JustFaith Catholic? Definitely not.

Here is the last article in a series I have been doing on JustFaith. As with the other posts, this one is reprinted from Los Pequenos Pepper, an independent online publication from the Diocese of Albequerque. This article looks at JustFaith contrasted to an ideal legitimate Catholic program and shows how JustFaith fails in six major areas as a Catholic program.

"As the JustFaith social justice education program comes to a close, some, if not most, of its participants are primed to move into activism. They have already given 30 weeks to formation in preparation for this next step.

What has happened to these “graduates?” Many say they have been “transformed” and insist that the JustFaith experience isn’t about having a particular political agenda but about recognizing one’s God-given gifts and “giving back.” It is easy to understand why it’s attractive to bishops and priests – the materials are well organized, consistent, and require no particular training to administer. In exchange for an investment of time and money, participants are energized, positive, and ready to “do good.” That seems like a “good buy,” and it would be, too, if the program were fostering deeper love of Church and a desire for broader study about the Faith.

Contrast the JustFaith program to an ideal Catholic program. It would differ from JustFaith in at least six critical points:

1. A Catholic social justice formation program educates Catholics in Catholic social teaching.

JustFaith used one solidly Catholic book, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is organized topically, something like a catechism. Only a few sections are actually read and discussed, however, often in the context of other materials. There are additional references to Church teaching scattered throughout the materials but they are passing, minimal, and generally read through an ideological lens.

This is a tremendous shame. The Church has an amazingly rich, consistent body of thought, honed over centuries of experience, in this domain. Plumbing those depths could be a delightful and rewarding experience for interested groups. This defect has consequences. A Catholic social justice formation program provides its participants an authentic Catholic formation from which to engage in authentic Catholic action. Any other perspective ideologically distorts the perspective and, despite the best of intentions, spawns actions that cause more damage than good. JustFaith presents very little Catholic social teaching.

2. A Catholic social justice formation program uses Catholic examples of organizations engaged in ministerial work.

With its emphasis on praxis – on experiential formation rather than intellectual formation – an enormous amount of JustFaith’s “teaching” is accomplished within the circle of emotional relationship. That circle begins with individual JustFaith groups and expands over the weeks to include the other organizations participants study, including JustFaith partners and the other activist organizations that JustFaith studies.

Not all activism is equal – obviously. JustFaith has made particular choices in its emphasis on studying the work of Alinskyian organizing networks or the Call to Action-related Pax Christi and other liberationist-oriented groups. Many of these groups do some good; they are not good models for Catholic action, however.

A Catholic social justice formation program would use, instead, Catholic examples of organizations engaged in ministerial work – not tucked in among secular examples but as integral to its vision. This distinction between Catholic action and other “doing good” isn’t a matter of parochial chauvinism but of a very different way of understanding the human person and, therefore, of understanding human development. Because the two perspectives are so fundamentally distinct, it isn’t enough to take a secularly-oriented organization like the Campaign for Human Development (CHD) and tack the word “Catholic” in front of it. The CHD was never conceived as a Catholic entity, nor has it ever functioned as such, except in so far as it uses Catholic resources.

JustFaith uses very few Catholic examples of organizations engaged in ministerial work.

3. Catholic social justice teachings embrace the spectrum of the human condition. A Catholic social justice formation program reflects that spectrum.

In leafing through the Compendium, one is struck by how much broader the scope of Catholic social teaching is than the JustFaith program suggests. JustFaith never mentions, except as one of seven (flawed) themes, any of life issues that are so pressing in contemporary society nor does it address any of the problems of the family, which the Church calls “the first natural society” or of marriage, which is the foundation of the family.

Furthermore, a Catholic social justice formation program would explain, as the Compendium does, that authentic human development is intimately and necessarily tied to the mission of the Church – which isn’t to create perfect social, economic, and/or political structures but to bring the good news of God’s salvific action among men.

JustFaith addresses too narrow a portion of social concerns.

4. A Catholic social justice formation program is clear about the distinction between Catholic social justice principles and the prudential applications of those principles.

When the goal is to move people into a desired action, there is a temptation to confuse the desired action with the principles behind it. To take a concrete example, in principle there is a limited “right to work.” People need the means to earn a living and the dignity of being productive. However, all sorts of conditions circumscribe this “right.” A penniless parent can’t put his offspring into indentured servitude to pay the rent. The child’s “right to work” is trumped by his “right to be educated” …presuming, of course, that his “right to eat” has been met. It’s a complicated world, out there.

Public programs to foster the “right to work” may also be complicated, taking in account certain factors and not others. Well intentioned people, agreeing that in principle there is a “right to work” may nevertheless differ quite radically about how, in application, this is best accomplished. The Church’s teaching explains principles for ethical action; it rarely mandates applications, with the few exceptions where principle and application are the same.

JustFaith (and its partners) confuse pet projects with moral principles.

5. A Catholic social justice formation program flows from Catholic spirituality.

Presumably, one of the attractions of the JustFaith program is that it includes a spirituality component. The problem is that component isn’t Catholic.

If it were Catholic, participants might attend Mass together, say a Rosary or novena together, do communal holy hours before the Blessed Sacrament, go on pilgrimages, recite the Office, or engage in a dozen other traditional spiritual practices that have, as their object, the worship of God.

Instead, JustFaith participants are introduced to a different kind of spirituality: one that suits the purposes of the program by introducing rituals and “prayers’ that hammer home the themes of the moment, placing participants in a communally reflective “space.” The focus isn’t God but the selves participating in a formative journey. “God” is used to rubberstamp the trip. This is a big problem.

JustFaith’s spirituality isn’t Catholic (or even Judeo-Christian, for that matter).

6. A Catholic social justice formation program operates within the Church – not the “church” imagined or desired but the Church founded by Christ and embodied institutionally.

Fellowship is natural to any band of pilgrims, whether the journey is literal or metaphorical. Shared experiences bond people together. Such small groups, in an ideal formation, provide individual members with a supportive “home base” from which to participate more openly with and within the larger Church.

A formation that operates outside of the Church, fostering subtle tensions with the full body of Church teaching, does just the opposite. It creates an insulated group that shields its members from teachings that challenge its prejudices in any way. JustFaith encouragement of participants to form “intentional” small communities that are aligned with the Alinskyian organizing networks places them outside of the Church and into the roiling waters of liberationism and dissent. JustFaith fosters liberationism.


JustFaith is designed with the six above-mentioned elements because it is not a Catholic social justice formation program. Participants who graduate from the program and want to explore certain issues in greater depth can purchase study “modules.” The module on immigration includes liberationist theological reflections. Participants in this study module read a chapter from A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration – a book of essays by some of the most prominent liberationist thinkers. Emotional stories of immigrants are discussed as “parallels between the early Christian communities being persecuted and scattered and today’s migrant communities that form in new “homelands” because of economic, political, or other types of oppression that force them to leave their country of origin.” There is no complimentary discussion of the rights and duties of sovereign nations to protect their borders – despite the fact that one finds such complex discussions in Catholic documents about immigration.

JustFaith graduates are given access to a number of other resources, as well. GradNet, a twice-monthly e- letter about events for the “JustFaith Ministries Graduate Community,” and JustFaith’s Voices Newsletter, with articles from the JustFaith partners and others, keep graduates networked with the world of progressive activism.

JustFaith is effective at accomplishing what its supporters intend…it just isn’t accomplishing anything very Catholic.

Other articles in the JustFaith series:

JustFaith's Marxist Tendencies
JustFaith and Fr. Richard Rohr
The JustFaith Program is not Catholic

A complete 18-part critique of JustFaith can be read at www.catholicmediacoalition.org.

JustFaith and Fr. Richard Rohr

We have written elsewhere on this blog about the dangers of the JustFaith program, how its theology is fundamentally anti-Catholic and actually is a front for Marxist liberation theology. This time we will look at the teachings of the dissenting priest Fr. Richard Rohr and how they are incorporated into the JustFaith program.

The first half of week nine of the JustFaith program spends 50 minutes listening to Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has built a small New Age empire around books and talks on subjects ranging from the Enneagram, the Cosmic Jesus, Liberation Theology, and the Men’s Movement. Titled “Portrait of a Radical,” this talk seems to be a surprising detour. There is nothing in it about social justice other than a passing comment that even peace and justice activists can be happy because it’s not their job to save the world – it’s God’s.

That’s a true enough point, but it’s unlikely that’s all the JustFaith participants are meant to take from the talk. The facilitator materials, describing “Portrait of a Radical” as an attempt “to draw the viewer into a space where Jesus can be seen from the perspective of his radical, compassionate, and inclusive teachings,” clarifies the intention of the JustFaith program to leave the participant with additional messages, which are confirmed in follow-up questions: “How did this representation of Jesus’ ministry add to…understanding of Jesus as a person? As the Son of God?” (pg. 4, JustFaith facilitator’s materials, week 9: 2011-12)

Rohr’s talk is largely a challenge to the institutional church, what he dubs “managed” religion. Jesus, he says, has been largely misunderstood by European Christendom. “In so many ways, it didn’t matter what He [Jesus] said; it’s what we wanted Him to say and many people really thought He said these things that they presumed they wanted Him to say.” Rohr wants to get us back to the honest, Jewish Jesus so we can get away from dealing with Jesus as “the divine savior of our denomination.”

The Bible, according to Rohr, moves us from a violent, angry, “toxic” God demanding to be placated with human – and later with animal substitutions – blood to a God who has taken away human shame about being naked and unworthy. Far from demanding our blood, Rohr says, we are confronted with “the most  extraordinary turn-around in the history of religion – God spilling [His own] blood to get to us.”

“But how do you give away God?” Rohr asks. Nobody wants Him; He’s too frightening. Yet, God could not be content to be a theology, which we’d like because we can argue about it and “keep God as a private possession in our pocket.” So, He became a person, and “we see in the Risen Christ a God Who blames nobody…The Good News is that the end of the Bible is a totally non-threatening, non-blaming, non-violent  God” – not that God was ever violent, Rohr adds, but that we had created Him in our own image.

This “non-blaming” Jesus says nothing about the things the Church is obsessed about, such as premarital sex – He is only concerned with violence and greed….and in overcoming those diabolical possessions with possessing us Himself. “We’ve been so comfortable with violence – we’ve been comfortable with greed – since the 3rd century, since Constantine made us the established religion. It almost seems like some kind of smoke and mirrors game is going on here – some kind of shadow game, diversionary tactic: ‘Look over here, so you won’t see what He’s really talking about…”

Of course, Rohr is quick to say that he’s not condoning pre-marital sex but “the Christianity is much more about mystical issues than about moral issues.” Get the mystical issues right and “the moral issues will take care of themselves.”

That mystical relationship is about intimacy, the “emptying of self so there’s room for another person inside of me.” “It’s almost sexual, cannibalistic language, this Eucharistic language. Jesus saying, basically, “Eat Me.

Drink Me. Get Me inside of you.”

Rohr insists that faith isn’t a head thing, as opposed to doubt, but is a trust thing, as opposed to anxiety. Jesus doesn’t worry about the hot sins – like premarital sex – but worries about power, prestige, illusion, and the other things that blind us. Jesus came to say it’s radically OK, that life is great simplicity and comfort. We don’t have to control it all.

If Jesus takes away the sin of the world – and Rohr stresses the Biblical use of the singular “sin” (John 1:29) – what is “the sin”? Rohr answers that Jesus didn’t go to a brothel or to a bar but to a place of execution, a place where people try to “destroy evil” and then feel good that they’ve done away with the impure and are themselves superior. That behavior, says Rohr, is the sin of the world Jesus will take away.

There is much more in this vein. Managed religion – or institutional religion, Rohr explains – makes the law complex to keep us safe (e.g. no premarital sex). Jesus, on the other hand, wastes no time on the shadow but focuses on the ego, respecting the infinite complexity of people – honoring that people break the rules in very unique ways – but keeps his law very simple: Love one another.

One is at a loss to see how this brings JustFaith participants into any deeper understanding of the Church’s social teachings. Rather, it seems designed to reinforce within them a qualified relationship with the Church – the liberationists’ view of “church” – that either bends to the will of the social activist or is dismissed as merely “institutional” and “immature.”

Hopefully this is enough to persuade anyone who was uncertain about this program. The program's books are written by New Age and dissenting priests who preach a Christianity unlike that which the Church has taught for 2,000 years.

JustFaith's Marxist Tendencies

One of the most highly viewed pages on this whole blog is my February, 2011 expose of the dissenting agenda of the parish renewal program known as JustFaith, which was ironically something I reposted from another publication, the lay run watchdog Los Pequenos Pepper from the Diocese of Albequerque. I had the satisfaction recently of hearing from one priest how this article was instrumental in keeping JustFaith out of a parish where it was about to be instituted: deo gratias.

The folks at the Pepper have done a follow up to the original article delving into the Marxist, dissenting and New Age elements of JustFaith and are promising more to come in the future. Reprinted from Los Pequenos Pepper:

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), an annual collection that has consistently drawn criticism for the more than 40 years of its existence, has two components. The first component is grant-giving, which supports progressive political activism. [1] The second component is education, that is, it concerns the development and dissemination of programs that form – or deform – the conscience. [2] The most recent and most widely used of these programs is JustFaith [3], a 30-week “intensive opportunity to explore the Biblical tradition, the historic witness of the Church, Catholic social teaching, and the relationship between spirituality and justice.” [4] There are two versions of the program: one is a specifically Catholic version of the basic program that supposedly “explores the rich Catholic Social Teaching tradition of the Catholic Church.”[5]. Another version is designed to be used in ecumenical contexts or with Protestant congregations.

From the Catholic perspective, there are numerous red flags swirling about the program. One is that its founder and executive director, Jack Jezreel, has spoken in various progressive venues, such as the dissident-Catholic organization, Call to Action (CTA) and one of its affiliate members, Pax Christi [6]. Another is that JustFaith is not only a “partner” organization with CCHD (and Catholic Relief Services) but with both the CTA-related Pax Christi and Bread for the World, whose founding president was CTA’s ultra-liberal Bishop Thomas Gumbleton. Bread for the World does not feed hungry people. It lobbies American legislators and awards monetary grants to organizations such as CIDHAL, [7] a Mexican liberation theology women’s rights group that advocates for “reproductive rights.”

The JustFaith Board of Directors is another red flag. Catholic dissenters Gary Becker, a deacon and homilist in a “Catholic” feminist break-away congregation, and his wife Mary left the JustFaith Board last year after their presence on it became a public embarrassment to the organization but they have been replaced by new board members who are equally questionable. There’s Mary Kay Kantz who signed the pro-abortion Emily’s List petition to “Stop the War on Women,” [8] which includes any effort to reduce a woman’s access to abortion. [9] Or, there’s Jean McCarthy, the Episcopalian "priestess" who supports same-sex marriage. Or, Marie Dennis, who has been Co-President of Pax Christi International since 2007. There are others one might mention but the list becomes tedious. The point is that, from a Catholic perspective, these form a peculiar fellowship – namely one with an outlook that is distinctly not Catholic.

Another red flag is that the JustFaith newsletter has contained links to pro-abortion resources.

Yet another red flag is the JustFaith reading list. While the titles may change somewhat from year to year, in response to complaints, the listing has included dissenting writers who distort Scripture and Catholic teaching to “reveal” class antagonisms and a “need” to restructure society along Marxist lines.

These are disturbing signs. However, as has been pointed out by several people of good will, none of them prove that the program itself is corrupt – that is, that JustFaith is indoctrinating Catholic participants in anti-Catholic theology.

Fair enough. To do justice to JustFaith one must examine the materials it uses to form Catholics in social justice understanding. The syllabus overview of the basic program for 2011-12 is available at the JustFaith website, as well as co-facilitator notes and participant handouts. [10] Examining the materials being used this year in the JustFaith basic program isn’t quite the same thing as attending its 30 weekly sessions, which are undoubtedly colored by the inclinations of individual facilitators, but they do present a fairly good idea of what JustFaith intends a Catholic to carry away from the experience.

Opening the Program

The preliminary materials are largely organizational. They guide interested parties through the planning stages of advertising the program, setting its schedule, and obtaining the necessary commitment JustFaith requires. A “Recruiting and Planning Toolkit” includes sample fliers, bulletin inserts, a commitment statement, testimonies from satisfied JustFaith “graduates,” and discernment materials. One can understand why an overworked pastor would find the program attractive: “this program is designed to be facilitated and coordinated by program participants and does not require the time of the pastor or staff.” [11]

It is also stressed that the program does not require people with theological training or vast social ministry experience. “Co-facilitators are not asked to be the teachers; the books, videos, group discussions and occasional guest speakers are the educational tools.” [12]

This is an important point because it means that whatever perspective the JustFaith materials provide, coupled with whatever perspective participants bring to the table, is largely what participants will understand to be“Catholic Social Teaching.”

"Immersion Experiences"

In addition to weekly sessions during which syllabus materials are studied, there are four, mandatory “immersion experiences” – held about every two months –incorporated into the schedule. These events are designed to bring participants into a “personal encounter with people who have suffered the effects of poverty.” [13]

Participants are given some latitude concerning the kinds of immersion experiences they choose, so this component of the program could be extremely meaningful. However, given the inexperienced nature of co-facilitators and the many suggestions for assistance in arranging these experiences that the program offers, it’s likely they will be filtered through the JustFaith lens.

Furthermore, the third immersion experience is a “Journey to Justice Day” [14] a “specific” kind of immersion experience prepared by the CCHD. Journey to Justice is generally organized as a weekend parish retreat but is condensed to one day for incorporation into the JustFaith program. A forthcoming article will examine Journey to Justice materials separately but it is appropriate at this juncture to consider something of the program’s background.

Author Jeffry Korgen, [15] with long ties to the Alinskyian organizing network Interfaith Worker Justice, [16] refers to JustFaith and Journey to Justice as “Jesus conversion tools” and describes how the Journey to Justice experience brings new leaders into social justice ministry. [17] After warning that “we too often see [other people] as stereotypes, symbols, or statistics,” Korgen indulges in his own stereotype: “When middle – and upper-income Catholics encounter the poor and vulnerable in the context of learning about scripture and church [sic] teaching, the result can be transformative.” [18]

Irony aside, if the “transformative result” were to help disassociated Catholics see the poor as real people and, for the first time, inspire them to be responsive to their needs, Journey to Justice would have accomplished a holy end. However, this is not the “transformative result” sought. The “transformative result” Journey to Justice seeks is acceptance that the poor should be “organized for change, altering existing power relationships to give low-income people a place at the table of public life. They come to the door not to ask for a handout, but to work in partnership with middle and upper-income Catholics from the middle pew to build the kingdom of God…These are the empowered poor! If you can envision this scene, you already have a good idea of how the Journey to Justice retreat works.”[19]

And, as Jack Jezreel has written the foreword to Korgen’s book, we have a good idea of the transformative results JustFaith seeks, too. Developing this idea, then, JustFaith suggests that the fourth and final immersion “consist of a legislation advocacy experience.”[20]

Opening Retreat

There are also two, mandatory weekend-long retreats, held at the beginning and close of the 30-week program. The first “lays the foundation for community building and trust that is required in this formation process” and the second “ties together the conversion experience,” ascertaining that participants set concrete goals for future action. [21]

To that end, the opening retreat isn’t focused on social issues but “on the work of becoming church for each other.” [22] Much of what transpires is familiar, using language, for example, that contains invocations to the Holy Spirit or Jesus, which would make a Catholic comfortable. There are also ice-breakers, self-focused exercises, and readings – some from the scriptures and some from contemporary writers, such as four-page handout on the “Stages of Human Growth and Spiritual Development” adapted from the work of Ken Wilber, Chris Cowan, Don Beck, and Clare Graves, proponents of spiral dynamics, a theory of evolving core values, including spiritual values.

The JustFaith adaptation presents this material as eight “faith journey” stages. As the stages begin with the first typified by infancy (and late-stage Alzheimer’s victims) and the last is typified by Gandhi’s ideas of pluralistic harmony, it’s obvious that the authors have arranged the stages in a hierarchy, with the first stage being the most immature.

Participants aren’t told that this is not a Christian theory of human development but are simply instructed to find which stage “most closely reflects where you are on your spiritual journey.” Someone who believes he must be obedient to a rightful authority, which is exemplified, we are told, by religious fundamentalism, is at Stage D (the fourth stage), quite low down in the hierarchy of development. Stage F (the sixth stage) includes people who read “the Bible in solidarity with the poor” or are active in human rights campaigns. They are people who are comfortable with "complexity and chaos", and the implication is that they are more spiritually developed. [23]

These subtle toxins are massaged into the soul via exercises such as the “The Sacred Art of Listening,” taken from the title of a book by Kay Lindahl. [24] “Sacred listening,” participants are instructed, makes “no judgments,” has “no assumptions,” but “is in communion with the speaker,” and so forth. 

The stage is now set for the formation of a fellowship that seeks a “spiritual development” that has nothing to do with Catholic understanding of the human person. That’s a big problem for a Catholic program.

More on this in the future...

For my previous article on JustFaith, see here.

ENDNOTES

[1] Detailed accounts of recent grants can be read at www.reformcchdnow.com and at www.speroforum.com.
[2] For former (C)CHD educational programs and an in depth discussion of their liberationist perspective, see Catholic Media Coalition, USCCB, Dossier on Liberationism in the USCCB: www.catholicmediacoalition.org/USCCB.htm or Stephanie Block, “Mopping Up the CCHD,” Spero
News, 4-14-10: www.speroforum.com/site/print.asp?idarticle=30866
[3] CCHD has been a “key partner” of JustFaith since 2000. “The collaboration has allowed CCHD to contribute to the development of JustFaith programs and has improved CCHD’s communication with the Catholic community.” http://old.usccb.org/cchd/justfaith.shtml
[4] Press Release: www.usccb.org/cchd/JFPartnershipPR.htm
[5] JustFaith, “Getting Started: Overview,” 2010-2011, p. 2.
[6]These include: the 1996 Call to Action national conference; the 1997 Call to Action national conference,
“Spirituality of Commitment Making Promises, Friends and Justice”; the August 11-13, 2000 fourth West Coast Call to Action Conference, at San Jose State University, “Transformed People, Transformed Parish, Transformed World;” and the 2007 keynote at CTA-affiliated Pax Christi National Conference.
[7] See for example, Suzie Siegel, “Mexican women work for progress,” The Tampa Tribune, 3-8-96.
[8] See www.change.org/members/263583
[9] “Stop the War on Women – What’s at Stake:” stopthewaronwomen.com/whats_at_stake
[10] JustFaith website: www.justfaith.org/programs/resources/jfcp_2011-programdocuments.html
John T. Williams, Faith
[11] “Getting Started: Overview…” p. 3.
Journey
[12] “Getting Started: Overview…” p. 14.
[13] “Getting Started: Overview…” p. 16.
[14] JustFaith, “Immersion Experiences – Catholic Version,” 2011-12, p12
[15] Korgen in currently Executive Director for the Diocese of Metuchen’s Department of Diocesan Planning.
[16] Korgen has, among other things, served on the IWJ Board.
[17] Jeffry Odell Korgen (foreword by Jack Jezreel), "My Lord and My God: Engaging Catholics in Social Justice Ministry", Paulist Press, 2007, p. 55.
[18] My Lord and My God…p. 56.
[19] My Lord and My God…p. 57.
[20] “Immersion Experiences …,” p13.
[21] “Getting Started: Overview…” p. 16.
[22] JustFaith, Catholic version, “Opening Retreat 2011-12,” p. 7.
[23] JustFaith, Catholic version, “Opening Retreat 2011-12,” Friday Night session, pp 11-14.
[24] Kay Lindahl is a Global Council Trustee for the United Religions Initiative, chair-elect for the North American Interfaith Network and president of the Alliance for Spiritual Community. She is also an ordained interfaith minister, founder of The Listening Center, and the author of several books.

The Just Faith program is not Catholic

Occasionally I get queries about different parish programs and whether or not they are "safe" for parish use. Case in point is the JustFaith program, put on by Just Faith Ministries. Just Faith was founded in 1989 by a fellow by the name of Jack Jezreel, which is an interesting name from a Biblical standpoint; the Valley of Jezreel was where King Jehu had the apostate Queen Jezebel slain (2 Kings 9:1-10); it is also the location of the Battle of Armageddon at the end of time. But I digress. The program's website states:

JustFaith Ministries provides programs that transform people and expand their commitment to social ministry. Through these life-changing opportunities, members of a church or parish can study, explore and experience Christ’s call to care for the poor and vulnerable in a lively, challenging, multifaceted process in the context of a small faith community.

Have any of you come across the JustFaith program in your parishes or dioceses? Here is a run down of the program and some of its problems from Phyllis Sower. Mrs. Sower has practiced law for 33 years, now part-time, in Franklin County, KY. She is the co-founder and principal of Our Lady of Guadalupe Academy/Corpus Christi High School in Simpsonville, KY. and recently exposed the JustFaith program for the Los Pequenos Pepper publication in the Diocese of Santa Fe. So, is the JustFaith program Catholic? The following is from her article:

"I had already heard a little about the JustFaith program and some concerns regarding it just prior to the time that two members of our parish came to me to share their concerns. One of them had enrolled in the course and brought to me the full set of materials she purchased for the course requesting that I review it. I submit herein the results of my review in a spirit of fraternal correction and concern and to assist pastors and lay persons who lack time to read all the materials; a close examination of the program by the competent ecclesiastical authority is warranted to determine the advisability of its continued use.

In short, the program is a product of liberation theology and promotes the ordination of women, recognition of homosexual marriage, the feminization of God, extreme pacifism and environmentalism, using non-Catholic and Catholic dissenters to present “Catholic Social Teaching.” The JustFaith program is a partnership effort of Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services. It is billed as a ministry of the Church, “an invitation to a rich spiritual journey into compassion,” to “look more closely at the troubling issues of our times through the lens of compassion and Catholic social teaching.” According to page two of the Notes to participants, week 2, the program sets out to teach the "rich tradition of Catholic Social Teaching." However, there is little reference to the encyclicals, Catechism, conciliar documents or the Summa Theologica where the Church’s authentic social teaching is to be found. (Nota Bene: one of my sons is taking a course on Catholic Social Teaching at a Catholic University; the curriculum consists of: Rerum Novarum, Mater et Magistra, Quadragessimo Anno, Pacem in Terris, Gaudium et Spes, Popularum Progressio, Octogessima Adviens, Laborens Exercens, Sollicidudo Rei Socialis, Finitessimus Annus, section 10 of the 5th Lateran Council, and sections of the Summa on Justice and Cheating/Usury).

The very opening sessions of the JustFaith program are problematic. For example, in week 2, the opening prayer invokes 21 “witnesses of hope,” including Mohandes Gandhi–“great soul of peace,” Flannery O’Connor (note: from my acquaintance with the life and writings of this great American writer, I submit that she would strenuously object to JustFaith and being prayed to for she was a devout Catholic), Thomas Merton (much of his later work was heterodox), Martin Luther King, Jr., Joseph Bernardin, Albert Schweitzer, concluding with, “All you holy men and women, salt and light for our world, Pray for us.”Attachment B of the same week lists discussion and dialogue goals, including the search for the best “view,” incorporate varied perspectives, etc. There is no reference to seeking, teaching, or understanding the truth as taught by the Church. As Pope Benedict has reiterated, “real education is not possible without the light of truth.”

There are 4 books in the program: Cloud of Witnesses by Wallis and Hollyday, Compassion by Nouwen, et al, The Challenge and Spirituality of Catholic Teaching, by Mich, and Amazing Grace by Kozol. None of them has a Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur despite the pretensions of this course to present the “rich tradition of Catholic Social Teaching.” An examination of the content of the texts reveals significant reasons there is not and should not be an official stamp of the Church’s stamp of approval on any of these books or the program.

The Cloud of Witnesses book is most revealing of the agenda of this program and of content contrary to the authentic social teaching of the Catholic Church. It is clearly stated that, “The articles and interviews in this book have been adapted from material originally published in Sojourners magazine.” The author, Jim Wallis, was founder and executive director of Sojourners. He has written in favor of gay “marriage.” The author, Joyce Hollyday, is a minister in the United Church of Christ. Sojourners is described as non-denominational according to its website, but includes left wing Catholic peace activists and dissenters, a Masonic veterans group, favors gay/lesbian partnerships, has a policy statement in favor of recognition and legal protection for the same, including gay “marriage,” and favors ordination of women, claiming five female ordinations and female bishops. This background should constitute sufficient cause to question inclusion of the book as a source of authentic Catholic Social teaching.

In addition, out of 35 articles, only 11 appear to be about known Catholics. I say “known” because the faith of some was not identifiable. For certain, most were not Catholic at all and included a Living Waters pastor, Georgia minister, Episcopal minister, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sojourner Truth, a Presbyterian pastor, a Quaker, three Baptists, one now non-denominational former Methodist then Presbyterian, a Dutch Reformed preacher and a number of others not Catholic but whose denomination was not mentioned. Among the persons featured were a draft-dodger, proponent of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church, one pastor and his wife imprisoned for non-payment of taxes, one whose “consciousness” came from liberation theology and another who said the truth was not the captive of any enterprise or religion.

Among the Catholics featured in the book were many known dissenters such as Father Daniel Berrigan, Sr. Joan Chittister, Father Pedro Arrupe and others who criticize the Church rather than advance her authentic teachings. Some examples will suffice:

• Joan Chitttister’s unabashed advancement of the ordination of women is championed. She said, “There’s either something wrong with the present theology of ministry, or there is something wrong with the present theology of all the sacraments. If women qualify for baptism, confirmation, salvation, and redemption, how can they be denied the sacrament of ministry?” Her arguments that women are ignored in church language and for the feminization of God are given ample play in the text.
  
  
• Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe openly rejected Humanae Vitae and his “restructuring” of the Jesuits did much harm to the Order; the circumstances of his removal are unclear to me, but Pope John Paul II passed over Arrupe’s designated successor for another.
  
  
• Father Miguel D’Escoto is not permitted to celebrate the Eucharist in public or private.
  
  
• Father Elias Chacour, a Catholic priest and pacifist in Israel, attacked the wealth of the Church and described his despair of the institutional Church and its hierarchy.
  
  
• Archbishop Dom Camara, who certainly sacrificed for the poor of his native Brazil, was a devotee of Gandhi and criticized the Church for its programs and priorities; at the closing session of Vatican II, he proposed that all the bishops surrender their crosses of precious metals for meltdown and distribution of the proceeds to the poor.
  
  
• Father George Zabelka is an extreme pacifist who accuses Christianity of seventeen hundred years of terror and slaughter.
  
  
• Journalist Penny Lernoux had distanced herself from the Church but returned in the “awakening” of Vatican II, which she described as “set to turn the Church on its head,” while she was herself under the inspiration of liberation theology.

The magisterial authority of the Church was not recognized in this book. There was a nice article on St. Francis of Assisi, who was called the “greatest saint.” This book would be perfectly suited to a study of liberation theology, which, of course, has been soundly refuted by the Church beginning with Divini Redemptoris. Pope Pius XI stated that the Church could not cooperate with Marxists. Liberation theology would divert the Church from her mission of salvation to one of social welfare agency.

One of the authors of Compassion was Henri Nouwen, who was described in Cloud of Witnesses as a Dutch priest and contributing editor to Sojourners. His funeral Mass was described in the book as a “carnival atmosphere” where actors and actresses “breathed life into the gospel reading.” In the Preface, the tone of the book is set with a quote from theologian, Gail O’Day, “Just as it is false to the richness of the Christian tradition to use father language as generic language for God, it ....” This book does more to diminish than to advance the true faith, for example:

• The authors assert that the Gospels support reference to the “womb” of God (pp. 14-16).
  
  
• They say we should see compassion not in moralistic terms (emphasis added; the implication is that we should disregard sin, p. 28).
  
  
• They wrote that choosing to suffer as “an obedient response to our loving God” is, for Christians, a “false belief that in so doing they were following the way of Jesus Christ.”
  
  
• The section on the breaking of bread omits all reference to sacrifice and the Holy Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, the real presence; the sole emphasis is on community and eating bread and drinking wine as a memorial, where we become intimately connected “to the compassionate life of Christ.” (p. 111).
  
  
• Our “bread connections” are a “call to action.” He writes that when people eat bread and drink wine in his (Christ’s) memory, "smiles appear on strained faces" (p. 132).

The Mich book has some good quotes, including some references to encyclicals and Saints, but they are interlaced with error. For example, St. Boniface’s challenge to the god Thor inspired conversions but led to the unintended consequence of “diminished awe for the sacredness of nature.” (p. 34). We are instructed that every creature, animate and inanimate, can be a “sacrament.” Life issues are discussed with no reference to the evil of contraception.

We are told that there was an early Catholic attitude, still present, that saw humans as the apex of creation and this too often led to exploitation of nature (p. 41). Quoting Sister Elizabeth Johnson, the author explains that “previous theologies would have human beings with their rational souls as superior to the natural world.” Such a ranking, he writes, easily “gives rise to arrogance, one root of the present ecological crisis.” We are told that we need ‘species humility’ (p. 43). I read this and wondered whatever happened to Genesis: man is made in the image and likeness of God and has dominion?

On pages 43-44, we read that we must “reimagine our place in creation” with these questions, each of which is directly or by implication in conflict with the truth:

• How to preach salvation as healing and rescue for the whole world rather than as solely an individual relationship with God?
  
  
• How to let go of contempt for matter, contempt for the body and sexuality, and how to revalue themas good and blessed?
  
  
• How to interpret human beings as primarily “earthlings” rather than as pilgrims or tourists whose real home is elsewhere?
  
  
• How to recognize the sacraments as symbols of divine graciousness in a universe that is itself a sacrament?
  
  
• What kinds of new spiritualities will emerge as we become creation-centered?

The author references Familiaris Consortio, then trashes it and exposes his real agenda:

"Today, Catholic theology and spirituality does not view the love of another human being as distracting from our love of God. In fact, love of a spouse and child is viewed as participation in divine love. Sexuality is viewed in more positive terms as a gift of God to be enjoyed and celebrated within committed love and not only tolerated for the sake of procreation. These positive themes provide the starting points for a reinterpretation of marriage and family within the Catholic tradition. This revisioning is only in beginning stages. Catholicism and other Christian denominations are still working on understanding the role of women in the church and society and the meaning of committed homosexual relationships." (p. 81, emphasis added)

No sugar coating can cover the bitter taste of this poisonous error!

The Kozol book contains wrenching stories from the author’s experiences in South Bronx, significantly centered around St. Ann’s Episcopal Church with its pastor, Rev. Martha Overall, who “confesses” the children. What this book contributes to an understanding of Catholic Social Teaching is a mystery. The book is interesting private reading, although the heralding of it by Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund would have otherwise steered me clear of it.

Interestingly, both of the parishioners who brought to my attention that Just Faith was in progress at our church are converts. They are actively engaged in learning the Catholic Faith. One said to me, “Something about this (Just Faith) material is really bothering me. I don’t know why, but I am disturbed and irritated when reading it.” She wants to deepen her understanding of the true Faith; most of this material does just the opposite, leads away from it. The disturbance of the spirit is easily understandable.

We possess the truth in all its beauty, richness and wonder; we possess the authentic Magisterium. Why not use it? As the Holy Father has reminded us, real education is grounded in truth."

Click here for another great article on the danger's of Just Faith from the Restore DC Catholicism blog, which has already amply documented the issue.

Click here for a follow-up article on the Marxist tendencies of JustFaith.