![]() What connects them is how we treat each other, in ensuring basic human needs, dignity, and community for all. ![]() In Francis words: We must have an ‘integral ecology’ problems and solutions are connected. It was not one I recall from my so-called “formative years.” Yet it is one that today’s college-aged young people need to hear because foundational global social, economic, and environmental tipping points are now being reached and must be honestly, quickly, and collectively addressed. This is not a message that many young people are used to hearing. Our global environmental problems today, especially climate change, and any meaningful solutions to them, cannot be separated from our deepening neglect and exploitation of the powerless. Gutierrez’s call for “ a preferential option for the poor.” That social gospel, and the world, and especially the poor of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and beyond had a right to it. The single idea that stuck fast to my heart and soul, across all those years and life experiences, was: Fr. These books, those authors, and that course changed my life. Our assigned course readings and discussions were simply amazing to me, an aspiring political science major with a growing interest in the world.įorty years later, I have not saved many of my undergraduate textbooks but I still have these two on my Roe office shelf today: Paulo Freire, A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation. My professor was one of those social gospel advocating Jesuits. ![]() One that jumped out at me was titled: “Theology of Liberation.” In the fall of my sophomore year– 1975– I enrolled. By the 1970s, when I arrived, this could be satisfied by a vast array of course offerings, not just Bible or Roman Catholic theology. Like most church-affiliated institutions, Marquette’s College of Liberal Arts had a Religion core requirement. Never mind that when I started college at age 18 I mostly wanted to be a lawyer and get rich. I chose Marquette because it was where my father had gone and because I was intrigued by the idea of getting a “Jesuit education.” I knew that Jesuits were all about the social gospel, about a church that was relevant to peoples’ lives and problems about social justice and serving the poor. For me and my friends, the church seemed increasingly irrelevant in our daily lives and was mostly about rules and prohibitions. Like many disillusioned young Catholics, despite all those years of Catholic school education, I found myself drifting away. ![]() This “social gospel” was not something that people in my family circle understood or put much stock in. Struggling though my teen years in a strongly Roman Catholic family and attending a Catholic high school during the post-Vatican II era, I did not often extend my religious and spiritual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors much beyond challenging the orthodox creed, code, and cult of weekly worship. This is a call for a new kind of Global Experiential Education, and indeed one that Central College is already well-equipped to provide. This is a call for social and economic justice and human rights for all people but most especially for the billions of struggling rural and urban poor in developing countries. His message to all people, especially Christians, is that we are morally bound to care for all creation, particularly all people, including those living on Earth today and also those to come in future generations. It was a powerful wake up call for me, transporting me back to ideas, principles, and values I had first encountered exactly 40 years ago in my undergraduate education at Marquette University. I recently finished reading Pope Francis Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |