Towards more Authentic Community

The St Paul Social Justice committee met today and discussed the need to develop more authentic community by finding a way to dialog on controversial topics like immigration. The group agreed to plan a "Building Authentic Community" session for the March 2nd Adult Education forum at St Pauls Church, Silverton. The plan is to assemble a small panel to consider if, and how, we can talk about controversial topics, like immigration AND build a stronger, less polarized and more authentic community.

We also agreed that Michelle Senecal and Bernadette Mele would represent the Social Justice group at the upcoming Silverton Resource meeting next Tuesday.

Mike Grady will convene the next Social Justice Meeting in February (possibly a Thursday evening Whine Bar on Feb 21st.)

Next Social Justice Meeting

Our next St Paul Social Justice meeting is Saturday, January 26th at 9 am at "Not your Mama's Coffee" at 201 E. Main St in Silverton (2nd floor of "Wolf" building, corner Main and Water.) Everyone welcome. We will be talking about plans for 2008, “Catholic Dialog”, immigration and adult education opportunities..among other things.

Social Justice Meeting

Our next St Paul Social Justice meeting is this Saturday, October 27th at 9 am at "Not your Mama's Coffee" at 201 E. Main St in Silverton (2nd floor of "Wolf" building, corner Main and Water.) Everyone welcome. We will be talking about “Catholic Dialog”, immigration and adult education opportunities..among other things.

September Meeting

We will be meeting this Month at the newly completed home of Frank and Bernadette Mele at 9am on September 29th. Everyone is welcome. Please email them to RSVP and for directions at: frankmele@yahoo.com

One agenda item will be the scheduling of Social-Justice-related Adult Education. So far Dr Mike Grady has agreed to talk about Catholic Social teaching and health care on teh first Sunday in october. Ideas for following months include: The concepts of the "Seamless Garment" and Restorative Justice. Cat Willett Office of the Justice and Peace Office has also offered her assistance in finding speakers.

Social Justice 3-5 year vision

Since the Parish is working on its 3-5 year pastoral plan we discussed our vision at last Saturday's Social Justice Committee meeting. While there are many worthy projects and needs we agreed to focus our limited resources in order to be effective. We will continue to be responsive to local concerns that are brought to us by the Diocese, the Silverton community, parishioneers and social justice committee members but will put a priority on those needs and issues which have a champion on the committee.

At our meeting we also agreed to focus Direct Service, Education and Advocacy on the issues of Immigration Reform, the War in Iraq and Health Care.

In addition to this focus, our goal is a sustainable committee (i.e. committee members are renewed by their involvement rather than having all their life forces sucked dry trying to respond to every possible social concern.)

We would also like to see opportunities for several levels of involvement in social justice issues.
We hope to use a variety of means to engage parishioneers and the community on social concerns. At one level we would like to build a simple e-mail list to provide notices of direct service and advocacy opportunities. We would also like to educate using creative and engaging forums (e.g., a movie night.) We continue to meet in a public place (9am 4th Saturday at Not your Mama's Coffee) to make it easier for the community to participate in our meetings and for coffee dependent committee members to get their fix.

[Photo of May 1, 2007 immigration (and small anti-immigrant) rally at state Capitol]

St Paul Catholic Church - Social Justice Commission

The Mission of the St. Paul Parish Social Justice Commission is to serve the parish as a resource and catalyst for the work of social justice.

We cannot be called truly "Catholic" unless we hear and heed the Church's call to serve those in need and work for justice and peace. We cannot call ourselves followers of Jesus unless we take up his mission of bringing "good news to the poor, liberty to captives, and new sight to the blind" (cf. Lk 4:18).

About The Social Justice Commission...

We will operate as a Parish commission; base our activities on prayer, the biblical and theological foundations of Catholic social teaching; and strive to integrate and balance the direct service, education and advocacy components of social justice.

Structure:

• There are be 10-12 positions on the Commission that are filled initially from the those who have been part of the first planning meetings and who are willing to make a one year commitment to attend meetings and assit in Commission planning activities.
• The 10 - 12 Social Justice Commission members may include persons from the community who are not members of St Paul Parish so long as they are supportive of the mission of the Commission.
• Future vacancies will be filled by recommendations from the Commission to the Pastor.
• In addition to the planning group, the commision will coordinate groups of individuals who are interested or available in direct service, education or advocay activities.
• Everyone is welcome to attend a Social Justice Commission meeting.

St Paul Social Justice Commission members as of 2/1/2005: Michelle Senecal Matt Senecal Bernadette Mele Frank Mele Mike Niemeuer Dr. Mike Grady Steve Pappani Jim Hunt Myrna Robinson Kathleen McCann Deacon Loris Buccola Ex officio: Fr. William Hammelman Fr. Joe Wood

Opportunities to Get Involved

At a recent meeting the commission members did some brainstorming regarding ideas & opportunities for social justice:

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

1. Bulletin inserts or articles;
2. prayers of the faithful;
3. study groups for catholic Social Teaching;
4. incorporate themes into Disciples in Mission;
5. higher profile for Social Justice themes in liturgical calendar;
6. affirm good charity & justice work that local people are already doing.

OTHER DIRECT SERVICE IDEAS:

1. Assess parish and community needs;
2. better networking with other Silverton groups;
3. Youth project like Habitat for Humanity;
4. augment gaps in existing services;
5. a volunteer case-worker to help people beyond the immediate food & shelter needs;
6. Need to support those who do charity & social justice work.

OTHER ADVOCACY IDEAS:

1. Monitor statewide public policy issues during 2005 Oregon legislative Session;
2. join & support groups like "Bread for the World" & Pax Christi