Reclaiming Social Justice

In this episode, I speak with Ana Chavarin. Ana Chavarin is a member of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Tucson, Ariz., and formerly an organizer for Pima County Interfaith. During her over 10 year tenure as an oganizer, she was awarded the 2019 Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award from the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development. In 2018 she won a US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) award for Hispanic Catholic Leaders and was also recognized by the Arizona Daily Star for her community achievements. Ana has helped the immigrant community address issues of community safety, drug abuse, rights of the undocumented, and how to become a citizen. Most recently she helped launch the first printing of parish identification cards in Tucson. In our conversation we talk about her religious upbringing and the influential roles her grandparents paid in her youth. Additionally, she shares the story of how she originally came to the United States. Other themes our conversation touch on includes the importance of getting involved in your community, speaking up when you see injustice, and not just that, taking concrete steps to change those conditions.

In this episode, I speak with Isaac Cuevas. Isaac is the director of the Office of Immigration Affairs for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The Office of Immigration Affairs was created as part of Archbishop Gomez’ vision for helping parishes and people in the LA community with immigration issues. Hiis office has developed a network of community leaders that implement workshops, develop programs, and provide resources for the largest immigrant community in the country. In addition to community outreach, Mr. Cuevas works as an immigration advocate, serving as the voice for the Archdiocese among policy leaders and civil rights groups. Prior to this, he worked in the Entertainment industry making movies and television shows. In our conversation, we talked about walking away from his successful career in holywood. By listening to this episode you will hear the first person account of someone who works directly with migrant bus arrivals. We will talk about how the immigrant experience has changed over the decades and what Catholics should consider when thinking about this issue during the coming general election.

In this episode, you will meet William Becerra, the Bilingual Advisor for national Hispanic engagement with Catholic Relief Services. We talk about his upbringing in Colombia, his experience as a religious missionary, and more!

• Word of the day: Discernment
• Catholic Social Teaching Theme: Solidarity

Ever wonder, what, if anything, do Catholic seminarians learn about social justice? Tune in to this episode to find out. You might be surprised at the answer!

Themes from the interview that connect to the themes of Catholic Social Teaching:

• The universal destination of goods
• Right to private property
• Subsidiarity

Word of the day: Distributism

In this episode, you will meet Amanda Montez. Amanda Montez Cobian is the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Jesuit High School in Portland, OR. She recently finished her graduate degree at the University of San Francisco in international and multicultural education. Her research centers alumni of Nativity schools and how they transition to predominantly white high schools. As a bi-racial educator, she aims to create the classroom environment she wished she could have had as a student and works to create systems of racial equity at work, in research, and as a co-author of Jesuit West's Community Organizing for Racial Equity (CORE).

Snippet from the interview:

"When I look at the seven principles of [Catholic Social Teaching], I think being able to name all humans have inherent dignity. To me, it's like that is the black lives matter movement; when I think about like preferential option for the poor and vulnerable that is saying by BIPOC right? It's not just saying people of color right. It's centering black and Indigenous and then people of color. I think that there's a lot of overlap actually."

Themes from the interview that connect to the themes of Catholic Social Teaching:

• Family, Community, and Participation: She trains staff, parents, and students on the many different ways to practice advocacy and participate in shaping a more just society.
• Preferential option for the poor and vulnerable: Amanda's work centers on black, indigenous, and people of color. She constantly finds herself at the margins of society. She has personal experience, for example accompanying and building relationships with migrant indigenous women, gang members, people at the border, and BIPOC middle school students transitioning to predominately white high schools.
• Solidarity: She's been on an immersion experience to El Salvador, where she went not on a service trip to fix problems but rather simply to listen and learn.

• Care for God's creation: The social justice she helps coordinate at her school focused on the climate and she brought in a climate organizer as a guest speaker

Resource mentioned in the interview

In this episode, I speak with Melissa Lowery. Melissa was the first Black woman to work as the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Jesuit High School, and is currently the Director of Equity and Community Engagement at Central Catholic High School in Portland. Her career in DEI at Catholic institutions was sparked by the creation of a documentary about her life growing up as Black girl in West Linn, Oregon. Listen to this episode to hear what inspired her to create this documentary about her life and how that led to the social justice work she now does with students.

Snippet from the interview

"So what if his skin turned the same color as yours? What's the big deal?"

In this episode, I speak with Annie Fox, the daughter of a Baptist mother and a Jewish father who has dedicated her life to interfaith relationship building and justice work.  She currently works as the Provincial Assistant for Social Ministry Organizing for Jesuits West. Fox has run grassroots campaigns focused on housing, homelessness, education, immigration, and mass incarceration. Here's our conversation at a glance:

• Favorite line from the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin
• Her upbringing in an interfaith family
• The multiple crises she experienced at the age of 7 and how her local school responded 
• The impact her mother's identity crisis had on her and how that eventually led her to organize
• Seeing the story of Exodus as the first labor strike in history
• Words of wisdom for people new in organizing

Snippet from the interview

"I remember my mother saying to me, “Annie I don’t know who I am if I don’t have a suit to put on in the morning.” […] I did not want my life or my mother’s life to be defined by whether or not we got to put a suit on in the morning. […]Any version of my life where my dignity is defined by whether or not I get to put on a suit in the morning is a fake dignity. My dignity comes from because I am a child of God.”

Word of the day: Activism

Catholic Social Teaching Themes:

• Human Dignity
• Family, Community, and Participation
• The dignity of work and rights of workers
• Solidarity

Want to connect with me? ReclaimingSJ@gmail.com

Have feedback? Send your thoughts and recommendations here:

Ana Ruiz is a young immigrant from Mexico who has spent most of her life directly or indirectly serving in ministry. Her earliest memory is at a retreat center where her parents served as marriage encounter leaders. Fast forward to today, she has recently graduated from Georgetown University where she majored in culture and politics and minored in theology and german and was the vice president of Catholic Women at Georgetown, a campus court of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas. She has interned at multiple well-known Catholic organizations such as the Catholic Labor Network and the USCCB, has helped organize the annual catholic social ministry gathering, and participated in a virtual synodal session with Pope Francis last February 2022.

In our discussion, we talked about all these personal and professional experiences, but we also talk about why she stays Catholic and works for justice despite coming into adulthood during one of the most difficult periods of history for everyone, but in particular Catholics, She has a very powerful, yet simple answer: It’s all about Jesus.

Excerpt: 

"Jesus' mission was not only to transform our hearts and minds but transform the world and transform those who are kind of stuck under these structures of sin that we are all responsible for. [...] It’s something Jesus did. The call to our faith is to model Jesus and so we have to model him in that way."

Word of the day: two feet of love in action

Related Episode:

In today’s interview, you will meet Cecilia Flores. Cecilia is the daughter of Filipino immigrants and has spent 15 years working with communities of faith to address issues of poverty and injustice in the US and in Central America. In our conversation, we speak about her missionary experience in Honduras, what we really mean by the phrase “meet people whey they are at”, the importance of remembering her motherland, culture and how that intersects with social justice, her experience as a first-generation American, raising intercultural kids, unity, and much more! 

Building a common language segment: Community Organizing

Source:

In this month's episode, you will meet Alex Quezada. Alex serves as Hispanic Ministry Coordinator at St. John Paul II Catholic Parish in Kankakee Illinois. Alex has also been working as Relief & Development Coordinator at the office for Human Dignity in the Diocese of Joliet since 20019. As an immigrant from Mexico, Alex works to promote social justice for all following the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. Given our shared cultural identities, we talked a lot about the immigrant experience but also touch on racial justice in the black community as well. We talked about the importance of names and the different ways immigrants like him have to put aside core parts of their identity just to be able to fit in to this country. We also talk about a really tough question his daughter once asked him while in High School and how she’s developed into an anti-racist advocate. 

Key Points

• Immigrants often have to renounce parts of their core identity just to fit in.
• Examples range from changing the pronunciation of your name or using a different name entirely to attire.
• If immigrants showed up in every space, but in particular professional settings, as their authentic selves they would be countercultural.
• This raises the question that Alex's own daughter once asked: why are immigrants always the ones who have to make such accommodations?  
• The Hispanic immigrant community espouses many positive values that could contribute to the broader society. These values link to the catholic social teaching principles of family, community, and participation. 

Building a common language: Anti-Racism

Source: 

• https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/06/ibram-x-kendi-definition-of-antiracist
• https://thejesuitpost.org/2020/07/catholic-101-should-a-catholic-be-an-antiracist/

Related Episodes: 

In today’s episode, I speak with Tom Ulrich. Tom Ulrich has over 40 years of professional experience in assisting faith communities and national organizations develop their social justice ministry efforts. Tom is the author of two books: Parish Social Ministry: Strategies for Action. (2001) and recently released ‘On Earth As It Is In Heaven’ - Organizing Social Justice Ministry in Faith Communities: A model that works. (2021). We cover the main themes and topics of his most recent book, of course, but we also touch on his own upbringing as a Catholic and how he was introduced to Catholic Social teaching. One of my takeaways from this conversation was the way he constantly links his work on social justice back to his family and vocation. 

It's the end of season 2! Check out this special episode featuring two clergies who share their different but complimentary perspectives on the immigration issue. Included in this episode is an apology/explanation for being MIA the past two months!

Have feedback? Send your thoughts and recommendations here:

This episode was recorded and is being released during women’s history month so we talk about influential women from her life, the blessings and challenges she has experienced as a woman in the church, and more broadly the role of women in the church. In the month of March we also solemnly remember and celebrate the lives of Blessed Rutilio Grande and Saint Oscar Romero, both martyrs from El Salvador, so we talk a bit about them and the impact their stories have on Salvadorans today. 

Snippet from the show

"If you don't see women sitting at the table...invite them in. Look around you." 

"They weren't casualties of war. These were men that the government found to be threatening because they were raising their voices for the atrocities that were being committed against the Salvadoran people. [...] They serve to be images of hope that we can aspire to be the voice for those that don't have a voice"

Learn about the Good News People, a small-group process of prayer, reflection, and action coming to St Anthony this Easter. Not a member of St Anthony? This episode might still be interesting to you because it deals with questions of our time like: Where are all the families? Why aren't they coming back? What can we do to attract them back to the church?

Hear the not so unusual story of a black man in the church. Auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, the most reverend Fernand Cheri, joins the podcast to share his lived experiences of racism in the seminary as well as the parish. He describes specific moments of crisis he has gone through in his ministry. Such as when he was refused ordination and the time he was ousted from a parish for bringing “strangers” to the church. He also talks about the difficulties of obedience and the power of trusting in God’s providence.

Snippet from the show

"I'm a priest today not because of the seminary. I think I'm a priest today because my story as a black man in the church is not an unusual story. Many of the Black priests that were ordained before me had the same story."

In this episode, you will meet Yohan Garcia from the USCCB. He talks about his experience growing up, who and what inspired him to live a faith that does justice, and the theology of Samaritan he has developed. 

Snippet from the show

"Our ticket to heaven is not going to depend on how many masses, how many rosaries, how many liturgies I went to but rather whether you were able to see the needs of those living on the road, the needy, with so many necessities. So for me, our faith has to be a mature faith that is able to take action. And that is done through the works of mercy and actions of social justice."

Excerpts from the teaching segment:

In this episode, I speak with Bert and Emma from the Simone Weil Catholic Worker House in Portland, Oregon. We talk about their community cooperative banking project and how this model is a tangible way to live Catholic social teaching, and most importantly, strengthen community bonds.

Snippet from the show

"this lending system actually becomes a way of deepening and strengthening community bonds. We don't usually think about taking out a loan as deepening and strengthening community Bonds in some profound way but this actually creates a way... to strengthen real relationships through...vulnerability and offering. [...] Our community here is trying to emphasize mutuality. This is not you know a handout to someone this is rather we're trying to create the kind of container that allows this to be a really mutual relationship."

How to Donate to Simone Weil Catholic Worker 

In this episode I interview Dr Ansel Augustine, author of the forthcoming book "Leveling the Praying Field: Can the Church We Love, Love Us Back? Dr Ansel also produced a 17-minute Emmy Nominated Documentary called "Black Faith Matters", which sheds light on "one story" of the Black Catholic experience. By listening to this episode you will not only get a sneek-peek of the new book but also hear his powerful testimony of faith and justice. This episode also includes a reflection on what it means to be your most authentic self.

Show Notes

In this episode, I speak with artist Brother Mickey McGrath who finds Christ and beauty in the margins. Listen and learn how art can be an instrument for healing the brokeness in today's world.

Learn more about Brother Mickey 

In this episode, I speak with Chloe Marie Becker, a young artist passionate about facilitating discussions about racism in the Catholic church through art. 

Learn more about Chloe at

In this episode, we talk about…

• Myths and misinformation about human trafficking; 
• Advocacy campaigns being led to eliminate trafficking; 
• How and why immigrants are targeted; 
• Our responsibility as our brother and sisters’ keeper; 
• How parishes can get involved

Learn more 

Meet Samantha Yanity, Justice Educator for Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center, who talks to us about how they 'think globally but act locally' to fight against human trafficking. Specifically, we talk about...

• How Trafficking is a modern form of slavery; 
• Catholic Social Teaching on Human Trafficking; 
• How trafficking intersects with other social justice issues; and
• Actions we can all take to combat trafficking.

Learn more 

Listen to this episode to learn more about what the church teaches about the death penalty and ways you can take action. To learn more about on this topic, check out the link belows which are mentioned in this episode.

In this episode, you will meet Cherice Bock, creation justice advocate for the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. From our conversation, you will learn the biblical basis of creation as well as what St. Agustine of Hippo taught on the subject.  To learn more about Cherice and EMO, see the links below.