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Workers’ rights, workers’ victory

From Interfaith Worker Justice:

Interfaith Worker Justice congratulates the United Electrical Workers Local 1110 for a historic victory that ended a six-day occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago. Last night, the company’s workers voted to accept a $1.75 million settlement.

“Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the rights of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked”
Psalm 82:3-4

The Republic workers would have been forgotten if they hadn’t stood up — by sitting down and occupying their factory. They captured the attention and the support of people of faith, and sent shock waves through corporate board rooms across the nation.

solidarnoscAbsolutely true. The workers would have been caught up in court wrangling (something they couldn’t afford) and government bureaucracy in an attempt to obtain the wages they had earned. They faced a Federal government that has all but given up on wage and hour enforcement under the Bush Administration, the white tie and tails folks. The workers only choice was to stand up by sitting down — much like Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Walęsa did in the dawning days of Solidarity.

This is a victory to be celebrated by the thousands of people who stood in solidarity with the workers: people like you who took the time to send messages to Bank of America and rallied at banks across the country.

The Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, an IWJ affiliate, has been working closely with Local 1110 since day one. On Tuesday of this week, IWJ members from around the country rallied alongside Chicago Interfaith Committee in supporting workers.

Both the Republic Windows victory and this week’s news of Wal-Mart’s $54 million settlement of a class-action suit over unpaid wages highlight wage theft, a national crisis on which IWJ and its national network of workers centers are playing a leading role in tackling.

IWJ Executive Director Kim Bobo has written the first book to deal with this issue. In a happy coincidence, her Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid – And What We Can Do About It, was published this week, during the Republic sit-in.

While we celebrate the Republic victory, we are going to see hundreds of factory closings in the coming months, and the question is: will workers be paid what they’re owed? And while the Wal-Mart settlement is welcome news, 60 additional wage theft lawsuits remain pending, cases involving billions of dollars that have been stolen from and are owed to millions of workers.

Workers should never be ashamed of expressing their rights and their demands. That is their bargaining strength. We all assume that we have some measure of control, saying: ‘I work for who I choose.” Unfortunately the benefits of our labor, be it physical or intellectual, rarely inure to our benefit in proportion to our sacrifice. If we demand that we be compensated equitably we are seen as pariahs. The government, press, and many of our fellow workers look at us with disdain. ‘So you didn’t get paid — just quit, move on. So they took advantage of you, that’s just life.’

As people of faith we cannot move on, get over it, and most especially we cannot accept a life based on one-upmanship. I am a member and a deacon of the PNCC, a Church whose founder, Bishop Hodur, stood up for workers’ rights. I live in a Church, founded by immigrants and laborers, who from its beginning championed the dignity and rights of those immigrants and workers. I see the extent of abuse that goes on to this day (and people think the days of sweat shops, slave labor, and child labor are long gone – they’re not!), I can say that one must stand up, whether through advocacy, preaching, teaching, or sitting-in. People of faith must witness against inequality based on advantage and power.

Christian Witness, Perspective

Consequences implicit when quoting Jesus

Rod Watson pegs it in his Buffalo News commentary: Consequences implicit when quoting Jesus

In the midst of the season devoted to celebrating Jesus’ birth, a group of scholars will descend on the Center for Inquiry in Amherst this weekend to explore whether he actually existed.

If they can prove he didn’t, that would explain a lot, considering the mayhem and meltdowns all around.

But if they can prove he really did exist, that might be even worse.

I don’t claim to be a biblical expert like, say, Rush Limbaugh. But even a cursory reading of what Jesus is supposed to have said is enough to make one shudder at the consequences if the scholars here prove he really did say those things —” and that he expected us to listen up.

Consider:

Whatever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do it for me. (Matthew 25:40)…

Read the rest. A great article.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC

Feast of Divine Love

From Holy Name Parish in South Deerfield, Massachusetts and Fr. Randy Calvo: Don’t Let It Pass Unobserved

December 8th is one of those sacred days on our church calendar that is unique to the National Catholic Church. That it is unique bothers some people because they associate it with separation, that if no one else has it and we do, then we are different, and different implies separate. I never appreciated the logic of this reasoning. I know when studying the four Gospels, for example, that the unique materials in each one of them are invaluable in our attempts to understand the perspective and purpose of the author. The unique materials do not separate the Gospels from each other; they enhance one another so that we can have a fuller understanding of the Good News. They look at Jesus from different angles, not giving us separate pictures of Him, but rather a more developed one.

The Feast of Divine Love is unique, but that is part of its importance. It could only have arisen in a church such as ours, from a perspective such as ours. It says much about who we are, and also in that process about how God has revealed Himself to us. This feast day replaces the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which refers to a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The same Pope associated this teaching and feast with his resistance to the emerging democracies of the modern world. He issued the Syllabus of Errors intentionally on this date in 1864. This official document ridicules the authority of human reason, intellectual progress and science, freedom of religion and ecumenism. It states that the church should have temporal power, even military power, and that not only should there be no separation of church and state, but that the church should stand above the state.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception was also used by this Pope to sanction his own infallibility. He opened Vatican Council I on this date in 1869. This Council declared in 1870 that the Pope’s authority is universal and infallible. This new proclamation set off a series of events that led to the creation of the Old Catholic Church. Old refers to the old ways of the church before the Pope had himself newly declared infallible. In 1907, Fr. Francis Hodur was consecrated a bishop by the Old Catholic Church in Utrecht, Holland. With his consecration, Bp. Hodur signed the Declaration of Utrecht, which was promulgated in 1889, in direct opposition to the theology of Vatican Council I. With that act, Bp. Hodur, on behalf of our church, formally and specifically rejected the new theology of papal infallibility.

By this same act, he also endorsed the Old Catholic rejection of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and for fundamental theological reasons. Mary is the source of Jesus’ human nature. If her human nature is not our full human nature, that is, if she is born free of —original sin— and we are not, if, in other words, she is born —immaculate— and we are born sinful, then the nature she passes on to Jesus is not ours. If that is the case, then Jesus’ incarnation and thus His act of salvation, is compromised. We, therefore, must reject the theology of the Immaculate Conception.

We have been and are a progressive, democratic Catholic church, and since we have formally rejected the theology of this day and the theological pronouncements associated with it, it is only logical that we would replace the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a theologically more tenable celebration. That celebration is the Feast of Divine Love. The Feast of Divine Love speaks about creation as a testament of God’s love. The physical universe is a wonder to be marveled at, not one to be ridiculed as inherently sinful. We are stewards of creation when made in the likeness of God, not its masters. This being the case, reason, science and progress are not to be fended-off in fear or anger, but embraced as part of God’s revelation (see Romans 1:20). Likewise, reason and free will are how we are created in God’s image as an act of divine love. For these to flourish we must advocate for democracy in the state and the church. This is our feast day in a practical and profound way. This is our perspective that we alone share with the world about God to better understand God. Don’t let it pass unobserved.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective, ,

Eternal rest grant onto him

On Friday the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexy II passed on to eternal life. May the perpetual light shine upon him.

Like Russia he was an enigma, and because he lived during these moments in history he was more so.

I think we, as Americans, fail to perceive the complexities of life in other countries, and especially in countries we perceive as threats. We tend to view things as black and white especially when the media and government feed us “acceptable perspectives.” Think back to communism in the Soviet Union and that imposed by Russia upon the states that were sold off by their British and American allies (yes, our leaders sold people into slavery and death). We think of intellectual oppression, gulags, and a lack of toilet paper and shoes. Of course things on the ground, day-to-day life, relationships between families and friends were far more complex.

A funny story. When I was in Poland for the first time I marveled at the fact that people knew and appreciated all sorts of American and British music from the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s — Paul Anka, the Beatles. I was indoctrinated to think that people sat in apartment blocks, poorly built buildings, shivering in small apartments filled with at least 10 bodies, weeping over their misfortune, longing for democracy. I thought that the music they were referencing was verboten. In retrospect it was silly, but I needed that encounter. I needed to hear their stories before I could truly understand the reality, the positives and negatives of the system.

Right now some of Poland’s former leaders are on trial. Here’s a reference to: Poland’s former leader on trial from the BBC.

Poland’s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, has gone on trial accused of committing a crime by imposing martial law in 1981.

I sincerely doubt that these were great or brave men in the majority of their actions. Rather, they were weak and selfish in many rights, using the system to their benefit, accommodating base principals. The real tragedy is that happens in every system, including the good old U. S. of A. It is one of the reasons I sincerely dislike the process of lustration. Men and women will take advantage regardless of the system. These folks will not be the protesters, the ones who stand behind barricades fighting to change the system. Those actions are for the poor and disenfranchised. These folks — the ex-communist businessmen, the oligarchs — just morph into the proper role for the times. The system has changed, but in name only; only in its methods of exploitation.

So this was the environment for Alexy, for the clergy subject under these systems. Did they make unfortunate choices, did they make errors, were they less than absolutely perfect? Certainly. Will they do so under the current system? For sure, just look to the sins of religious leaders in the United States. Before we judge, or throw stones, or expect absolute perfection, let’s take a moment to understand, to talk, and to encounter. We will find that nothing is black and white, nothing is perfect, nothing is as we have been led to believe.

What does matter is that all of us, like Alexy II, are on that road to God. Climbing the ladder to that ultimate union includes the discovery that perfection exists in God alone. Our love for Him, our desire for life in Him, are the impulses that grow as we grow closer to Him. If we focus ourselves on our climb and the rooting out of our imperfections, then we will have made real progress.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC,

And the bishop cried

I simply liked this post from OrthoCuban (the Rev. Ernesto M. Obregón of the Antiochian Orthodox Church): And the bishop cried.

…And, so, I am glad to say, —and the bishop cried.— Yes, he does dress up like a Byzantine emperor and he does sit in the middle of the church. But, in his case, he sits in the middle of the church like the heart sits in the middle of the body. May God grant him many years.

The post so reminds me of our bishops in the PNCC. They are men with the gift of discernment and most especially men who are fathers to their flock. May God bless them with many years. Sto Lat!

Christian Witness, Perspective,

Remembering Odetta Holmes

A tribute to Odetta by John Guzlowski at Living in Partial Light:

…She was just there sitting on the lawn playing her guitar. They had asked her down for a concert or something, and she was just playing a guitar and singing on the lawn.

Her voice was so natural. She saw me standing listening to her, and she asked me to sit down and sing with her, and I was embarrassed. I apologized and said I didn’t have much of a voice. She said that’s fine, “If you can talk you can sing.” Then she started humming. It was a song called “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.”

She played it and then she started singing it, but it was more like talking than singing, and I knew the song so I talked it as she talked it.

It was pleasant, like a conversation. She wanted me to feel comfortable.

What I like about the post is that it recalls a person who lived her humanity. All talent aside, one person’s humanity is worth more than 10,000 forgotten concerts or millions of dollars. Odetta Holmes stood up, lending her voice to the struggle for civil rights. Standing up is more than words. If it is only word those are the words of false prophets, gangsters, and hucksters. When words meet actions we stand in moments imprinted by Christ Jesus, moments that call us to our potential. May the angels guide her home.

Christian Witness, PNCC

Service and witness

From The Republican: Kitchen’s fare said ‘fantastic’

WESTFIELD – Robert Cyran enjoys being at Our Community Table – also known as the Westfield Soup Kitchen – to eat turkey with strangers on the last Thursday of November.

“This is the day when you wanna be thankful for whatever you have; I am thankful for my health, good patience, and peace of mind,” said the Westfield resident who has been going to the 101 Meadow St. facility for “three straight years.”

A traditional Thanksgiving table was set for about 60 diners at the former Hotel Westfield on Thanksgiving Day, said Edward J. Fournier, who coordinates the volunteers and the meal’s preparation.

The menu featured mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, turnips, cranberries, pies, rolls, and “six big carved turkeys,” said Fournier.

“Meals have been delicious – just fantastic,” pronounced Cyran.

The group that prepares free meals for needy people six days a week was ready to provide the holiday dinner for anyone who showed up, Fournier said.

“I don’t know yet how many people would come during the day, but we’ve got plenty of food,” he said. “We are going to do seconds and everything else.”

So far, the supply of donated foods has not slowed for Our Community Table.

“We are thankful for the opportunity for the workers at this kitchen, that they have the opportunity to help, because there may have been times when they were ministered, too,” said the Very Rev. Joseph Soltysiak of St. Joseph’s Polish National Catholic Church. “And now they have the opportunity to minister.”

The volunteers included Susan Tremblay, who went to help serve along with her sons, Nathan, 13, and Trey, 15.

The Tremblays volunteer regularly at the soup kitchen, said Nathan.

“I do drinks and serve them,” he said. “I usually come here on Mondays and holidays.”

The decorations for the event were made by Southwick students, said Fournier.

The Samaritan Inn homeless shelter on Free Street served a Thanksgiving Day meal for about 30 people.

“That’s our usual attendance,” said Peter C. Gillis, executive director.

He also noted that the shelter’s contributors have been generous.

“We are struggling just like everybody else, but we are all set with our food supplies,” he said.

Christian Witness, PNCC, Political,

Your prayers and support needed in the case of Andrzej Nowakowski

Your prayers are requested for Vivian and Andrzej Nowakowski and their family. Also of your charity, please drop a note to Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman requesting their intervention in the case.

From the New Britain Herald: Andrzej’s case up for review

The case of a city man imprisoned for listing prior convictions on a green card renewal application is being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He could be freed. The review is a victory for his family, including a wife who has spent thousands of dollars and much of her time in court, writing letters, seeking help from officials and otherwise worrying since his April 23 arrest by immigration officials.

Andrzej Nowakowski, 43, of New Britain, who came to America from Poland when he was 9 years old, has a criminal history for drug convictions. As a chronic pain patient, he became addicted to oxycodone.

There was never talk of deportation when he pleaded guilty, served his time, kicked his addiction and was working and taking care of his ailing father-in-law and wife, Vivian, who needs a kidney transplant.

Health officials listed Andrzej as her caregiver on the kidney transplant list. She will lose her place on the list without a caregiver at home, which could kill her, and no one else would be as well suited to the job. Health professionals familiar with the case cite Andrzej’s experience and the couple’s shared immunity to germs.

—My whole family needs me,— Andrzej said during a phone interview Friday from the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., where he is being held. —I need to be out there for the sake of my wife. She needs me out there. I am really concerned about her health and the health of my in-laws. I will do anything to get her healthy. But they want to deport me.—

Andrzej said he still has chronic pain in his back, but he has learned to live with it.

—I don’t want to do any drugs,— he said. —My wife’s life is on the line.—

Nowakowski’s son, David Lombardo —” Andrzej raised him as his own after Vivian’s prior marriage —” is a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps in California, awaiting an April deployment to Iraq after training other marines how to fight and survive in the field.

Although Andrzej respects the fact that —my son is a patriot,— he said what the country is doing to him and his wife is wrong.

The review could be a correction to that, and could take place at any time.

But immigration officials won’t let Andrzej out if they see him as a danger to the community —” he has no record of violence —” or as a flight risk.

Letting her husband out to care for her is a safe bet, Vivian said, because —if he does anything to screw it up, I will deport him myself.—

Jokes aside, Vivian said, —He would never skip. Where would he skip?—

Lombardo, who was home for a Thanksgiving visit to his parents’ High Street home with his fiancee, Jennifer Ramirez, noted that Andrzej was co-owner of an area family business and always paid off his car payments and taxes. —It is not like he is some drug addict with no money. He has paid his taxes, supported his family and supported his community,— Lombardo said.

Immigration officials also take into consideration such things as —disciplinary problems while incarcerated,— which does not apply to his father.

—While incarcerated he has never caused any problems,— Lombardo said. —He has been in this country for 35 years. He has done his time [for the past crimes]. None of this applies.—

Ramirez choked back tears as she explained the situation and vouched for the integrity of her soon-to-be father-in-law.

—Everyone is guilty of temptation,— she said. —This is a man who married a woman, regardless of her sickness, knowing that they couldn’t have kids, and raised David as his own. He is a good-hearted man.—

Vivian walked across the carpeted living room and hugged Jennifer.

—I want the whole family together for Christmas,— Vivian said.

She has been depressed during the fight for her husband’s freedom, especially since learning Aug. 29 she’d lost an appeal on his behalf. In addition to missing her husband and being faced with her own death, she has had to deal with the deteriorating health of her father, who was recently hospitalized for his severe heart and kidney problems.

Seeing her son and Ramirez on Thanksgiving cheered her up.

While Vivian is resigned that her fate and that of her husband —is in God’s hands,— her son hopes the officials reviewing his father’s case are able to see it for what it is.

—I am looking at this optimistically,— said Lombardo, adding that he could not believe his father had been arrested in the first place.

—He is her life partner,— he said, and will be caring for his mother and for her father at home.

A Homeland Security source in Washington, D.C., who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to comment on the case, suggested earlier this month that Vivian needs somebody to —carry the spear for her,— even after letters of support were sent from New Britain’s Common Council, the city’s legislative delegation and U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District.

Sources said Donald Kent, then assistant secretary of the office of legal affairs for the department, never got the materials and wasn’t the right person to receive them. Officials at the congressman’s office, however, believed his letter had merely failed to change the status of Andrzej’s deportation order.

Kent has since resigned and been replaced.

Vivian needs someone such as U.S. Sens. Chris Dodd or Joseph Lieberman, both Connecticut Democrats, Murphy or someone at the federal level to fight for her behind the scenes, the Homeland Security source said.

Immigration officials are human beings too, and can have compassion, the source said.

…

Now that her son is by her side, she has drawn renewed strength and faith in God, she said.

The family attends the Polish National Catholic Church of the Transfiguration and Our Savior.

—People with no compassion haven’t lived a hard-enough life,— Lombardo said.

Lombardo is leaving today, but plans to return at Christmas.

Christian Witness, Poland - Polish - Polonia,

Ecumenical charity in Poland

From the English section of Polish Radio: Christmas Candle Campaign launched

The annual national Christmas candle campaign launches today at all churches and denominations in Poland.

For 14 years now, the Polish Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches have joined in a fund-raising campaign for children, selling special candles which are traditionally lit at the table on Christmas Eve.

This year the organizers are also drawing special attention to the problem of “euro-orphans” —“ children whose parents have gone to work abroad.

Also, part of the proceeds this year will be going towards helping children in Africa.

The program’s principal sponsor is Caritas.

An ecumenical prayer service and concert kicked-off this year’s campaign. The concert and service was held on November 30th at St. Mary Magdalene Orthodox Church in Warsaw. Bishops Henryk Hozer and Tadeusz Pikus of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishops Ryszard Bogusz and Ryszard Borski of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland and Bishop JERZY Pańkowski of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland represented their respective denominations. The children’s choir —žŚwiatełko— from St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Parish in Siedlcach, the choir from Ascension of the Lord Evangelical-Augsburgian Parish in Warsaw, and the Choir from the host parish, St. Mary Magdalene’s each performed.

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