Catholic Social Teaching - Class 9

Tonight’s instructor was the Bishop from our diocese who began by telling us a little bit about himself. When he was ordained, and in fact for most of the 60s and 70s, California was considered to be a “mission” territory. Our Bishop was ordained between the opening and closing of Vatican II and so he is very committed to the council. He described the Second Vatican Council as “A very important moment for the Church”, and also called it “the largest meeting in the history of the world”.

Previous to Vatican II the church was envisioned to be like a pyramid, with the clergy at the top, the religious in the middle, and the lay people at the bottom. According to him there was very little interaction between the levels. After Vatican II the church was envisioned to be like a circle, divided into sections like a pizza. The clergy, religious, and laity are the sections but today there is constant interaction between those sections. We understand that all are equal in the sight of God.

 

It’s important to understand that we are all called, even though each of us has a different function. Life is a series of invitations, such as birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage, even death, and we all have the same mission. We are a work of God who has painted the face of Jesus on each one of us. The people we meet should know who we are even before we’ve had a chance to speak to them. The mission of the Church, our mission, is to be Christ to the world. The Second Vatican Council re-discovered the value of the laity, recognizing that we are all in the process of becoming and for us, like Vatican II where progress has been made, progress still needs to be made.

 

In 1999, soon after the Diocese of San Jose was created, our new Bishop asked the people “How are we doing”. The answer included various facts, such as the diocese was 1 of 4 in the United States that consisted of only 1 county, and that today it includes 53 parishes made up of 620K – 650K registered parishioners plus about another 30K unregistered parishioners. Of that total, about 33% are Latino, 31% are Asian, and 46% are others (which includes me). Today the largest group of worshipers in the diocese is Hispanic.

 

Like all businesses the Church has a business plan which defines a product, “To make known to all people the saving power of Jesus”. Unlike the business plan however, our Pastoral Plan is not bound as a book, but is instead contained in a loose leaf binder. Our Bishop wanted this to be a living document that could be constantly evaluated and updated. The original plan took three years to create, and bits and pieces of it have been updated along the way. Obviously, today’s needs are different than they were ten years ago, and it is due for a complete re-evaluation.

 

Creating the plan was a very complicated process, involving design teams, vision and mission statements, and the gathering and organizing of data. From this 400 priorities were identified which was way too many, so the Bishop organized something called Dot Sunday. On Dot Sunday large sheets of paper were hung up at all Masses that listed all 400 priorities, and everyone was given four colored dots to stick next to the four priorities they felt were the most important. This resulted in four primary concerns and four organizational issues, which today has grown to six concerns; Liturgy, Education, Youth, Young-Adults, Lay-Leadership, and Social-Justice.

 

Our Bishops crest (evidently all Bishops have a crest) includes a Scottish cross, a symbol of Mary the Mother of Jesus, a symbol of Saint Paul, and at the bottom is the motto “Together in Christ”, because we’re all in this together. It was very important to have input from others, which is why at the very beginning our Bishop refused to voice his personal concerns and issues for the new Diocese. He didn’t want to influence the Pastoral Plan by describing his own personal mission. He did ask some basic questions: Who are we: How do we see ourselves: How do others see us: Where do we want to be: How do we get there. He also provided a short list of guiding principles. The goal was to build a church where everyone feels welcome, and a church that is in-tune with the world around us. Sadly, he doesn’t feel that it has been accomplished. It’s not true yet because so many feel unwanted.

 

Jesus taught us that love tops everything, so kindness, compassion and love should be our guiding principles: “Harshness is the ‘vice of barbarians”. Do we feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and welcome the stranger? Our mission is to create a church where everyone is in the service of others, a church that is joyful, a church that is not afraid to dream, and most importantly, a church that is witnessing the hope of Jesus Christ. The mother of our Pastoral Plan was the Second Vatican Council which asks each of us to take up our rightful place in the Church.