- I took a class in high school about social justice.
- I went on a mission trip that forever changed the way that I look at the poor. I started to ask how such poverty could exist in our world.
- A friend of mine was really into social justice, and he kept bringing it up in conversation.
- I got involved in service projects through campus ministry.
- I grew up in a parish that did a lot with social justice.
- I still don't really know about the Church's teachings on social justice, but I want to learn more. I never heard about this kind of stuff in my parish or school or youth group when I was growing up.
I also had the chance to view some of the artwork done by junior high and high school students as part of the CCHD's annual art contest to raise awareness of poverty and the effort to create long-term solutions to the problems of poverty. The paintings, drawings and graphic illustrations by these young people were incredible - click here to see some of the images.
I was so impressed by how these teenagers were able to reflect on and empathize with the reality of poverty in our country. They painted portraits of homeless men and women, of immigrants shunned by society, of their own classmates who go hungry, of racism as a root cause of poverty. The subjects of their artwork were often pictured alone - utterly broken and lonely in an uncaring society - but other times they were pictured in the embrace of Christ. Poverty is not a subject that artists often choose to study, and if they do so, it is rarely with such an honest or compassionate approach as the work of these young people. This was yet another sign of hope for me - it can be so easy to dismiss teenagers as selfish and egocentric, but when they are challenged to explore what it means to be marginalized in today's society, they are able to give a voice to the voiceless. I am beginning to see how the option for the poor and the option for the young can go hand-in-hand...
For those of you who work with young people, how do you get them interested in social justice?
For those of you who are young adults, how have you learned about the connections between Christian faith and work for justice?
2 comments:
i was just having a conversation about social justice with a freshly graduated high school senior. since she graduated from a catholic high school, she informed me in the conversation that her religion teacher said that they had covered social justice as sophomores when they as a class watched the ten commandments in class. WHAT???
we wonder why young people don't know what social justice is, and yet, i find that young adults are more willing to engage social justice than "older adults". there is still an idealism and implicit understanding that the world can change- and who better to bring about this change than themselves?
as with many learnings- i think that the best way to learn about social justice is to experience the opposite- to experience the injustice, resolve to change, and then change the system. certainly this will not be easy, or even welcomed by some, but if done with a spirit of prayer, respect for others, and a willingnss to do what is right- and not what is popular-change will happen.
G - great point about the best way to learn about social justice being to explore when we ourselves have experienced injustice. Everyone has experienced something of the dehumanization that comes with being frustrated by some structure or system bigger than us, out of our control. So to ask people to name what that experience was like for them and how it may have changed their way of thinking could be a great starting point for considering what injustices other people live with as daily realities.
And I did have to laugh at the idea of Cecil B. DeMiles being the source of social justice teaching, but I did just read an interesting weaving of the 10 Commandments & Catholic Social Teaching. Thomas Massaro's book talks about the 1st-3rd commandments as acknowledging certain obligations towards God ("the call to worship and praise God, to observe the Sabbath in appropriate ways, to respect the name of the Lord, and to be mindful of all that is holy"), while the 4th-10th commandments describe our moral duties to others ("to respect life in all its forms, to preserve the beauty of the natural environment, and to avoid all actions (such as stealing, lying, adultery, and murder) that harm other people"). But Massaro goes on to point out that Christians are called to see that duties to God and duties towards others can never be separated: "...the devout Christian recognizes these obligations as cut from the same cloth, as part of a seamless response to a God whose boundless love is reflected in the goodness of all created things. There is an indivisible unity in our web of relationships that leads us to pursue love and justice toward all" (p. 83).
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