Vision and Leadership Dear Members This Fall the NETWORK Act Justly, Love Tenderly NETW RK Staff Has Been All Over the and Walk Humbly with Your God
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PEOPLE LOBBYING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 Vision and Leadership dear members This fall the NETWORK Act justly, love tenderly NETW RK staff has been all over the and walk humbly with your God. A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby country speaking on vot- NETWORK—a Catholic leader ing for the common good. Micah 6:8 in the global movement We are so heartened by for justice and peace— educates, organizes and the response that we have lobbies for economic received. Everywhere we go and social transformation. we meet committed indi- NETWORK Board of Directors viduals, families and groups Mary Ann Brenden Marie Lucey, OSF Marie Clarke Brill Rhonda Meister working together to make Simone Campbell, SSS Kateri Mitchell, SSA Joan Carey, SSJ Mary Ann Nestel, CSJ sense of our world by put- Advent Blessings to All Cathleen Crayton Judith Braitmayer Sharpe ting our faith into action. Mary Ann Gaido Sandra Thibodeux, MMB Linda Howell-Perrin, LSW Mary T. Yelenick Also, all over the country Barbara Lange Peter J. Zografos more people are signing up NETWORK Education Program Board of Directors to be part of our e-advocacy Contents Elizabeth Dahlman Kit Hinga, SSJ program. This is great as we Katherine Feely, SND Dorothy Jackson, SCN envisioning Jennifer Haut Kathleen Phelan, OP get ready to participate in Our World Hungers for New NETWORK Staff the 111th Congress. We are 3 Communications Coordinator/Editor— Leadership Stephanie Niedringhaus poised to be more effective Simone Campbell, SSS, sees the economic Coordinator of Annual Giving—Hanna Rutz than ever. crisis as yet another call for new ways of Executive Director—Simone Campbell, SSS leading. Field Coordinator—Jean Sammon So at this time of IT Coordinator—Joy Wigwe Thanksgiving and Advent, cover story Lobbyists—Marge Clark, BVM; I want to express my per- Leadership: More Integrity Catherine Pinkerton, CSJ 4 than Politics Major GIfts Coordinator—John R. Price, D.Min. sonal gratitude to you for NETWORK Associates—Katrine Herrick, Joan Chittister, OSB, calls our nation’s Stephanie Riccobene, Kelly Trout helping to make NET- leaders—and each of us in turn—to rebel Office/Membership Coordinator—Ann Dunn WORK the wonderful orga- against injustice and to move our nation and world into a hopeful future. NETWORK Education Program Staff nization that it is. I am so Coordinator—Sara Dwyer, ASC proud and grateful to know focus on the hill Articles in NETWORK Connection may be that I lobby with all of you As the 110th Congress reprinted. Please include the following on 8 the reprints: “Reprinted with permission around the country who Draws to a Close from NETWORK, a National Catholic So- care about the common Congress grapples with an unprecedented cial Justice Lobby, 25 E Street NW, Suite economic crisis and much unfinished business. 200, Washington, DC 20001, www.net- good. It gives such mean- worklobby.org.” Please send us a copy of ing to my life and prayer toward a global community the reprinted article. I Teach about Women in November/December 2008—Vol. 36, No. 6 to know that we are in this 10 NETWORK Connection together. THANKS! This Global Economy ISSN 0199-5723 Dr. Shyamala Raman teaches her college Published bimonthly by NETWORK And now, let us embrace students to question traditional views of PHONE 202-347-9797 FAX 202-347-9864 women in this evolving world. E-MAIL : [email protected] in this Advent of 2008 a WEB SITE : www.networklobby.org sense of waiting and act- POStmaSter: Send addreSS CHangeS to highlighting people ing. We are waiting for the NETWORK • 25 E Street NW, Suite 200 Justice in this New Millennium Washington, DC 20001 new Congress and Admin- 12 Dr. Bernard J. Offerman helps us understand Annual dues: $50/$60 international. istration, but we are also the meaning of social justice. Copyright © 2008 NETWORK. striving to embrace our Cover: sunset by Joseph Helfenberger, others spread the word by NETWORK. L–R: Convention for the Common faith more fully. We await Good delegates; Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) Advent Reflection: and Rep. Nancy Kaptur (D-OH) address the the birth of God in our 13 Leadership Starts With Us Convention; Common Good Choir. lives too. Let us celebrate Copy, distribute and reflect on this look at how we can all become leaders for justice. together this renewal of our SAVE THE DATE ! willingness together to be making a differencee Join NETWORK at the one Body of God. Your Vision and Action for Advent faith sustains us! 15 The Rev. John Price, an Episcopal priest and Ecumenical NETWORK’s Major Gifts Coordinator, tells us May we be support for how the season of Advent invites us to support Advocacy Days each other during the chal- NETWORK in new ways. THEME: lenging days ahead! ENOUGH FOR ALL Comments on this issue? Ideas for future issues of MARch 13–16, 2009 Connection? Let us hear from you! WASHINGTON DC [email protected] www.advocacydays.org 2 Connection November/December 2008 www.networklobby.org envisioning Our World Hungers TOBIAS HELBIG TOBIAS for New Leadership BY SIMONE CAMP B ELL , SSS the spread of free market capi- society and toward a sustainable society talism as the way to shared for all. We are challenged to step away prosperity. This “liberal” eco- from militaristic nationalism and toward nomic policy is favored by the a sense of nation that embraces diplo- economic conservatives in the macy and cooperation. In short, we are U.S. and demonized by the left. challenged to be the leaders we need. There is no middle ground. There It will not be easy. It requires quiet is no institution or policy that pro- listening hearts to hear the suffering vides leadership for an integrated around us and the nudges to respond world that can balance trade and in new ways. It also requires the brazen- development, peacekeeping and open ness to speak out for new policies and markets. All of this polarization works a new balanced economy that includes effectively as long as there is cooperation new regulation. But most important of and expanding markets. No one needs a all, this call to leadership means that we We have just come through a grueling leader…until there is a crisis. must let our lives proclaim our faith and two-year election process to choose a Now we face a crisis of huge propor- solidarity with the whole human family. Wleader for our country. We are in peril- tions. In the 1990s and the early part of This is what it means to live our faith ous economic times where the question this decade, we instituted policies that in the twenty-first century. The time is often is, “Whose leadership should we dismantled the U.S. market’s oversight now. Let us together make this an Advent follow?” The public skepticism of the mechanisms. We urged other nations practice—our nation and our world are Bush Administration has made it more through the G-7 to embrace a “free mar- hungry for our presence. difficult to believe that Secretary of the ket” approach (meaning no restraints). Treasury Paulson has an effective anti- We ensured that the IMF and the World Simone Campbell, SSS, is NETWORK’s dote to the economic crisis. It is chal- Bank required nations to open their Executive Director. lenging domestically to find a leader we markets and remove constraints in order can trust. to participate in the global economy. But there is an added complexity to Now we wonder: where are the leaders this search for leadership. When I was in to bring us out of this chaos? the Middle East in January of this year, As I ponder this dilemma, I real- many people urged us to remember that ize that something new is called when we elect a president of our coun- for. It is what we at NETWORK try we are also electing a leader for the have been working for over world. They begged us to remember the the last few years. We need world when we vote. This insight was more than smart politicians heightened when the world economic and economists who are markets responded so quickly to the willing to blend formerly U.S. economic troubles. Europe had dif- polarized views. Instead, ficulty responding because while they we need smart, engaged had an integrated economy, their system people who are willing to of governance was separate. chart a new course. We An additional complexity emerges are being called to come when we think of the existing global together to insist on the structures. The United Nations has seen common good and create its greatest policy successes in health something new. We are chal- and development as well as peacekeep- lenged to step away from our RTZ A ing activities. It is the institution favored fear-based individualism and CHW S by progressives in the U.S. and not sup- toward a sense of society as a A ported by conservatives. The Interna- whole. We are challenged to step DR tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and the away from measuring success as per- World Bank have as their policy agenda sonal wealth in a consumption-based www.networklobby.org November/December 2008 Connection 3 Leadership: More Integrity than Politics BY JOAN CHITTI S TER , OSB At the end of WWII, the dark time The world for which we seek leaders It is a cruel, unkind, glorious and grand Aremembered everywhere still—a time now is unbelievably affluent for some world. of defeated peoples, and destroyed but unmercifully impoverished for One right step and the whole world nations—commentator Walter Lippman others.