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'Slow-moving tragedies' also need our attention |
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By Joe Towalski
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Thursday, 11 February 2010 |
Almost every day for the last month we’ve been reading and watching heart-wrenching news stories about the devastation in Haiti and the ongoing struggles of its citizens who were already among the poorest in the Western hemisphere.
 Editorial
Joe Towalski
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Thankfully, we’ve also been hearing a lot about Americans who are stepping forward with generous donations to aid the work of Catholic Relief Services and other organizations that are providing food and medical assistance to the homeless and injured in the earthquake zone.
Locally, that generosity has manifested itself in large-scale efforts —
parish second collections from throughout the archdiocese are nearing
$500,000 and will be donated to CRS — as well as in smaller ways: One
man recently shared via Twitter that he was “crazy proud” of his sons,
each of whom chose, “unprompted,” to donate to Haiti relief from his
own piggybank.
These examples prove again that we Minnesotans, like other Americans,
are very good at responding to help the poor and vulnerable when a
calamity strikes, whether it is an earthquake, hurricane or flood.
What we’re more challenged by, however, is recognizing and responding
with the same sense of urgency to the everyday, less-attention-grabbing
plight of the poor and vulnerable in our own communities.
Day-to-day crises
President Barack Obama touched on this during his recent speech at the
National Prayer Breakfast. He lauded the faith of the Haitian people
and the sacrificial spirit that inspires others to help.
He continued, however: “Too often, that spirit is missing without the
spectacular tragedy, the 9/11 or the Katrina, the earthquake or the
tsunami, that can shake us out of complacency. We become numb to the
day-to-day crises, the slow-moving tragedies of children without food
and men without shelter, and families without health care.”
Those “slow-moving tragedies” have gained speed during the national
recession, which has resulted in soaring unemployment rates, tightly
squeezed household budgets and an increasing number of requests for
assistance with food, shelter and other essential needs.
In Minnesota, visits to Catholic Charities food shelves in St. Paul and
Minneapolis jumped 55 percent in December. Twin Cities shelters have
been at or near capacity for much of the winter, and the latest report
on health insurance noted that the number of uninsured Minnesotans
increased by 106,000 between 2007 and 2009.
The people in need of services range from the chronically poor who are
confronted by an ever-increasing number of barriers to
self-sufficiency, to children and pregnant women in crisis, to families
struggling to make ends meet because of job losses or cutbacks.
Their situations should be of no less concern to us. When people — no
matter where they are — lack sufficient access to basic needs like
food, shelter and health care, our faith calls us to act on their
behalf regardless of their circumstances.
We must shake ourselves out of our complacency and fix these injustices that quietly simmer in our own Minnesota backyard.
Stepping up
This is not a call to stop sending aid to Haitians or other victims of
natural disasters here and abroad. Archdiocesan Catholics have been
particularly generous in making financial contributions to Catholic
Relief Services’ efforts in Haiti, where help is so desperately needed.
This also is not an across-the-board indictment of our attitude toward
the local poor. Certainly, many local Catholics — from people in the
pews, to children in our Catholic schools and faith formation programs
— have been generous to Catholic Charities and other organizations that
serve the poor in our communities.
What it is, however, is a call to step up — a challenge, particularly
during this upcoming season of Lent, to learn more about the plight of
the poor and vulnerable in our midst, to step up and do more to help
them with their immediate needs, and to contribute toward ending
poverty in the long term.
What can we do?
» Call or write our state legislators. The 2010 session of the
Minnesota Legislature began this month, and lawmakers face a
challenging budget deficit. The Minnesota Catholic Conference,
Catholic Charities’ Office for Social Justice and other organizations
are working to protect important safety-net programs. Tell your
legislators not to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. You can
find out more at www.mncc.org and www.osjspm.org.
» Make an increased contribution to the archdiocesan Catholic Services
Appeal, which helps to fund the work of Catholic Charities and other
essential church ministries. Visit http://appeal.archspm.org.
» Participate in Operation Rice Bowl, the annual Lenten program
sponsored by Catholic Relief Services. The majority of funds are used
to fund hunger and poverty projects overseas, but 25 percent of the
funds collected stay in U.S. dioceses to help fund food shelves and
soup kitchens. You can learn more about the program on page 18 of this
issue.
» Take the advice of Catholic Charities that’s noted on its Web site:
Skip three lattes (or, some other regular treat of similar expense) and
feed a family for a week. Read more at www.ccspm.org.
As Catholics, we are called to protect human life and dignity and
promote the common good. That requires helping victims of
quick-striking disasters, as in Haiti, as well as addressing the
slow-moving tragedies of poverty and need in our local communities.
Let’s not wait until such tragedies worsen even more.
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