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Worker Justice events

Supporting the Del Posto Workers’ Campaign for Justice & Respect!

A Fair Food Potluck will take place in front of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Del Posto Restaurant in support of the more than restaurant 40 workers at who are fighting to improve their workplace. They demand that managers be trained to stop discrimanation, racism, sexual harassment, and verbal and physical abuse on the job! The workers are also demanding an end to wage theft and the misappropriation of their tips by the company.

The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY) is a non-profit organization that seeks improved working conditions for restaurant workers citywide. ROC-NY assists restaurant workers seeking legal redress against employers who violate their employment rights. ROC-NY seeks to provide customers and the public with information about the litigation in this restaurant through these handbills, not to interfere with current workers or with deliveries.

Last Chance to Register for IWJ’s June 19-21 National Conference!

Share strategies for building labor-religion partnerships, fighting wage theft and strengthening worker centers by attending IWJ’s National Conference in Chicago June 19-21! Click here to register!

Special plenary and workshop sessions have been added on the Public Sector Worker Fights in response to the vicious attacks on public sector workers. Come learn, strategize, and collaborate as we take a stand against these unprecedented attacks. As people of faith, we are called to step forth and condemn these outrageous attacks on teachers, police officers, fire fighters, public health workers, and other public employees who provide vital services to our communities. An attack on public sector workers is an attack on all workers.

A pre-conference Interfaith Theological Symposium for Worker Justice will also take place. The interfaith symposium is a gathering of theologians, students, religious activists and labor leaders to connect with and be supported by the theological groundings offered within different faith traditions. The interactive symposium will highlight presentations from Muslim, Jewish and Christian experts in the field of economic justice.

If you can’t make the whole conference, join in on Monday June 20 for IWJ’s 15th Anniversary Celebration, which will include tasty appetizers, fine wines, inspiring union songs and gospel music, and 400 religious and labor activists. Reconnect with former staff, leaders, summer interns, and seminarians. Meet the new leaders of the worker center movement. Buy your tickets today or donate $100 so that one of IWJ’s senior citizen volunteers can enjoy the party!

United Brotherhood of Carpenters website on Employer Payroll Fraud: It’s time to play by the rules:

Learn about Worker Misclassification, Workers Comp Fraud, Untaxed Cash Pay, Money Laundering, and Racketeering and how these employer payroll frauds steal from taxpayers, the government, and insurers. It violates workers’ rights and costs jobs for law-abiding companies and their employees. Learn more about these multi-billion-dollar crimes and growing state and federal efforts to fight back.

Florida’s video: Cheat to Compete:

From Florida’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Fraud (BWCF), Division of Insurance Fraud. The video shows fraud schemes seen in the construction industry. Think what you are building is safe and above board? Always ask if your contractor’s workers are employees or independent contractors. If they are “independent contractors” choose someone else. When push comes to shove, the company you contract with will take no responsibility for the work of its alleged “independent contractors” who may also be uninsured.

Christian Witness, Events, PNCC, , ,

Consecration of Bishop Elect Flemstead of the Nordic Catholic Church Announced

We have a rather momentous occasion to take place on the last Monday of July, July 25, 2011 the Feast of St. James the Greater, Apostle.

Through the ministry of Bishop Thaddeus Peplowski (Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese), a number of churches in the Nordic countries have accepted the practice and norms of the Polish National Catholic Church and have developed into the Nordic Catholic Church, coming under the umbrella of the Union of Scranton.

At the synod held in Oslo, Norway late last year, a priest of the Church, the Rev. Roald Nikolai Flemestad, was elected as a candidate for bishop. This in one way will bolster the churches looking for stability and focus as it looks to serve its people in the future.

Father Flemstad’s consecration to the episcopal office will take place on the Feast of Saint James the Greater at Saint Stanislaus Bishop & Martyr cathedral in Scranton. What a joyous occasion it will be!

Father Flemstad addressed our Holy Synod in October 2010. He so looked forward to visiting the American church, and now will serve as the leader of the Nordic congregations.

Members of the churches in Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Italy will travel to Scranton to take part in the service. The readings and liturgy will be celebrated in both languages. The bishops of our Church will serve as co-consecrators, with, Most Rev. Anthony Mikovsky, our Prime Bishop serving a principal consecrator.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

PNCC – RC Dialog update

From Spero News: Polish National – Roman Catholic Church dialogue inches forward

According to media release from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, a meeting of the Polish National Catholic-Roman Catholic dialogue took place at St. Paul’s College in Washington on April 5 and 6. Bishop Edward U. Kmiec of Buffalo and Bishop John E. Mack of the Central Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) in Scranton, Pennsylvania co-chaired the meeting. Originally planned for November 2010, this was the first meeting since September 2009.

The members heard a report on the PNCC General Synod, and also examined a document that was adopted by the Synod, “Requirements for Communion with the Polish National Catholic Church.” This document was drafted for the benefit of groups in Scandinavia and elsewhere who have recently petitioned for full communion with the PNCC.

In addition, two documents pertaining to the relationship between the two churches were discussed. Msgr. Thomas Green of the School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington presented the November 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the accompanying norms especially in view of the level of autonomy the new Anglican ordinariates will enjoy. Bishop John Swantek then commented on the May 2009 report of the International Roman Catholic-Old Catholic Dialogue Commission, entitled “The Church and Ecclesial Communion” and the extent to which it applies to the relationship between the Polish National Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

The members also discussed several cases of local misunderstandings, most of which had to do with a perception by Roman Catholic authorities that PNCC clergy, in an effort to make converts, had taken advantage of situations where Roman Catholic parishes had been closed. For their part, the PNCC members stated that their clergy had responded to people in those congregations who, in their judgment, had decided in good conscience to join the PNCC. These differing perspectives on local problems will be discussed in more detail at future meetings of the dialogue.

The meeting also included a progress report from the Roman Catholic members on a proposal to ask the Holy See if the PNCC could be considered to be in the same position as the Orthodox on two matters. First, PNCC faithful would be allowed to act as godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms in addition to a Roman Catholic. Second, mixed marriages performed in the PNCC without a dispensation from canonical form, even if not lawful, would be considered valid by the Roman Catholic Church. This proposal is still under consideration by USCCB committees.

The dialogue has also been examining the difficulties that arise when a clergyman leaves one of the churches and joins the other. The members are acutely aware of the sensitivity of this question. Neither church can sanction in any way the abandonment of the ministry or the ordination commitment by any of its clergy. Such a decision entails serious canonical consequences such as excommunication and dismissal (Roman Catholic) or suspension and deposition (Polish National Catholic). In view of possible misunderstandings, the members determined that it would not be appropriate to offer recommendations on the handling of these cases at the present time. In the course of their discussion, however, the members sought to identify ways in which these situations could be handled that would minimize the amount of scandal they cause.

In particular, the members considered the official agreement reached in 1999, between the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Old Catholic Diocese of Germany. They believe that this agreement offers wise counsel on this question to the leadership of their churches. (The agreement is available in the German original with an unofficial English translation online [PDF].) More specifically, the agreement calls for consultation between the bishops of both churches, which would be particularly useful in determining the individual clergyman’s moral and psychological suitability for public ministry. It also provides that the clergyman, after the transition takes place, will not be assigned in the same region where he served in his previous church. The members are convinced that such cooperation will do much to reduce the problems caused by these transfers.

Since the last meeting, there were changes in the PNCC membership. In October 2010, the PNCC General Synod elected Most Rev. Anthony Mikovsky, the PNCC co-chairman of the dialogue, to the office of Prime Bishop. He in turn named Most Rev. John Mack, the bishop of the Central Diocese, as the new PNCC co-chairman. In view of these changes and the retirement of the Very Rev. Marcell W. Pytlarz, the Prime Bishop named Prime Bishop Emeritus John Swantek and the Rev. Bernard Nowicki, pastor of the Heart of Jesus parish in Bayonne, New Jersey, as new PNCC members of the dialogue.

Bishop Kmiec also informed the members that, in view of his impending retirement, he would be concluding his service as Roman Catholic co-chairman of the dialogue. He announced that Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, had named Most. Rev. Mitchell Rozanski, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore and a member of the dialogue since 2008, as the new co-chairman.

The next meeting of the dialogue was set to take place in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 18 and 19, 2012.

Christian Witness, PNCC, , , ,

To fast and abstain on appointed days

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday have been set forth as days of strict fasting. Days of abstinence (not eating meat) are Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent. The pious tradition of abstinence on Fridays outside of Eastertide is also observed, but not mandatory. In situations where health considerations make such observance impossible, ecclesiastical dispensation should be secured.

The rule of fasting is a fairly simple one and therefore bears the full authority of the Church. Our Lord announced to his followers that he expected them to fast. “But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.” (Mark 2:20)

Jesus even issued instructions on how Christians were to comfort themselves when they fast, promising them God’s reward. “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is in hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” (Matthew 6:17-18) Our Lord Himself fasted, forty days and forty nights, and later warned that some spiritual evils are overcome only “through prayer and through fasting.” (Mark 9:29)

Striving to follow Christ, St. Paul himself engaged in “frequent fastings.” (2 Corinthians 11:27). Paul urged Christians to prove themselves to be ministers of God in “fasts“. (2 Corinthians 6:5) When we fast or abstain, then, we do so in obedience to the Lord’s own command. We imitate His example and join in the company of all the blessed Saints, who tried to follow Him, and whose lives were adomed by this means of grace and intercession.

Today, when we fast and abstain in obedience to the Church’s law on prescribed days we join ourselves to fellow Catholics throughout the world in a mighty supplication to God. — From “To Grow in Catholic Faith in the Polish National Catholic Church” by Ś.P. Most Rev. Francis Rowinski, D.D. fourth Prime Bishop of the PNCC

Christian Witness, PNCC,

A prayer for Passion Sunday from Luciano Bruno

Fratelli e sorelle, chiediamo al Padre di accogliere le nostre preghiere, e soprattutto chiediamogli di educare e rendere sempre più piena e radicale la nostra fede, affinché possiamo vivere da cristiani, uomini e donne redenti dal Cristo.

Preghiamo dicendo: Ascoltaci Signore.

  • Perché la Chiesa non si stanchi di annunciare al mondo il valore unico ed insostituibile di ogni persona agli occhi di Dio, preghiamo.
  • Per gli operatori sanitari, perché nella fede si impegnino a promuovere e a difendere la vita, preghiamo.
  • Per gli anziani e per coloro che sono provati dalla malattia, perché sappiano vivere le loro sofferenze come partecipazione alla croce di Cristo, preghiamo.
  • Perché lo Spirito infonda in coloro che sono nel lutto per la perdita di una persona cara la consolazione di Dio e la speranza della vita eterna, preghiamo.
  • Per noi che partecipiamo a questa Eucaristia domenicale, perché i fratelli che incontreremo sulle strade del mondo percepiscano la nostra fede nella salvezza e nella vita eterna, preghiamo.

From Rev. Luciano Bruno to the PNCC in Italia Facebook page.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

A prayer for the Fourth Sunday of Lent from Luciano Bruno

Il Signore Gesù ci ha rivelato il Padre come amore senza misura. Per questo osiamo elevare a lui le nostre preghiere, che egli ascolterà con benevolenza, chiedendogli di concederci ciò che è conforme al suo disegno provvidenziale.

Preghiamo dicendo: Ascoltaci Signore.

  • Perché la Chiesa, sull’esempio del Signore Gesù, sappia essere “luce del mondo”, annunciando a tutti gli uomini la verità del Vangelo e orientamenti di vita conformi al cuore di Dio, preghiamo.
  • Perché coloro che governano le nazioni sappiano discernere le vie migliori per promuovere la dignità di ogni uomo, specialmente dei più poveri e bisognosi, preghiamo.
  • Per tutti coloro che sono colpiti da invalidità o malattia, perché trovino consolazione nella Parola del Vangelo e, nella nostra vicinanza fraterna e cordiale, un segno dell’amore di Dio, preghiamo.
  • Per coloro che sono smarriti o stanchi di cercare la verità nella loro vita, perché il Signore Gesù irrompa nel loro cuore e illumini la loro mente, affinchè possano fare esperienza della bellezza dell’essere cristiani, preghiamo.
  • Per noi, perché ristorati dalla santa Eucaristia domenicale, possiamo camminare sulle strade della vita disseminando sul nostro cammino opere di giustizia, di pace, di carità fraterna, preghiamo.

From Rev. Luciano Bruno to the PNCC in Italia Facebook page.

Christian Witness, PNCC, , , , ,

Update on the Streator dispute

From Pantagraph: LaSalle Co. prosecutor: Church dispute is civil matter (also see here)

STREATOR — No criminal prosecution is expected in a case involving a monsignor’s allegation that an 86-year-old woman took money that did not belong to her group.

The matter instead is civil, said LaSalle County State’s Attorney Brian Towne. Dorothy Swital of Streator has hired a lawyer and a benefit will be held Sunday to pay her expenses.

Monsignor John Prendergast, head of the now-combined Streator parishes, earlier said Swital transferred two certificates of deposit from the now-defunct St. Casimir Altar and Rosary Society to the new Polish Rosary Society.

The $35,622 belongs to the new St. Michael the Archangel parish and not her group, said Prendergast.

“We have been in consultation with the lawyers involved,” said Towne. “The money is not missing. We know exactly where it is and when you get into that kind of situation, it’s a civil matter.”

Swital said she has had no contact with Prendergast but continues to believe it is the new group’s money. “I’ve gotten a lot of support,” she said. “I would say it’s three to one.

“We gave it (the money) to the church when they needed it,” said Swital. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

Prendergast and diocesan officials continue to maintain it is church money, citing both canon (church) and civil law.

A chicken and spaghetti meal for Swital’s defense fund will run from noon until 3 p.m. Sunday at Polish National Alliance Hall, 906 Livingston St.

Four Streator Roman Catholic parishes, including St. Casimir, were combined into one parish. A new church building on the north side is planned.

Seems an issue of money over souls; the letter of the law over the spirit of the law. Why is recourse always to the law? Can’t Christians resolve such things among themselves? St. Paul warned us about this — see 1 Corinthians 6:1-7. How will the Monsignor be a judge of the world when he must run to authorities over such a simple matter?

The Monsignor may have his laws books straight, but then, so did the Pharisees. If he were to relent, what harm would come – these ladies would support their church wholeheartedly, with their prayer, hard work, and money. Instead, he will win, and in the process their hearts and faith will be broken. Rather than hallowed victory, he and the Church he is supposed to represent will have hollow victory.

The voice of the LORD cries to the city —
and it is sound wisdom to fear thy name:
“Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city!
Therefore I have begun to smite you,
making you desolate because of your sins.
You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save I will give to the sword.
You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.” — Micah 6:9,13-15

My suggestion, leave the Monsignor his money, let him wallow in it and eat its fruit. Come to your nearest PNCC Parish, or start one in Streator, where your hard work and contribution will always be within your control. As you say: the things you have worked for, for the benefit of the Church. No one will grasp at your purse while you dine at the table of the Lord.

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