi-National Conference

September 19 -21 found Dioceses without Borders: Hermosillo, Tucson, Phoenix, along with Manos Unidas: Mexicali, Tucson leadership together for a gathering – “Sharing Life and Dignity in Christ our Peace.” Staff from Catholic Relief Services Southwest Region, the National Catholic Migrant Farmworker Network, as well as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development were in attendance. CRS SW region was instrumental in support of this bi-national gathering and enlisted Dr. William Headley, Dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies to present addresses on Mission Today and Building a New Reality in Christ our Peace.  Border bi-national ministries explored the border area realities and pastoral responses to the common challenges members of these dioceses face.  Archbishop Macias of the Archdiocese of Hermosillo presented on Sharing Life and Dignity in Christ our Peace, a Pastoral Statement from the Bishops of Mexico with other local bishops, including Bishop Kicanas of Tucson, responding to the statement. United in prayer and liturgy, border ministry project leaders dedicated time to dialogue and planning toward a new reality for the Church at the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Persons wishing to receive the Mexican Bishops’ document on peace can email me at jwelter@diocesetucson.org. They can also become aware of a major bi-national effort of the Diocese of Tucson and The Archdiocese of Hermosillo and other partners by visiting kinoborderinitiative.org

- Submitted by Joanne Welter, Office of Human Life and Dignity, Diocese of Tucson

Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Louisville Promotes Care for Creation

St. Francis of Assisi is a powerful model and unifier in work to better care for creation and protect persons who are poor.

Catholic Charities of Louisville is in its 3^rd year of collaborating with the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change and its promotion of the Pledge of St Francis (Pray, Learn, Assess, Act, Advocate).  Catholic Charities uses a 1-page table survey (developed from initial parish responses) to annually track the work of 188 Archdiocesan entities (parishes, schools, healthcare, religious communities).  Currently a “record” is on hand for 58.5% of them.  A wide variety of efforts are underway, but always there is room for more working on each type.  Archbishop Joseph Kurtz has personally committed to energy conservation via the thermostat and promoted the Pledge of St. Francis in his September 8 column in The Record.

- Submitted by Sr. Mary Schmuck, RSM, Catholic Charities of Louisville

Roundtable Welcomes New Diocesan Directors in Atlanta, Metuchen & New Partners & Friends

Ernie Revoir recently joined the Diocese of Metuchen as Director of the Office for Social Justice at Catholic Charities. He directs Parish Social Ministry/Volunteer Services, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities Solidarity Team, Catholic Relief Services, Immigration Services, Unity Square Community Development, Health Services for the poor, and the implementation of the Social Justice Synod Norms of the Diocese of Metuchen.  His background is in health services, and he recently had served as a volunteer leader for the diocesan Solidarity Team for eight years. You can reach Ernie at 732-745-9800 or erevoir@ccdom.org.

Kat Doyle is now the diocesan social justice director in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Their office uses Catholic social teaching to promote transformation of individuals, parishes, and the larger community with education and action.  Before taking the position, Kat worked as director of parish life and outreach and youth minister at St. Brendan the Navigator Church.

Br. Steve Herro, O. Praem has become the new Manager of Mission and Ministry at Catholic Charities USA.  Steve helps plan and develop creative resources on Catholic Identity, Mission, CCUSA Code of Ethics and liturgy. He will also serve as a writer, resource developer and coordinator for our PSM Professional Interest Section. Steve is a member of the Norbertine Community at St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere, Wisconsin. He served as Social Concerns Director for the Diocese of Green Bay; Justice and Peace Minister at St. Norbert Abbey; Assistant Director of Foundation and Government Relations at St. Norbert; and Director of Educational Technology at Catholic Theological Union. He has an M.S. in Educational Administration from Minnesota State University and an M.A.  in Library and Information Service (MALIS) from the University of Wisconsin and studied theology at Catholic Theological Union (Chicago).

Kerry Danner-McDonald has been hired as the new Director of the Education for Justice Project at the Center of Concern. She has nearly twenty years of experience in organizing and educating on faith-based justice issues. She holds an M.A. in Systematic and Moral Theology from Washington Theological Union and a Ph.D. in Ethics and Social Theory from the Graduate Theological Union. Her research has focused on quality of life issues, economic justice, feminist theology, and, most recently, cognitive aspects of how the faithful bring biblically-based virtues of compassion and justice to bear on everyday life. In addition to directing the Education for Justice Program, Kerry teaches at Georgetown University and Marymount University.

Join in God’s Welcoming Table & Comprehensive Immigration Reform – Eucharist without Borders Conference

April 11-13, 2012

Esplendor Resort at Rio Rico, Arizona (south of Tucson) – Celebration’s 4th Annual Conference on Effective Liturgy

Not since the struggle over civil rights in this country have our nation’s faith communities been so challenged to move a major social issue beyond paralysis and fear toward a just and humane resolution. Comprehensive immigration reform is about ending a nightmare for millions of undocumented people now living in the shadows of our economy and society.

The Catholic church, because of its deep ties to immigrant peoples, is being called to join with other religious and humanitarian groups in promoting policy reform as morally right, socially urgent and economically good for all. The title of this conference highlights the truth that the Christian church cannot genuinely celebrate Eucharist and ignore the plight of undocumented immigrants. For Catholics, wherever Mass is celebrated, there can be no strangers, no borders and no closed doors.

The conference program is directed to pastors, preachers, liturgical ministers and social activists who seek to make evident that what happens in worship is directly linked to what happens on our nation’s borders, in our communities and in our own hearts. The conference will include opportunities to go to the border areas near Tucson to pray and to witness firsthand the many ministries that now serve migrants.

Featuring the following sessions:

Global Migration and the Option for the Poor: Social Reconciliation and the Eucharist - William O’Neill, S.J.
Where Have We Been? Historical perspectives, the church and immigration – John Fife

And You Welcomed Me: Hospitality, Eucharist and Immigration Reform – Jill Marie Gerschutz

The Rise of the Hispanic Population and the Future of the U.S. Church: Demographics driving the politics of the immigration debate – John L. Allen Jr.

Where Do We Go From Here? Putting the message of worship into practice – Elena Segura

Life on the Border: A Faith Perspective – Reflections by a Catholic and Methodist bishop on their efforts ecumenically to bring the Gospel to the border reality featuering Bishop Gerald Kicanas & Bishop Minerva Carcaño