For the Love of Neighbor

Catholics held a Day of Action for Migrant Children on Wednesday.  We wrote prayers for the children on strips of fabric and tied them to a metal fence representing the cages that kids are being kept in at the immigrant detention centers. Jean Stokan from the Sisters of Mercy spoke about the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, funding and fueling so much of the violence outbreaking in Central America, meanwhile we won’t even let migrants escaping the violence to find refuge in the U.S. without putting them in cages, without proper hygiene, food or water, and keeping them separated from their parents.  “Child detention is illegal under international law and causes serious mental, physical, and emotional health complications.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics and many other public health organizations have declared the policies towards immigrants a public health crisis. Immigrant policing has been found to negatively impact trust of government health information including vaccination of children.  The children are experiencing psychological trauma and may experience long-term mental health effects due to the detention and separation.  “The experiences may also exacerbate prior exposure to traumas in the home country (eg, violence) and during migration (eg, extortion).”  The children are not getting appropriate medical care; are forced to be in situations of poor sanitation and living conditions, and sit through long detention periods without the stimulation necessary to promote healthy child development. AAP past-president, Dr. Colleen Kraft, said “Separating parents from their kids at the border contradicts everything we know about children's welfare.”   

Indeed, any human rights crisis is a public health crisis, when people are not provided with the means by which they need to live dignified lives with nourishing food, clean water, clean air, shelter, clothing, bodily autonomy, and anything else they need to maintain hygiene and safety. 

Meanwhile, the public health community is also fighting for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, and ensuring the future of school wellness in New York State.  Almost 90% of school districts in New York State are missing at least one element of a comprehensive school wellness policy, as measured by the WELLSAT tool from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.  New York City school wellness advocates are trying to tackle support for school wellness, better school food and nutrition education at the city, state, and federal levels right now.   At the state level through the WELL Campaign, we want to see a model state school wellness policy that incorporates mental health and social and emotional learning alongside standards for school food, nutrition education, physical activity and physical education.   

And yet, the battle against inhumane immigration policies towards children seems totally disconnected from the battle for child health and well-being in schools.  Why can’t we see these efforts for the dignity & well-being of children as all connected, and work on them together?  Surely the faith community knows that public health advocates working on child nutrition also don’t want to see kids in cages, right?

Perhaps you think that nutrition education is not as important as immigration policies and ending child detention. (I for one have not seen many Catholic organizations promoting nutrition education, with exceptions including Altagracia Faith & Justice works in Northern Manhattan and the Mercy Center in the South Bronx - organizations serving immigrant communities while also protesting the root causes that cause people to have to flee their countries in the first place.) 

We cannot forget that everything is connected.  The Amazon and other rainforest areas are being destroyed to clear land for cattle that is used to produce fast food, palm trees to create an unhealthy oil which is used as a stabilizer for processed foods, and other consumer products such as paper, furniture and clothing which our consumeristic society is so dependent on.  If we do not each take a serious look at our lifestyles and examine how they are contributing to the destruction of human livelihoods and lives, and teach children to do the same, we will continue to perpetuate the crises in front of us. We live in an interconnected world and all our actions have consequences. We are called to co-create with our Creator, not destroy.  Youth are striking for the climate, some every Friday through the Fridays for Future movement, and some are just gearing up specifically for September 20.  

There are ways these youth can take action in their own schools though; we need to be proactive in our actions, not just resistant.  The Tisch Center for Food, Education and Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University has created a handout about what youth can do to demand more sustainability solutions in their schools. This could take the form of starting a school garden, participating in Meatless Mondays, campaigning for a Green Team, advocating for food and nutrition education, or decreasing food waste from school lunch. 

At the end of a “Climate Emergency and the Green New Deal” event at Riverside Church, a Fridays for Future climate strike march video was played with a backdrop of music from the song Bella Ciao which was used to protest the Nazis (re-written with lyrics to protest climate change), followed by the audience singing along. This was a chilling reminder of the connection between genocide and environmental destruction, which is all too close to home in the United States, with the founding of this country being at the expense of so many Native American lives, and too timely, with the killing of indigenous peoples in the Amazon and in other rainforests where the native peoples rely on the rainforests for their livelihoods.  

I have been encouraged to see youth leadership in promoting peace and living in harmony with creation, such as the Interfaith Youth Forum for Environment & Peace organized by JPIC Franciscans Africa.  However, the work of JPIC Franciscans Africa and the work of many other religious groups across the world are doing to promote this harmony is deeply underfunded.  For now, I have created a Go Fund Me page for JPIC Franciscans Africa, with hope and prayers that sufficient funds can be raised by the time of their 2019 youth forum which will be held during the Global Climate Strike on 20 September and World Peace Day on 21 September. The report about my trip to Kenya for the Laudato Si Generation conference, which I wrote about recently, has been translated into Spanish, French and Italian by the International Council of the Secular Franciscan Order.   

Recognizing the divide and silos between the public health community and faith-rooted social justice advocates, who seem to rarely work together for the same causes, several colleagues and I have decided to start the Interfaith Public Health Network, which seeks to engage and mobilize faith communities to improve population health, by addressing the underlying determinants of health (social, commercial, environmental, and political) through connecting, convening, cultivating, and catalyzing.  We want to bring the voices of healthcare advocates and the faith community together to advocate for things such as reduced emissions which lead to child asthma, promote agroecology projects and appreciation of plant-based meals which support the health of environment and people, support mental health services for people in need, and improve gun violence prevention measures.  

During a visit to New York by Olivier van Beeman from the Netherlands, author of the book “Heineken in Africa” the Interfaith Public Health Network organized an event with Olivier van Beeman along with Minister Onleilove Alston and Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg at the CUNY School of Public Health. We brought together the faith and public health communities to learn about the insidious practices of a multinational corporation that takes advantage of government tax loopholes in order to make its profits at the expense of the African community.  Some governments are even intertwined with the company, such as in Burundi.  This is the type of issue the Interfaith Public Health Network wants to raise awareness about: as Minister Onleilove Alston pointed out, in her religious tradition, it’s not a sin to drink, but it’s a sin to commit injustice.  And these injustices, involving government collusion with multinational companies, is what’s contributing to poverty, violence, despair and migration of our neighbors in many countries throughout the world, our common home. 

Breaking Bread and the Franciscan Solidarity Tables

I would like to share two of Fr. Richard Rohr’s daily meditations from this weekend, as I think they are particularly relevant to the Franciscan Action Network’s efforts to build Franciscan Solidarity Tables in cities across the United States.  I have shared some commentary in between as well.

Fr. Richard Rohr shared in his daily meditation on July 21^st: 

Again and again, Jesus demonstrated one of the simplest, surest ways to connect with others across differences: share a meal. Somehow in eating together our barriers lower. We sit across from and beside one another, at the same level. Perhaps we recognize the familiar in each other, the universal need to be fed.

He encourages us to “participate in some form of breaking bread… as a contemplative practice, a way to open your heart and be deeply present to someone else.”  He then shares,

The People’s Supper, a nonprofit “building community through better conversations,” offers a helpful framework for purposeful meals. Their goal is “to repair the breach in our interpersonal relationships across political, ideological, and identity differences, leading to more civil discourse. And, we plan to do it in the most nourishing way we know—over supper!”

This isn’t about a political party, or what is or isn’t happening in Washington. It’s about us, and our relationship to one another. Too often, we exist in echo chambers and see each other as monoliths: one-sided stereotypes who can be reduced to a single word or phrase.

Instead, we want to go beneath the headlines, to see each other as real people with real struggles, real fears, real hopes, and real dreams.

Suppers are a place where we can come together over one of humanity’s most ancient and simple rituals. A place where we can share meaningful stories, good food, and a sense of community. A place where we can build understanding and trust.

We invite you to pull up a chair. 

The People's Supper helps hosts create a safe, comfortable space. You don't have to be a professional chef!  Potlucks - where everyone brings something to share - are the best way to build community. 

This is precisely what the Franciscan Action Network is working to build: Franciscan Solidarity Tables where all are welcome and we can build understanding and trust and work for justice for the marginalized.  This frequently means engaging on political issues, which Fr. Richard quotes Peter Armstrong in saying that this is necessary to do for us as Christians to be able to claim we “have anything to do with Jesus.”

We need not seek division and further polarization; however, we can continue to engage in tough debate and conversation across dividing lines, expressing our own deeply held convictions and being willing to be changed by our encounter with the other, because that is the way that Jesus engaged with others.

He also quotes Parker Palmer on the topic:

When we forget that politics is about weaving a fabric of compassion and justice on which everyone can depend, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable among us—our children, our elderly, our mentally ill, our poor, and our homeless. As they suffer, so does the integrity of our democracy.

On July 22 in his daily meditation, Fr. Richard discusses “The Shape of the Table.”  He starts with the Eucharist’s relevance to the conversation about bringing people together around a table in today’s context: “the Eucharist is an invitation to socially experience the shared presence of God, and to be present in an embodied way.”

First, let me share some context. In Jesus’ time, the dominant institution was the kinship system: the family, the private home. That’s why early Christians gathered in house churches, much different from the typical parish today. In Matthew’s Gospel the word house is used many times. Jesus is always going in and out of houses (as in 8:14, 9:10). What happened around the tables in those houses shaped and named the social order. Table friendship ends up defining how we see friendship in general.

Jesus often used domestic settings to rearrange the social order. Nowhere was that truer than with the meal—with whom, where, and what he ate. This is still true today, more than we might imagine. (Another example of Jesus changing the social order is in the relationship between employers and workers.) Jesus’ constant use of table relationships is perhaps his most central re-ritualization of what family means. Note that he is always trying to broaden the circle (see Luke 14:7-24 for three good examples). Jesus brought this all to fullness in his “last supper” with “the twelve.” This was not to emphasize male fellowship, but the full quorum of the twelve tribes of Israel. (I know it does not look that way to us now, but the Eucharistic meal was from the very beginning a gathering of both women and men, which shows how Christians understood equality.)

Jesus didn’t want his community to have a social ethic; he wanted it to be a social ethic. Their very way of eating and organizing themselves was to be an affront to the system of dominance and power. They were to live in a new symbolic universe, especially symbolized by what we now call open table fellowship.

This has a particular relevance to food justice and climate change:

In all cultures, sharing food is a complex interaction that symbolizes social relationships and defines social boundaries almost more than any other daily event. Whom you eat with defines whom you don’t eat with. Certain groups of people eat certain kinds of food. Through our choices and behavior at table, we name and identify ourselves.

…today a vegetarian (or even vegan) diet has become a conscious choice for many because they’ve studied the politics of food: who eats meat and who can’t eat meat; what eating meat is doing not only to our health but even to the planet. Researchers surmise that the meat-heavy Western diet contributes to one-fifth of global emissions on our planet.  Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes: “As a spiritual family and a human family, we can all help avert climate change with the practice of mindful eating. Going vegetarian may be the most effective way to stop climate change.”

(While overall there are climate benefits to eating less meat, there are also health implications to consider in going completely vegetarian, and it is not something everyone should do.  However, the majority of people could eat less meat and adopt a “reducetarian” diet for climate and health benefits.  There also a host of complex economic, cultural, and social factors to consider to be able to answer the question, “Who sits at my table?” with integrity….to be covered in future dialogue.)

Another element of breaking bread together speaks to the statement that eating together makes about immigration policies: when citizens and immigrant families eat together, we are working to keep families together rather than break them apart. This is the essence of the movement “Break Bread Not Families.”  Breaking bread together with immigrant families not only allows us to get to know different peoples’ cultures and cuisines, but also gives us an opportunity to learn about the stories of what brought people to immigrate in the first place. Were they seeking refuge or asylum, escaping tyrant governments or violent gangs in their home communities?  Were they forced off of their land because multinational companies started pillaging the land so they could make a profit off of its resources, thereby leaving the families without a means to grow food, access clean water, and make a living?  Coming together around the table allows us to hear stories from our immigrant brothers and sisters and then see if there is anything we can do to help, both in their current situation such as with food, shelter, or healthcare, as well as the situations of their home countries, such as through working with Franciscans International and engaging at the United Nations.

In September 2017 when the New York City Franciscan Solidarity Table preliminarily began meeting, three of the topic areas people expressed interest in engaging on were immigration, health/food justice, and climate change.  There is certainly overlap between each of these issues; coming together around a table allows us to discuss the areas of overlap as well as how we can make progress on achieving justice and continue bringing more people to the table and building community.  

Kelly Moltzen, OFS, MPH, RD is a board member of the Franciscan Action Network, program manager of Bronx Health REACH, and 2015 Re:Generate Fellow of the Food, Health and Ecological Well-Being Program of Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, We Give Thanks for You

We all know that Thanksgiving is a time when Americans recognize the importance of expressing gratitude for the abundance which the Earth provides us with, and for the family and friends with whom we share it. Thanksgiving commemorates the hospitality offered by Native Americans to the European Puritan colonists, as winter was setting in and the colonists were unprepared for the cold months ahead. The Native Americans provided food and support. However, the history of Thanksgiving is much more complex than that, and also involves violence, conflict, and massacres. It was actually not celebrated as a national holiday until the midst of the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday and a time for families to re-unite. This history is important to think about as present-day armed security forces inflict horrendous abuses to Native Americans at Standing Rock in North Dakota and those who are standing in solidarity with them as they protect their land and water from exploitation.  Which is why this year especially, I have felt conflicted about this holiday, a sentiment I believe is shared by many people across the country.

We cannot stand idly by and pretend like Thanksgiving can be the same as it has been celebrated for generations. The situation at Standing Rock brings to the forefront a history of centuries of exploitation, trauma and broken promises experienced by Native Americans.  Not to mention the insult to injury added to non-whites overall, through the terrible racism which has surfaced with the 2016 election. The United States has always been a place of violence and abuse of Native peoples, and of other people of color, even as it sees itself as a beacon of freedom for all. How can we now hold up that beacon, even as the armed forces inflict violence against our own people? 

Over the past few years, I’ve come to learn about the roots of much of this violence, by learning about the Doctrine of Discovery, the 1493 papal document which allowed explorers to lay claim to any land they “discovered” that was not owned by Christians.  This doctrine, which has not yet been officially renounced by the Vatican, still governs U.S. Indian law today, still being cited into the 21st century.  I really do wonder how likely it is we will begin to see Native Americans and their land treated with the respect they deserve until this document is rescinded and removed from U.S. law.

Meanwhile, over the past year and a half, Catholics and non-Catholics alike have had the opportunity to read and discuss Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si.  This modern document, which discusses at length the dual “cry of the earth and cry of the poor,” calls us to dialogue and action on behalf of all of God’s creation. Through dialogue, we can identify actions that help us carry out the work to which our spirituality calls us. 

It was through such a dialogue that I came together with several followers of Pope Francis to plan a potluck meal this week in honor of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church.  Through a network of kind-hearted faith-rooted social justice advocates I know in NYC, several of us, especially Sara Jolena Wolcott from Union Theological Seminary, Tom Dobbins from the Catholic Charities office of the Archdiocese of NY, and Terry Michaud from the Blessed Sacrament Social Action Committee and the Metro NY Catholic Climate Movement, and myself, came together to organize a dinner and discussion around the topic of indigenous peoples, and food, water, and climate justice, in honor of St. Kateri.

Held in the dining room of the Blessed Sacrament rectory, the dinner was attended by members of Blessed Sacrament’s Social Action Committee and RCIA program, members of the Metro NY Catholic Climate Movement, Tom Dobbins, Sr. Odile Courier from Holy Name Parish and Franciscans International, and several others. After prayers, we went around our circle of about sixteen people sharing what brought us into the room. People asked rich questions around food, climate, spirituality, faith, and history of the church. We started off with everyone sharing what brought them to the room. Responses were rich, and varied across the topics of food, climate, spirituality, faith, and history of the Church.  Some were concerned about food waste, portion sizes being so big, how food is valued so much less now than it used to be, why is food a privilege, and why are food dyes and other toxic chemicals fed to kids in the form of junk food. Others discussed the poor state of recycling, and how overproduction stems from a fear of not having enough. Sara reminded us that wastelands used to be referred to as “the commons,” a far cry from what most wastelands look like today. Some wanted to learn more about St. Kateri and contemplate how we can better “welcome the stranger.”

There is a thirst to learn what will wake up the planet in regards to climate change, to reconnect with creation, and to learn, what is the liturgy to support sustainability in the Catholic Church?  One woman who grew up in the Bronx reminded us that “life grows through burned buildings and cracks in the concrete,” and that, “life has to have its day.”  Sr. Odile shared how working with the indigenous people in the Philippines taught her about what it means to be close to nature/creation, and how we are so disconnected from it. A French citizen, Sr. Odile reminded us to keep our ethnocentrism in check: the U.S. is important but other countries' backgrounds are important too and we need to act together. Someone mentioned that we need to have the moral courage to talk about economics; the financial bottom line not always being the most important factor to take into consideration when making decisions.

Given the current U.S. political situation, there was a comment about the history of Church opposition to the Third Reich. An interesting comment was also made about the harm the church has done by perpetuating a false split between spirit and matter, to which I responded by saying this false split is debunked through recognizing the divine nature in all of creation including the food we eat, and the importance of food and faith in bringing us around the table together (one of the core tenants around which Christianity was founded). I also shared my discovery of the amazing parallels between Native American prayers and the Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis of Assisi in praising creation, as I believe now more than ever, it is critical for us to recognize the parallels between Catholic and Christian spirituality and indigenous spirituality.

Sara Jolena then gave us a history lesson through retelling the story of where we are today in a way that tied together the fifteenth century Church, the Doctrine of Discovery, colonization, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and St. Kateri. The essence of the story is as follows: through a papal bull, in 1451 Pope Nicholas V gave permission to King Alfonso V of Portugal not only to explore but also to enslave the peoples of the West Coast of Africa who were assumed to be non-Christian "pagans," or "Saracens," or Muslims. This enslavement would become the Transatlantic Slave Trade. A 1454 Papal Bull gave the Church authority to the witch hunts, destroying the lower-class "indigenous women of Europe."  In 1493, when Columbus returned from the "New World," Pope Alexander VI wrote several other bulls that encouraged conquest of any land not inhabited by Christians. This became known as the Doctrine of Discovery. It supported Spain’s conquest of the New World, starting with the lands “discovered” by Columbus. The Doctrine of Discovery had at its premise that “the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.”1  [The tragedy, which was made painfully clear to me during a recent talk by a Colombian visitor to the Union Theological Seminary Center for Earth Ethics, is that indigenous peoples did not quite need to be “converted” to Christianity, especially through violent conquest which is against the core tenant of Christianity. The Natives already possessed a respect for the divine nature of creation and did not need to hear Jesus’ message as much as the people to whom Jesus preached and ministered to in his corner of the world.]

St. Kateri, meanwhile, was a Native American who converted to Catholicism and practiced a devout religious life. She chose the name "Kateri," the Mohawk form of Catherine, taking the namesake of Catherine of Siena.  Her short life was marked by illness, loss, sorrow and suffering as she witnessed her family suffer and become turned upside down in the contact with the Europeans, who brought disease, a monetary-based economy hungry to consume the natural resources of this land, and a faith that stirred her heart. despite her family's protests, she refused to marry anyone except Jesus Christ. She lived between two worlds: Catholic and Mohawk. So far as we know, she treasured both. Eventually she moved to a monastery in New France where she and another Native woman yearned to start their own nunnery; they were told that they were too young. She died at age 24 surrounded by her new-found community. According to the priests who sat besides her as she was dying, after her death, the scars from the small pox that had marked her face since she was suffered from the disease brought by the Europeans at age three vanished and her face began to brightly glow. It was one of many miracles associated with her.

Given this history and the current state of affairs with Native Americans, I find myself asking, what would St. Francis of Assisi do?  The Doctrine of Discovery didn’t come into existence until a few hundred years after Francis’ death. But he gave us the Canticle of the Creatures, which is of the same thread of understanding of our place within the ecological web of life as the beliefs held by indigenous peoples. He also gave us a lifetime’s worth of inspiring actions that he took in response to the simple command he heard through prayer to “repair the house” of God.  In the same way that Francis’ life and spirituality has been a source of inspiration for Franciscans for centuries, St. Kateri’s ability to bridge indigenous culture and Catholic tradition should be a source of inspiration for us all as well.  So, in the wake of human rights atrocities and what Pope Francis refers to in Laudato Si as “unbridled exploitation” happening at Standing Rock, may we remember that Water is Life, and do all that is in our power to protect it for one another and for generations to come.

1 http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/indig-inter-caetera.html

*Updated to include edits from Sara Jolena Wolcott 

You may also find this resource useful:  How to Give, and to Give Thanks, to Standing Rock  

New Heaven, New Earth: Musings on Permaculture & Integral Ecology

There has been oppression, corruption and war for millennia – this, we know, is not something new.  Jesus and other prophets have actively taught means of interacting within corrupt systems to bring about Heaven on Earth.  Many of these people, Jesus included, did their ministry and prayer work in natural environments, and told parables that led people to contemplate the natural world. Coming to these realizations throughout my lifetime, I immediately recognized myself in the story of permaculture expert Bill Mollison, as told by Fred Bahnson in Soil and Sacrament:   

Mollison had grown up in a small village in Tasmania, and became horrified as he saw fish stocks collapsing and large sections of forest disappear. He began to protest against the political and industrial systems that were to blame. ‘But,’ he wrote in Introduction to Permaculture, ‘I soon decided that it was no good persisting with opposition that in the end achieved nothing.’ For the next two years Mollison withdrew from society. When he returned he realized he did not want to oppose anything ever again and waste his time. He wanted to come back only with something positive, ‘Something that would allow us all to exist without the wholesale collapse of biological systems.’ What Mollison came back with was the beginnings of permaculture, a ‘whole human system.’

I likewise decided early on to focus on building a holistic system. Thus, my career has focused on nutrition, public health, and promoting sustainable food systems whenever possible.  What I’ve realized since the 2015 release of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si is that these ideas about permaculture are very much in line with the concept of integral ecology.

We can use systems thinking to create an integrative food system where food grown is connected with healthcare and mental health systems and a more sustainable environment. We can put the systems in place to put Laudato Si into action. To do this, we will need to educate, but we will also need to organize and advocate.  While Bill Mollison may have chosen not to oppose anything and Jesus did much of his ministry in the fields, we must also remember that Jesus also flipped over the money tables in the temple.  It’s clear in the Bible that man cannot serve God and mammon, and that we shouldn’t worship the golden calf. Yet, that is what so many corporations are doing now.

According to Citizens United, corporations are people – but of course, we know that’s not true. We know the people making up the corporations are people, not the corporations themselves.  We also know it is not good to wish ill on the people making up the corporations. It is good for them to have livable wages to support themselves and their families, healthcare, and meaningful work.  To make sure everyone has a fair chance for these necessary components of healthy living, the people who are most enmeshed in corporate greed – amassing gross wealth off the backs of the working poor – need to back off a good deal from their possessions and materialism, and open up to more of a communal, humane way of interacting with the marginalized.

With decent financial and human investment, we can create more green jobs, include people affected by injustices in the decisionmaking processes, and capture carbon back into the Earth to mitigate and prevent catastrophic climate change. This is just as true in the Bronx as it is in Harlem, as it is in the bayous of Louisiana, as it is in Haiti, and every other place affected by environmental injustices.

In Soil and Sacrament, Fred Bahnson also quotes Rainer Maria Rilke:

All will come again into its strength:

the fields undivided, the waters undammed,

the trees towering and the walls built low.

And in the valleys, people as strong

and as varied as the land.

What a vision of shalom! When I read this I thought first of bringing shalom to Haiti, where the water has been dammed up leading to much dry, barren land, exacerbated by deforestation due to the burning of wood for cooking fires.  It reminded me of the holistic vision for restoration of this island nation that I’ve begun brainstorming with several others over the past few months. But this prophetic poetic excerpt can apply to anywhere we wish to restore with shalom - God’s holistic peace.

So, how can we begin sharing the stories of people creating a “new heaven and a new earth” and living out Laudato Si?  When will we begin to create a truly holistic system of integral ecology and shalom?

¹Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” – Revelations 21: 1-4

New York for Bernie, 2016

There are some times when we need to become our own media. One of those times is now.
The Bronx, the United States, and the World need Bernie. And right now, Bernie needs New York.
New York, let's show the world that New York City is not the center of the universe because of Wall Street, but because of its humanity.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Congressman Bernie Sanders' presidential rally at St. Mary's Park in Mott Haven, the section of the South Bronx where I have lived for the past five years.  The rally was a huge success and drew between 18,500-20,000 people - people of all backgrounds - the working class. And today, Bernie came to a second rally in the Bronx, this time at Bronx Community College - another success. The library auditorium was filled with college students and others - real Bronxites and other New Yorkers - listening to this Vermont Senator from Brooklyn who gives us hope.

I was grateful to hear New York State Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda standing up for Bernie at both rallies. Sepulveda says he did not endorse Bernie from the beginning, but wanted to look at the issues first. Once he did, he realized there was no other candidate he could stand with other than Bernie Sanders.  This is line with previous meetings I have been in with Assemblyman Sepulveda, where I distinctly remember leaving feeling impressed with how principled he was.

Some major news outlets have been starting to pay attention, giving more airwaves to Bernie Sanders and the issues that he is talking about, rather than the rhetoric and contradictions being spewed by other candidates. Yet there are still a lot of doubtful people, and people who say Hillary is going to win New York, she has all the superdelegates. Well, that's precisely the establishment we are working to deconstruct, that Bernie has been talking about.  He walks the walk in his opposition to money in politics, the need to repeal Citizens United, and the need for campaign finance reform. That is the first step to a true democracy. He has been consistent on his messages about the need to hold the banks of Wall Street accountable, invest in living wages ($15/hr) for working class people rather than war, make college education affordable, have a healthcare system for all, accept the human-induced causes of climate change and take responsibility for addressing them, bar for-profit prisons, and address the plight of urban communities across the country.  Political actions that demonstrate that he upholds the human dignity of all, especially the most disenfranchised.

Bernie spoke eloquently about religious coexistence - what matters is not if a person is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, or other - but that there is love.  My good friend Jonathan Reid shared a video on my Facebook page the other day of someone giving out Free Hugs at a Bernie Rally and a Trump Rally.  It goes without saying, there was a lot more love at the Bernie rally.

Man offers free hugs at Sanders and Trump rallies and gets shockingly different responses Free Hugs Project
Posted by Salon on Thursday, March 31, 2016

Actually, Bernie has received an invitation to speak at the Vatican next week.  Though, he is not the first progressive socialist Jew to be invited to the Vatican; last year, the Vatican invited Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.

A friend of mine made a flyer comparing Bernie Sanders' statements on climate change, war, and economic inequality to those of Pope Francis, even before the announcement was made about the Vatican's invitation.  It is really not hard to figure out why someone like Bernie Sanders would appeal to the Vatican.  He speaks up about addressing wealth inequality and other injustices that keep people oppressed - issues that fit squarely within the realm of Catholic Social Teaching. His spiritual convictions - that we are all in this together - are also very much in line with the church's teachings.

Besides the superdelegates, the other significant concern regarding the primaries is all of the support the unions are throwing at Hillary Clinton.  Bernie supports unions too - why wouldn't he?  He's for the working class.  The Working Families Party has already enthusiastically endorsed Bernie Sanders, though unfortunately the votes don't count in the primaries.  But the unions are endorsing Hillary.  What's even sadder is they are unethically using staff time to support Hillary. A friend of mine who works for a union told me they were going to make him go canvas for Hillary.  I told him to just talk about the issues.

Through Bronx Health REACH, I am working with the United Federation of Teachers to bring nutrition education into schools in the Bronx. The UFT is a big help in this regard, certainly they play an important role in society. But one role they should not play is endorsing candidates, especially if those wishes go against their employees.  That role is what the Working Families Party is for.

I had a wonderful time at the Bernie rally today. I met real New Yorkers, with incredible stories to tell.  I stood online next to a retiree currently serving on a Bronx community board who said of his career working on Wall Street: "If you want to see cocaine, go to Wall Street."  He had become addicted to drugs working on Wall Street, not from living the Bronx.  I also had a fascinating conversation with the guy sitting next to me during the rally, an actor named James McDaniel, who lives in Harlem, saw the gentrification that happened around the time Bill Clinton moved his office to the Harlem State Office Building, and has been invited to dinners at the White House on numerous occasions.  He told me the one time he got to speak to President Obama, he said, "This country doesn't deserve you."  I would have to agree with him. It made me sad, actually, to hear Bernie today saying the same thing Obama said during his candidacy, that he needs the American people to work with him.  Because the thing is, Obama and Sanders are telling the truth.  Things will not change unless we the people are working together with progressive elected officials to create the change we want to see. 

This election, the primaries are an opportunity for Americans to vote with their values. The Democratic ticket can go to Bernie or Hillary. It is not about who will beat who later on. We are talking about now.  Now is our opportunity to create a revolution, as Tracy Chapman's voice sang out through the loudspeaker at the end of the Bernie rally.

The choice is ours.  Will we stand up for our values?  We have until April 19th to decide. This is our opportunity to embrace hope and our spiritual convictions and build a world we can be proud of. I hope we will choose it. And for those who are still skeptics, may I ask that you seek to really listen to a few Bernie supporters. They probably have some pretty incredible stories to tell.

What is Enough?

It’s two days after Thanksgiving and one day after what is commonly known as “Black Friday” here in the U.S.  Meanwhile, the climate justice pilgrims have just completed their journey from Rome to Paris on foot for the People’s Pilgrimage, bringing the voices of people of faith from across the world to Paris for the COP-21 climate negotiations, with the message that the United Nations must pass a strong climate treaty. 

I find myself joining other OurVoices leaders in asking the question, “What is enough?” 

How is it that we choose to be thankful for a day every year, and then we allow ourselves to continue to live in a society that turns around the next day, with people knocking one another over in the quest to get the best deal on the latest gadget? 

I have always understood that the holidays are a time to be grateful for what we have, for family, friends, nourishing food and the opportunities provided for us in our lives.  A time to sober ourselves to the reality that there are billions of people across the planet who are hungry and living in poverty, subject to the whims of an unstable climate caused in large part by our unsustainable lifestyles.  Given these realities, to me the materialistic frenzy that surrounds the holidays is too harmful to just be written off as shallow.  

I am grateful for growing up with a religious orientation that taught me the love of God for all people, and through which I eventually came to understand the spiritual and ecological interconnectedness of all people and aspects of creation to one another.   My experiences and those of many other spiritually conscious people have convicted me that faith, religion, and spirituality allow any of us to transform ourselves into more compassionate human beings, and that this transformation is exactly what our religious and spiritual traditions were created for.   When we do not pay attention to this reality and instead focus on the inflatable Christmas lawn decorations and long wish lists for Santa Claus and his elves, we are betraying the very purpose of the holi-day.  Americans spend more than $600 billion during the holiday season, causing some to believe Christmas is synonymous with materialism.

How did we get to this point, and what will it take for us to return to the real meaning of the holiday season….and pass strong climate legislation?

I like returning to St. Nicholas, from whom the story of Santa Claus was born.  As legend has it, when Nicholas learned of a poor man who could not afford a proper dowry for his three daughters, he decided help them. He secretly threw three purses filled with gold coins through the window of the family’s house in order to help prevent the women from remaining unmarried, becoming prostitutes or being assumed to be prostitutes.  To me this is far cry from what our society has manufactured, which somehow ties a spinoff of the legend of St. Nicholas together with a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in a stable in Nazareth, into a “holiday” celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike that does more harm than good for God’s creation, or to use the term popularlized by Pope Francis, “our common home.”   Not to mention completely looking past the deeper spiritual messages that Jesus preached about and stood for through his incarnation as the Christ.  

For a moment, let us pause at the wonders of the sacred world we are privileged to live in.  

For me, this is enough.

As we return to thinking about the season of gift-giving, wouldn’t we do better to celebrate the holidays by following the example of St. Nicholas, who gave of himself to protect the welfare and dignity of young women?   Given how our actions create ripple effects, our unsustainable lifestyles are directly connected to instances of human trafficking across the world:  as I have learned from Franciscans International, areas where mining of precious minerals occurs are also hot spots for human trafficking.  Instead of asking for the latest electronics or fashion items from the local mall this year, what if we replaced our selfish desires with means of combating instances which destroy the lives and self-esteems of our global brothers and sisters?  This year, for those who insist on buying me gifts for Christmas, I’ll be asking for products and services that help girls get to primary or secondary school safely through Global Girlfriend.   And no gift-wrapping, please.   In the meantime, I’ll be praying for a strong climate treaty at COP-21, with the awareness that we must put our prayers and Pope Francis’ words of Laudato Si’ into action in order to realize a better world.

Faith and the Environmental Justice Movement: A Franciscan Perspective

Catholics are natural allies in the struggle for environmental justice.  As a Catholic, I have been most drawn to the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who is our tradition’s patron saint of the environment. St. Francis, who followed Jesus’ call to leave everything behind and live a life of intentional poverty and simplicity, lived in a medieval world where people, who had previously enjoyed a more intimate bond with their ecosystems, began to be disconnected from the land as a result of extensive land holdings owned and controlled by the small minority in the ruling class.  This separation of people from the land, coupled with abuse of power, led to oppression and a class of poor deprived of their humanity and dignity.

Francis’ identification with the poor gradually brought him to an understanding of his place as a “little brother” to all humanity and all creation. His famous “Canticle of the Creatures,” which is the inspiration for Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, reveals how integrally interconnected St. Francis felt to all elements of God’s creation. He came to see God reflected in all of creation and therefore sought to maintain the integrity of all creation.

The essence of Franciscan spirituality, then, is a focus on seeing God in everyone, especially the marginalized, and working toward protecting the integrity of all creation. Therefore, by working to maintain the integrity of all creation—with particular emphasis on the poor, vulnerable, and those least responsible for environmental degradation—Franciscan spirituality lends itself to a focus on environmental and climate justice.

Through St. Francis’ commitment to following the convictions of his faith, he consciously joined the “story of power,” which is the story of humans and creation that also “includes a focus on the differences of status, privilege, social class, levels of influence, wealth and political and social power of various groups” (Franciscan Care for Creation).  This is the story that continues through the environmental justice movement today.

Environmental justice communities have a unique perspective on the ways in which consumer culture and differences in societal power negatively affect the health of impacted communities. By tapping into our own spiritual wells and joining the spiritual movement for climate justice, we can help to bridge the knowledge and lived experience of these communities with the moral clarity of our faith traditions – thereby more effectively helping to ensure that policies and systems prioritize the health of people and ecosystems, rather than business interests.

By examining our own tradition’s religious teachings on the environment and engaging in dialogue with congregations about our role in causing harm to – or protecting the integrity of – creation, we are lending our voices to the environmental justice movement. We are moving ourselves and others into a new consciousness about how to live in unity and harmony with the earth and one another.

Some of the ways Catholic congregations and other faith communities are doing this include conducting energy audits of houses of worship, converting to clean energy where possible, starting compost and garden projects, divesting from fossil fuels, and advocating for better U.S. climate policy. The Franciscan Action Network, where I serve on the Board of Directors, is leading an interfaith coalition working to get money out of politics and calling out members of Congress who have been supportive of the Koch brothers’ “No Climate Tax” pledge through a #KochvsPope campaign, among other actions.

Above all, we are promoting the concept of simple living, which allows us to practice a life of ongoing conversion and provides lifelong opportunities to live in right relationship with our world. Catholics in the Franciscan tradition embrace an ecology that keeps humans and all of creation out of harm’s way. It allows us to see the “thisness” – the unique specialness of each particular living and nonliving thing – that is characteristic of Franciscan spirituality.

Written for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, http://www.weact.org/member-blog-kelly-moltzen 

Laudato Si’! Multifaith Global Climate Convergence in Rome with OurVoices

It’s been two weeks since the OurVoices Global Multifaith Emerging Leaders Convergence in Rome.  Though, I feel like it will take me years to fully process all of the amazing conversations and people I met.  Attending a global convergence with emerging leaders from across all faiths and denominations working on climate justice issues brought my abilities to work on international community public health, which I studied several years ago at NYU, to a whole new level. 

The Convergence started out with a rally in St. Peter’s Square, where we brought banners and props made in partnership with the artists from the People’s Climate March in NYC last September, where our group of multi-faith leaders came together to thank Pope Francis for his encyclical, Laudato Si’. The continuity of the movement from the People’s Climate March really made me feel like I was part of a genuine movement. Those of us who identified as Catholic took the opportunity to ask people in St. Peter’s Square if they were interested in signing a petition created by the newly created Global Catholic Climate Movement, which has already been endorsed by Pope Francis. Leaders within the Global Catholic Climate Movement are aiming to get 1 million signatures before the United Nations climate negotiations in Paris this upcoming December.

During the rest of the convergence, we heard from seasoned leaders from many faith traditions as well as emerging leaders from across the world.  I was able to see the common language about care for the Earth across all faith traditions: Hinduism, Baha’i, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Sikhism, and others. Learning from so many traditions which were new to me, while also being reminded of the ecologically spiritual rootedness of my Franciscan Catholic tradition, was an enlightening and spiritually liberating experience. 

From Sister Kathleen Deignan at Iona College, I identified with her feeling from living in NYC that NYC is “desertified.” I am drawn to believe that the Catholicism rooted in the Celtic spirituality of Ireland, a family heritage which we both share, played a role in the progression of our spiritual understanding of our need to green the earth again.

During the U.S./Canada breakout session, I learned of the lobby training that Emily Wirzba does with students through her work at Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, D.C.; Daniel Blackman’s work in Atlanta to organize around a commemoration of the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina; and Austin Weisgrau’s work in Portland around fossil fuels and dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I also learned of Josh Smith’s work with Catholic youth in Canada and the Green Churches Network in Canada and Norman Levasque’s book “Greening Your Church.” I was reminded of Louis Tillman’s work to provide economic opportunity for youth through a church community garden in Chicago, as I happened to already meet him just a few short weeks ago through Wake Forest University’s Re:Generate fellowship program.

What I’ve found through my experiences is that the issues that affect disenfranchised communities are the same regardless of if the community is in the mountains of Peru, in the mountains of Appalachia, or in the streets of Harlem or the Bronx in the United States.  Environmental injustices lead to health disparities, such as how children become contaminated with poisoning from toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, or arsenic, because of pollution. People are robbed of their ability to sustainably grow food on the land and end up looking for nourishment from the fossil-fuel intensive industrialized food system, because of the interests of private development agencies and corporate monopolies. What this convergence added to the conversation was the explicit acknowledgement that when the church is silent against the companies that commit such atrocities, she is acting as an accomplice.

As shared by Rabbi Lawrence Troster from Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth, the climate crisis is not a political issue but a spiritual issue, so we need to approach it as such.  Yet hearing of the struggles to activate religious leaders in Asia and move “environmental” issues away from just being “secular” issues reminded me of the challenges we face.  How can we move people who will fast for a cause for a brief period of time, to adopt long-term lifestyle changes such as recycling?  Listening to Betty ask her global sisters and brothers to donate soil and sand to the island of Fiji because of the realities of sea level rise strengthened my conviction to continue working on climate justice issues.  I even got a chance to journey alongside Yeb Sano, the former U.N. climate negotiator for the Philippines, who has left his role with the U.N. to lead the People’s Pilgrimage – a powerful worldwide spiritual movement that reinforces the need to address the climate crisis principally from a spiritual perspective, because as demonstrated by previous U.N. climate negotiations and political decisions made by various nation-states across the world (especially the most powerful), status quo political rhetoric and decisions are not getting us to where we need to be fast enough.

I was inspired by interfaith efforts to promote public health, such as the Global Interfaith WASH (WAter, Sanitation, Hygiene) Alliance and the leadership in sustainable development happening in Africa and Asia. I was impressed to learn of the leadership of the Archdioceses in Australia and Kenya and their support of young adults in promoting Catholic ecology.  The Catholics in Australia are even working on organizing around World Youth Day 2016 which will be held in Poland and include a focus on ecology.

 I was not surprised to learn that the Garifuna people in Honduras already have a climate mitigation plan. Many countries in the Global South have shown leadership in addressing climate change issues because these are the countries impacted the most.

Most importantly, the convergence participants were given a bit of encyclical education by a Vatican representative.  “Encyclical” means circular letter. It is meant to be passed on, read, and listened to. To a room of emerging multi-faith leaders, the Vatican representative told us to “take it, make it your own, be true to it and pass it on with love, sympathy, compassion.”  “Take the time to read it.” “Don’t give up on religious leaders.”  “It’s not about ecology, it’s about life.”  And if we have other ideas for the leadership that the Church should take?  What do seminaries have to teach the Church?  Take it to the Vatican: “The Vatican is not a control tower.”

Pope Francis’ encyclical sends a powerful message. It tells us that the Church acknowledges the eco-spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, the realities of how our careless human lifestyles are disrupting the climate and affecting the most vulnerable, and how a spiritual grounding and integral ecology can help us to reverse much of the damage we’ve done.  I am very interested to see how discussion and dialogue about the encyclical (there are already a number of discussion guides out there) can lead us to healing and a deepened appreciation of faith and community.

Before we left the convergence, we were given the task of drafting an eco-theological project to carry out in our home countries. The three stages of the task include an eco-autobiography, exploring spiritual resources, and finding a forum for public expression. I found this task to be a particularly useful exercise in helping me define my own spiritual journey.  The first stage of the task helped me unearth the experiences I had while growing up that led to the development of my spiritual convictions, and had me ponder my relationships with land, animals, and other non-human forms of life. It also had me reflect on my personal experiences with environmental justice issues, something I’ve had to intentionally immerse myself in because of the protection that the privilege that my cultural and socioeconomic background afford me.

Regarding the texts which have informed my eco-theology, I thought about the creation mandate found from a spiritual reading of Genesis in the Bible, as well as a few books by Franciscans I’ve learned of through the Franciscan Earth Corps, including “Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth” and “Repair My House: Becoming a Kindom Catholic.”  These texts have helped inform my understanding of Catholic Franciscan eco-theology, such as the “thisness” of each unique creation of God and the Trinitarian worldview which underpins Christianity.  Drawing from these reflections to identify the basis of my own spiritual beliefs about the environment, I found that contemplation and the practice of being present can lead us to experience a feeling of oneness and interconnectedness, and a sense of divine presence in everything and everyone in the world. This translates into the responsibility we share to steward the Earth and treat everyone and everything as our brothers and sisters because of the kinship we share with creation; as well as the need to work for justice and reconciliation, especially when we have privilege, because of the Gospel’s call to prioritize the poor.

The last part of the task, finding a forum for public expression, is still a work in progress for me. Perhaps my reflections here are a form of this public expression, though as I continue to process all that I learned during the convergence and continue to learn at home, I’m sure my ideas will continue to evolve. I welcome thoughts on meaningful methods I could use for public expression, but most importantly, I encourage everyone reading this to create their own version of the eco-theological project.  As the convergence participants learned from the Vatican representative, it is up to us to take what we find in the encyclical as well as in our own faith traditions, and use it in our own contexts.  As St. Francis said, “I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours to do.”