I’m grateful to the editor for inviting me to take this month’s column to write about a new initiative I am directing, the Center for Catholic Social Thought, and an upcoming speaker series the center is hosting.
The center is a ministry of Assumption in St. Paul, and our mission is to spread the message and practice of Catholic social teaching, especially to parishioners who may not have encountered it before. I’m especially grateful to Father Paul Treacy, pastor of Assumption, for his encouragement and support in this endeavor. (See July 27 edition of The Catholic Spirit.)
The center will host free classes, discussion groups, speaker series, book studies and the like, led by me and in collaboration with area experts. Our central themes are Christian community, work and labor, economics, poverty and the poor, technology, education, and the social nature of Catholicism. We’re also working on establishing a ministry of presence with the poor, drawing in part on my experience with the Catholic Worker Movement. Information on upcoming events, as well as a growing base of material about Catholic social thought, is available on our webpage, catholicsocialthought.org.
To help launch this initiative, the center is hosting a fall speaker series titled “The Catholic Social Difference.” The series of local Catholic leaders will introduce the Church’s social teaching and ways to practice it in daily life. I’m pleased to welcome Michael Naughton, a professor and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, who will introduce Catholic social teaching Aug. 31; Michael Goar, CEO of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who will talk about “Poverty and the Common Good” Sept. 7; Father Daniel Griffith, pastor of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis and a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, on “A Catholic Economy” Sept. 14; and Msgr. Martin Schlag, a University of St. Thomas professor of Catholic social teaching, on “Church and Politics: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” Sept. 21.
Each conversation will begin at 7 p.m. at Assumption, free and open to the public. The speakers will highlight the difference our faith makes in areas of social life. Together, we’ll talk not just about what we think about these areas, but also about ways we can put the Church’s teaching into practice.
Sometimes, Catholic social teaching can be presented as if it were just the Church’s political platform. In that case it’s about issues, or activism, lobbying, or how we vote. It’s about, in others, stuff the government does.
While there’s certainly some of that, I want people to get the message that it’s also about so much more. It’s primarily about what we do.
It’s about building thick Catholic communities — and do we have any Catholic community, or do we just wave to people once a week across the pews? It’s about our finances — what we spend our money on, how much we should have, what we should invest in, and why. It’s about work and labor — what is good work anyway, and are we satisfied with our jobs? It’s about the poor — and their place in our lives, and what Pope Francis calls encountering the poor. It’s about reconnecting with the land — about agriculture and the environment, what we eat and where it comes from. It’s about technology — not only what we do with it, but what it does to us. And it’s about education — how we bring up our kids, and what counts as Catholic education.
Most importantly, Catholic social teaching is about helping us see the concrete connections between all the details of our daily lives and our worship of God in the Mass. It’s about linking all the moments of our days and our weeks with what we do on Sunday morning. It’s about, in other words, integrating all our lives with the living reality of Jesus Christ.
Miller is director of pastoral care and outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House Catholic Worker community in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin.miller1@protonmail.com.
