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[This excerpt is from the Editor's Foreword "Ecclesia in America Revisited," by Berard L. Marthaler, The Living Light Winter 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

In the apostolic exhortation The Church in America (Ecclesia in America), Pope John Paul II wrote, "The mestiza face of the Virgin of Guadalupe was from the start a symbol of the inculturation of the Gospel" (no. 70). Spanish-speaking Americans immediately recognized the pope's frame of reference. A mestiza is a woman of mixed ancestry. The features of Our Lady of Guadalupe appear at once European and Native American. The circumstances surrounding the origins of the image may be clouded, but there is no doubt that the promoters of the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe understood the challenge of evangelization. The Gospel must be proclaimed in such a way that it permeates culture and changes the appearance of men and women by transforming them from within.

The concept of inculturation—the process by which the Gospel helps to reshape a culture and by which our understanding of the Gospel is also reshaped—remains abstract and vague until it confronts a specific culture. The Virgin of Guadalupe symbolizes the challenge to "Americanize the Gospel," a challenge implied in the "new evangelization" decreed by John Paul. In Ecclesia in America he repeats the admonition he gave in 1992 to the Conference of Latin American Bishops: "The commemoration of the five hundred years of evangelization will achieve its full meaning if it becomes a commitment . . . not to a re-evangelization but to a new evangelization—new in ardor, methods and expression" (no. 6).

"The evangelization which accompanied the European migrations," writes Pope John Paul, "has shaped America's religious profile" (no. 14). It bequeathed a heritage of moral values to America, "though they are not always consistently practiced and at times are cast into doubt" (no. 14). The pope is well aware that "America's Christian identity is not synonymous with Catholic identity" (no. 14). In no place is ecumenism more urgent than in the United States, where "the presence of other Christian communities" demands a commitment "to seek unity among all those who believe in Christ" (no. 14).

An essential aspect of the new evangelization is catechesis, which presents the faith "in all its breadth and richness." It was toward this goal that Pope John Paul II authorized the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the General Directory for Catechesis. John Paul heartily recommends the use of both these documents "to everyone involved in catechesis in America." In Ecclesia in America, he expresses hope that they will be employed "in the preparation and the evaluation of all parochial and diocesan programs of catechesis, bearing in mind that the religious situation of young people and adults calls for a catechesis which is more kerygmatic and more organic in its presentation of the contents of faith" (no. 69).

[This article "The Many Tasks of Catechesis in the American Framework," by Maura Thompson Hagarty, The Living Light Winter 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

After the publication of Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States (1979 National Directory), catechetical leaders commonly described catechesis in terms of four fundamental tasks: (1) proclaiming the message, (2) building community, (3) leading people to worship and prayer, and (4) motivating people to service.¹ Taken together, the four tasks provided a functional definition of catechetical ministry. In the course of time, national and diocesan offices, publishers, parishes, and schools developed catechetical resources and programs according to this fourfold framework.² Recently, however, there has been evidence of change and evolution in the conceptualization of the tasks of catechesis. An early draft of the U.S. bishops' pastoral plan for adult faith formation, for example, repeated the four tasks outlined in the 1979 National Directory, but the final version, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us (1999), speaks of six tasks as delineated in the 1997 revision of the General Directory for Catechesis (1997 General Directory).³ Another example is the U.S. bishops' recently published statement In Support of Catechetical Ministry, written in commemoration of the sixty-fifth anniversary of Catechetical Sunday (September 17, 2000).⁴ It too adopts the 1997 General Directory's sixfold framework.

This article first explores the significance of the four tasks outlined in the 1979 National Directory and then considers their relationship to the six tasks identified by the 1997 General Directory. The first part focuses on the elements of the fourfold framework, the significance of talking about catechesis in terms of multiple tasks, and the goal-oriented nature of the tasks.

1979 National Directory

The Framework of the Four Tasks

The 1979 National Directory took its inspiration from the 1971 General Catechetical Directory (1971 General Directory). It drew on "sound contemporary developments in the sacred and human sciences, as well as the ‘signs of the times'—the contemporary cultural situation"—and reflected the experience of the American church: "the wisdom of God's people, united with their bishops under the guidance of the Holy Spirit" (1979 National Directory, no. 5). In 1972, the year in which the first General Directory appeared, the U.S. bishops approved two other documents that were to exercise great influence on the national directory.

Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education and To Teach as Jesus Did: A Pastoral Message on Catholic Education (TJD) were chiefly adaptions of a chapter in the 1971 General Directory, "The Most Outstanding Elements of the Christian Message," (nos. 47-69).⁵

• Basic Teachings emphasized the task of teaching and instruction on doctrine and the presentation of church teaching. It singled out three themes, "chosen from others," that are carried through Catholic religious education—prayer, participation in the liturgy, and familiarity with the Holy Bible.
  
• To Teach as Jesus Did went well beyond the narrow focus of Basic Teachings. To Teach as Jesus Did spoke of the educational mission of the Church as "an integrated ministry embracing three interlocking dimensions: the message revealed by God (didache) which the Church proclaims; fellowship in the life of the Holy Spirit (koinonia); service to the Christian community and the entire human community (diakonia)" (no. 14). Every topic of To Teach as Jesus Did—from adult education to campus ministry, to youth ministry and all forms of religious education, and to secondary and primary schools—was described in terms of message, community, and service.

[Catechesis] is a form of the ministry of the word, which proclaims and teaches. It leads to and flows from the ministry of worship, which sanctifies through prayer and sacrament. It supports the ministry of service, which is linked to efforts to achieve social justice and has traditionally been expressed in spiritual and corporal works of mercy. (no. 32)

The educational efforts of the Church must therefore be directed to forming persons-in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important not only to his [or her] solitary destiny but also to the destinies of the many communities in which he [or she] lives. (TJD, no. 13)

1. Cf. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1979), no. 213. Cf. also nos. 215, 227, and 228. Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
2. Among these publications are Guidelines for Doctrinally Sound Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1990), Implementing the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catechetical Leadership, 1993), and National Certification Standards for Professional Parish Directors of Religious Education (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catechetical Leadership, 1996).
   
3. Cf. Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1997). Cf. also National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999).
   
4. Cf. U.S. Catholic Bishops, In Support of Catechetical Ministry (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000).
   
5. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Basic Teachings for Catholic Religious Education (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1973) and To Teach as Jesus Did: A Pastoral Message on Catholic Education (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1972). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
6. Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Pastoral Office of the Bishops in the Church (Christus Dominus). In Austin Flanney, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, new rev. ed., vol. 1 (Northport, N.Y.: Costello Publishing Company, 1996). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
7. Cf. Mary Charles Bryce, "Sharing the Light of Faith: Catechetical Threshold for the U.S. Church," in Sourcebook for Modern Catechetics, ed. Michael Warren (Winona, Minn: St. Mary's Press, 1983), 269.
   
8. Cf. Augustine of Hippo, The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, trans. Bruce Harbert (New York: New City Press, 1999).
   
9. Cf. David J. O'Brien, "Choosing Our Future: American Catholicism's Precarious Prospects," in Rising from History: U.S. Catholic Theology Looks to the Future, ed. Robert J. Daly (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1987), 18.
   
10. Anne Marie Mongoven, The Prophetic Spirit of Catechesis: How We Share the Fire in Our Hearts (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), 30. Subsequent references are given in the text.
    
11. Ad gentes, no. 14, explains that the catechumenate "is not a mere exposition of dogmatic truths and norms of morality, but a period of formation in the whole Christian life, an apprenticeship of sufficient duration. . . ." In Flannery, op. cit.

This excerpt is from the article "Sharing the Light of Faith After Twenty Years" by members of the writing committee for the original National Catechetical Directory, The Living Light Fall 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2. Subscribe to The Living Light

Many milestones measure the development and growth of Catholic religious education in the United States, but the two markers that stand out above the rest are the Baltimore Catechism and Sharing the Light of Faith: The National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States (1979 National Directory). The first, largely the work of Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria, was mandated (though never formally approved) by the body of U.S. bishops at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884). The second was the product of a united effort of bishops and others, inspired by the Second Vatican Council. The Living Light asked members of the 1979 National Directory writing committee to recount the events, now more than twenty years past, and reflect on their experience in producing the national directory.

Two members of the committee, Archbishop John Whealon of Hartford, the chairman, and James Lyke, OFM (later archbishop of Atlanta), are deceased. Eight members responded to the question we posed to them: "What is distinctively American about the 1979 National Directory?"


The 1979 National Directory: A Document for All Catholics in the United States

Contributions by Wilfrid H. Paradis, Mariella Frye, Mary Baylouny, Cecilia Ann Cavazos, and Ann Marie Mongoven

Msgr. Wilfrid H. Paradis, director of the project, now in residence at St. John the Baptist Church in Manchester, New Hampshire, recalls how the idea of a directory was launched at the Second Vatican Council.

The first formal proposal for a general catechetical directory for the Church was made by Bishop Pierre-Marie Lacointe of Beauvais, France, during the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. He was the only one among the thousands consulted about the agenda of the Council who proposed a general catechetical directory rather than a universal catechism. Bishop Beauvais apparently reasoned that a monolithic presentation of the faith for the whole Church was no longer possible (if it had ever been) given the almost countless variety of cultural, racial, ethnic, educational, regional, and other differences that exist throughout the world. This solitary recommendation was adopted by the participants of the Second Vatican Council and incorporated in article 44 of the Decree on the Bishops' Pastoral Office in the Church (Christus Dominus). The decree made no mention of national catechetical directories, although such directories were advocated in discussions of various conciliar commissions as early as 1962. By the end of the council, it had become evident that the universal Church needed general guidelines—a directory—that could be adapted to regional and local circumstances.

Religious educators throughout the United States were asked to recommend individuals with the expertise to serve as project director for the development of a national catechetical directory for the bishops. The persons who were recommended were asked to submit a resume and answer a list of questions concerning catechesis. Based on this information, the list was narrowed down to seven persons. I was one of the seven. Each of us was interviewed by Archbishop John Whealon, who was to chair the episcopal Committee of Policy and Review of the directory, and Bishop James Rausch, the general secretary of the bishops' conference. Msgr. Paradis was selected to fill the position of project director. About a month later I was asked to consider serving as associate project director. I found the possibility of doing so both exciting and challenging. After meeting with Msgr. Paradis and hearing his plans and expectations for the project, I accepted the challenge.

Our first task was to identify eight individuals to serve on the writing committee with the four appointed bishops. We were to select individuals who would be as representative as possible of the Church in the United States.

The experience of participating in the making of the national directory, wherein our spirituality, customs, and catechesis would be acknowledged, was certainly a milestone in the acceptance and dissemination of information about our church in this country. It was a "first" for our inclusion in a national directory for catechetical teaching!

Although it did not impact directly on our catechetical programs throughout the United States, it was a real boost in morale! At least, information about the Eastern churches would be taught, and Americans will be able to understand that we have one faith, but many expressions of faith. In my opinion, the greater impact was felt by American Latin Catholics, whose past catechetical training had given them little knowledge of our faith, its history, traditions, and catholicity. Most people thought there was only one way to be Catholic, the way of the majority! Recognition as a fully functioning, whole, apostolic Catholic Church and the promotion of further learning and study about life as an Eastern Catholic were truly distinctive and American about the 1979 National Directory.

In 1974, long before cultural diversity became a key concept in society, Paradis and Frye chose a committee which included men and women who were diverse: lay men and women, Hispanic, African American, men and women religious, priests and bishops, professional catechists and parents, single women, teachers, people from all different parts of the country. We differed in age and in catechetical experience. We represented a spectrum of theological, liturgical, and catechetical viewpoints. What united us was our strong faith, prayer together, intelligence, and a determination to do our best.

The national directory process of consultation invited the membership of the Church in the United States, which was a "rainbow" of people, to become participants in setting the guidelines for catechesis. The recognition of the diversity of the Catholic Church in America presented the opportunity for the development of new catechetical materials. These materials were culturally adaptable teaching methods which at the time needed to be multilingual, using a variety of media and personal life experiences, enabling those to be catechized [to have] a recognizable point of entrance for catechesis in the Catholic faith. Collaboration with specialists in the educational, social, and behavioral sciences brought to the catechetical faith-learning process a readiness for the doctrinal teaching to be integrated comprehensively by its participants.

A determined effort was made to reach the Native American community to identify its catechetical expectations and to respond to them. Beyond the three general consultation periods, the project director spent four days with religious educators representing some seventeen tribes on the Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to hear, firsthand, the special catechetical situations faced by Native Americans across a land that was once their own. I found this visit both inspiring as well as instructive.

In order to adapt the directives of the 1971 General Directory it was decided that broad consultation should be utilized to determine what should go into the national directory and to obtain reactions to a first draft. It was felt this would assure that the contents of the national directory would reflect what was actually being done by religious educators in the United States.

The initial consultation to determine the content of the document was aimed primarily toward those involved in religious education. Over seventeen thousand responses were analyzed, categorized under topical headings, and presented to the committee. A number of the diocesan offices of religious education had submitted outlines of what each chapter of the document should include to reflect the elements of catechesis in the United States. One of these outlines was chosen as a working draft into which the material gathered could be inserted. By the end of the meeting that adopted the outline, we were ready to begin writing the first draft. Nine individuals who were considered experts in a specific area of catechesis were given the results of the committee's work and each was invited to write a specific chapter.

The first draft was published on newsprint to impress upon people that this was a document in process, not a final text. Each diocese was asked to distribute the draft widely and encourage the faithful to send their reactions and suggestions to the national directory office. In order to handle the large volume of responses expected, a system for coding the material so that it could be computerized was developed. Over seventy-five thousand responses with suggestions for improving the draft were received from individuals and groups. Graduate students from the Religious Education Department of The Catholic University of America were hired to do the coding over several months. The computer printout was arranged by chapters. The committee studied the data for each chapter and gave directions for developing a second draft.

The second draft was sent to each diocese with a request that a diocesan consultation be held and the results incorporated into a single diocesan report. These reports were synthesized. The committee again studied the results and gave directions for another draft. Before the committee was satisfied that we had a document ready for submission to the bishops for approval, a fourth and fifth draft were written.

Over the nearly four years that the document was in preparation, close to one million pieces of information were distributed to those involved in the process. Taken into constant consideration were the various theological perspectives of scholars, religious educators, and the faithful in general, which had led in some places to serious and often irreconcilable differences, particularly since the end of Vatican II. Both the process of preparation and the national directory itself were meant as agents to bring greater harmony to the Church.

I believe that as a result of this process there are three unique perspectives in the 1979 National Directory. First, it emphasized that fostering a faith community committed to justice is integral to catechesis. Second, it demonstrated and encouraged unity between catechesis and liturgy. Third, the Church in the United States, through its diocesan offices and professional parish directors, embraced and implemented the national directory with vigor and enthusiasm because it welcomed it as a document which emerged from and reflected the Church in the United States.

The 1979 National Directory insists that catechesis is incomplete unless it promotes social and personal justice within the catechetical community. Catechesis always includes fostering justice, which the national directory describes as "love's absolute minimum." It offers not just a checklist of social issues but principles which will, hopefully, lead the community to be a community of justice and peace.

To catechize in the Church in America you had to become consciously aware of racial and ethnic differences and you needed to be alert to the American secular culture which consumes and affects Catholics of all races and ethnic culture in unconscious forms. Alertness to a plurality of changes and differences brought a sensitivity to the signs of the times, always using current events, reflecting on them in the light of faith and gospel values.

Msgr. Paradis seems to express the conviction of the entire writing committee and everyone involved in the project when he says,

There is no doubt that the 1979 National Directory is an American document designed for the catechesis of all Catholics in the United States.

1. James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991).
   
2. Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 8.
   
3. Cf. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Planning for Single Young Adult Ministry: Directions for Ministerial Outreach (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1981).
   
4. Cf. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sons and Daughters of the Light: A Pastoral Plan for Ministry with Young Adults (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1998).
   
5. Cf. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Empowered by the Spirit: Campus Ministry Faces the Future (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1985).
   
6. Cf. Department of Education, United States Catholic Conference, The Gospel on Campus, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1996).
   
7. Cf. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sharing Catholic Social Teaching (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1998), and Leader's Guide to "Sharing Catholic Social Teaching" (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999)

[This excerpt is from the special feature article "Ecclesia in America: Images and Faces" by Peter Poppleton, The Living Light Winter 2000, Vol. 37, No. 2. Subscribe to The Living Light.]

When Pope John Paul II promulgated the apostolic exhortation The Church in America (Ecclesia in America),¹ I greeted it with great hope. The Holy Father, it seemed, was challenging the Church in America to embrace two major themes from Vatican II: the universal call to holiness and the renewal of the temporal order. Both had a particular message for people like me: laity struggling to live the Gospel and build up the kingdom of God amid the hustle and bustle of daily life and in the complex world of business and bureaucracy.

My initial burst of enthusiasm gave way to discouragement when I began to read commentaries on Ecclesia in America. For the most part the scholarship was good and the insights into the issues were helpful—but the commentaries did not touch my heart. Statistics on immigration, reflections on the world economy, and other socio-political analyses seemed far removed from my reality. Pope John Paul II seemed to be calling for conversion, and the commentators responded with a call for more study and government intervention. Ecclesia in America, it seems to me, demands more personal response.


The Search for Images

Throughout the first reading of Ecclesia in America, I kept saying to myself, "This is what Vatican II was all about. It is the teaching of four recent pontiffs. It presents the vision of the current pope." Now certainly that is a simplification, but nonetheless it was the immediate impression that the document made on me. I said to myself, "Okay, you have thought about these issues for over thirty-five years. It is time to take action." I kept looking for the inner core of issues raised in the exhortation that would lead me to find the steps to take and then to take them. I decided to look more prayerfully at the world around me, knowing all the while that conversion is truly the work of the Trinity and that it is the work of grace. So while continuing to read Scripture, I began to look and reflect more deeply in everyday life for images that would connect more immediately with my heart. I did this with the hope that "in following the path of prayer . . . [I would] become more conscious of the Gospel's demands and of . . . [my] duties towards others" (no. 29).
Therefore, I began to search for ordinary daily images that would lead me to conversion where I live in Los Angeles with my wife Sharon and our three teenage sons. Many of the following images of the Americas come from that context.

One night a while back, I had to travel across country on business. The Los Angeles International Airport was still busy at 11:00 p.m. The red-eye for Atlanta would leave in fifty minutes. Many people were being processed through security, but fortunately the line was moving fast. Very few bags were checked—even fewer computer cases like my own. I had taken this flight before, but this time it seemed different. Clearly 30 percent of those standing in the gate area had brown skin, black hair, and tired faces. English was not the language spoken among them, and many were silent. Their tickets were in their hands, but very few carried luggage. Some carried babies, but not much else. If generalities were to be applied to this group, 14 percent would be from Mexico and 26 percent from other Spanish-speaking countries. And most would be of Catholic descent. Ecclesia in America was here.

These people of the Church in the Americas were gathered for the flight, but the flock wasn't mixing. They shared the same space, but the cultural divide was wide. I knew the line of economics and cultural difference would separate this flock further upon landing in Atlanta. Some would head to taxis, planes, and cars. Others would be sent to join the growing numbers of hotel workers, kitchen help, and day laborers migrating to cities throughout the country.

The plane landed. It was morning. I caught my stride halfway up the gate and was gone. I didn't look back. Perhaps, for a moment, I thought to, but I didn't. The Church of the Americas was here. Though they were people like those I see every day, I was distant. I needed to change.

Ecclesia in America exhorts us to change. The exhortation is as simple as the Scripture cited in no. 27: "If any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). And yet it is as complex as the statement in no. 13: "Like the social virtues, sins do not exist in the abstract, but are the consequence of personal acts. Hence it is necessary to bear in mind that America today is a complex reality, the results of the attitudes and actions of the men and women who live there." I know that the personal act of closing my heart is a sin. It is not sin in the abstract but comes from my unredeemed attitudes and actions. I am in need of conversion.

Am I convinced that Christ is "the Father's plan . . . [who reveals] to each human person the way to realize fully his or her vocation" (no. 10)? This idea is not abstract. It is about exiting the plane in Atlanta. If I were converted, it would be about "us."

The complexity of individuals is at the heart of the issue. It is one reason I sought conversion. What will it take to move beyond my personal sin patterns to the "social virtues"? What will it take for me to see the patterns of our own sin in the structures of the world and to move these structures to be more just, more filled with the spirit of the Gospels?


More Images

Unwanted Children in Brazil

A visiting missionary priest shared a story in his homily on Mission Sunday. Once he had been on an early-morning jog on an urban road in Brazil. It was his first run in this country, and as he ran past some sleeping children he thought something was odd. So he turned back. Looking closer he found that they were dead, not sleeping. They had been executed by an official "death squad." This missionary told us that unwanted children were rounded up and killed on a regular basis. After Mass our family had brunch and talked about the homily. We talked about why this happened. Too many unwanted children were roaming the streets, causing crime to go up—and when crime goes up, economies suffer. These dead children lying in the ditch were excess, unwanted children. Then one of our sons asked, "Well, isn't it similar to abortion?" Yes, there are many unwanted children in this America as well. The number has surpassed forty-four million at last count. Our own economic purification death squads have also been very active.

As seen above, the Americas already share in the sins of injustice—"even thieves do as much," and so also do we share in the need for a liberation of conversion. The exhortation is addressed to all the Americas: North, South, and Central. What are the common enemies of the spirit that we all experience? Perhaps the coming catechism on the Church's social doctrine will bring us closer together to address these issues of common concern.

The Face of Oratio

Oratio is a neighbor. Neither of us has air conditioning, so on some evenings we stand in the street talking and trying to cool off in the summer's heat. He is a senior at the local public school and has lived most of his life in the United States. He has asked for a "What Would Jesus Do?" wristband like one of our sons wears. At school Oratio is learning how to put accent marks on the words that he has heard and spoken from birth. As a young child he lived on the family farm in Mexico. He says it was a quieter and simpler life. He has told us stories. Some of his relatives still live there for that quiet, simple—though poorer—life. They don't want to move to the states. Our children have grown up in this neighborhood with Oratio.

Recently Oratio's brother visited Tijuana. His mother had sewn money into his brother's pants pocket so it would not get stolen. Oratio doesn't like to go to Tijuana. It is too depressing. One of the images he carries is a man without legs begging. So here we are together. I am living in "his" barrio. He is living in "my" country. A breeze brings freshness to the night air. La luna es en el cielo—"The moon is in the sky." It is full and it is ours. For a moment there is communion. For a moment I want more.

Prayer "leads Christians ‘little by little to acquire a contemplative view of reality, enabling them to recognize God in every moment and in every thing; to contemplate God in every person; to seek his will in all that happens'" (no. 29). Recently one of our sons thanked us for living in the barrio. Lately we have talked about moving.

The Image of a Treadmill

I have this recurring image of being on a treadmill of sorts. It is remarkably similar to the one my father and mother were on, except it is moving faster. This treadmill is work, it is belief, it is the economic power of the market, it is the saturation by the media—and it keeps moving faster and faster. In the exhortation, we read, "It is more necessary than ever for all the faithful to move from a faith of habit [the treadmill], sustained perhaps by social context alone [which is almost gone], to a faith which is conscious and personally lived" (no. 73).

At some point our children also get on the treadmill. It no doubt will be going even faster. Will they be conscious? Will their faith be personal? We want them to have a different treadmill. But will they? A different treadmill will come from the cultural faith pattern discovered and lived in our homes. It will come through nurturing the images of the heart. If our children do not see us actively trying to renew the temporal order—if they don't see us genuinely embracing this renewal and making it a vibrant part of our family faith culture—then I fear we will only be delivering them up to the world. If we only help them to become good people and then "get on in the world" without a clear sense of the Gospels in everyday life, we will have lost yet another generation to the "widening gap between faith and culture." Pope Paul VI named this gap when he stated that "the split between the Gospel and culture is undoubtedly the drama of our time." Pope John Paul II connects this idea to that expressed by the Synod of Bishops: "Hence the Synod Fathers rightly felt that ‘the new evangelization calls for a clearly conceived, serious and well organized effort to evangelize culture'" (no. 70). The plan of the family needs to be just as clearly "conceived, serious, and well organized."

The family plan needs to include the major themes from this synod, or else the materialistic and secular patterns of the prevalent cultures of the Americas will continue to create "cultural rootlessness, the loss of family traditions and of people's particular religious traditions" (no. 21). This is a problem not just of the poor seeking refuge in the cities, but also of us seeking refuge in consumerism and secularism. Ours is a softer refuge. Perhaps it is more dangerous.

Faces of the Poor

Several years ago our family filled backpacks and headed to Europe. No, we didn't rough it. We were fortunate to stay with families and at a few very hospitable bed and breakfast inns. "If we have to visit one more cathedral . . ." was often said. Well, yes, we did visit more. But we remember them, especially the cathedral where one son looked into the crypt of a not-so-very "incorrupt" saint and remarked that the Church really had gone out on a limb on this one. In a way the cathedral became a way of seeing for us, and the seeing was an act of catechesis. Yes, these cathedrals have a mixed history, but it is also rich and profound. The roots of Christianity and Western culture were discovered and felt.

Another cultural and religious trip needs to be taken as a family. We need to visit the cathedrals of the poor. These cathedrals are much larger south of our border than they are here in the United States. We have our own, though, and to fully encounter even these will help to lead us to conversion. Is it possible to really see the cathedral of the poor? Is it possible for us to remove the mask of our sins that has built this cathedral of the poor? Will we also be able to see our own faces and those of the poor and then act? I begin to make plans for another family trip.

The Tidings, the diocesan paper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, recently featured some of the engineering going into the cathedral of the poor. Over a twenty-some-year period, hourly compensation in the North had nearly tripled while in the South it had stayed the same.²

Compensation Gap:

		1975		1998
USA		$6.36/hr.		$18.56/hr.
Canada		$5.96/hr.		$15.69/hr.
Mexico		$1.47/hr.		$ 1.83/hr.

These numbers represent the human tragedy occurring in the cathedral of the poor. I saw some of the refugees from this cathedral on the flight to Atlanta.

The cathedral of the poor is not a place of sanctuary, though Christ dwells there. It does have windows: their eyes, which look for light in us. The poor want a better place for themselves and for their families. They are willing to undergo the profound change our ancestors chose when they left their homes, their culture, and their people. Are we prepared to undergo the same profound change?

Ecclesia in America states,

Yet conversion is incomplete if we are not aware of the demands of the Christian life and if we do not strive to meet them. . . . "If any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). Hence, for the Christian people of America [all of us] conversion to the Gospel means to revise "all the different areas and aspects of life, especially those related to the social order and the pursuit of the common good." (no. 27)

1. John Paul II, The Church in America (Ecclesia in America) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1999). Subsequent references are given in the text.
   
2. The Tidings 107:35 (September 1, 2000).