For 3,000, “Rise up, people of God!” was both theme and energy
“People repeatedly quoted ‘Rise Up!’ at our follow-up
meeting. Energy is still evident from Milwaukee. This conference brought us
together as a group for the first time on where we go from here. New people
were energized by first attendance. There is now a serious search for action
focus locally.”
Judy and Jerry Bettice, Memphis, Tenn., CTA organizing group
Sometimes a couple of words can sum up a whole movement. For Catholics in Milwaukee Nov. 3-5 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Call To Action movement, the words were “Rise Up.”
In a Church starved for episcopal leadership and a nation demoralized by war in Iraq and shameful neglect on the Gulf Coast, tens of thousands of CTA-minded Catholics last spring were mailed conference flyers imprinted with a burning bush and a call: “I AM! Rise up, People of God!” But would they come in November?
They came! 3,000 strong — as many as last year. Even co-director Sheila Daley, four months after a near-fatal car crash July 2, was there — wheelchaired to the stage by husband Dan on the first evening, not to sit but to rise up and greet us all as her family of faith from a standing podium.
Rise Up: RC WomenPriests
Minutes later, beneath Lena Woltering’s towering, hand-sewn backdrop of the burning bush, keynote speaker Joan Chittister reminded us that Yahweh’s words to Moses are now addressed to us: “Rise up, present yourself to the Pharaoh, and say to him again, ‘Let my people go!’” For the Church and for the planet at this moment in history, there must be action in the Call To Action. Just do it.
Living icons of forthright action were close at hand. They were the attraction for TV news on Fox and NBC. They were the Roman Catholic WomenPriests. About a dozen recently ordained were on hand, and celebrated Eucharist early Sunday with about 700 CTAers participating. “I always say I won’t live to see the changes I want,” wrote one participant. “When I was at the RCWP Eucharist, I thought, “I’m seeing it!’” Young women were as moved as their elders, as Katie Schervish, 25, wrote in her reflection. Patricia Fresen, one of three ordaining bishops in Pittsburgh, spoke about the movement both Friday and Saturday. It was standing room only.
Rise Up: Cindy Sheehan
Also earning a spot on the evening news was Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who camped outside the Bush ranch in Texas waiting for the president to meet with her about the Iraq War that claimed the life of her son. Arriving the day before her CTA leadership award was presented Sunday, she did TV and press interviews, and headlined a “Bring the Troops Home” outdoor rally with over 1,000 people from CTA and from Peace Action Wisconsin. She asked them to take their antiwar sentiments to the polls on Tuesday. Then, before speaking to a general CTA audience Saturday evening , she spent time talking with CTA’s Next Generation — young adults in their 20’s and 30’s.
Rise Up: Young adults
The Next Generation cohort in the conference crowd was about 10 percent, but their visibility and leadership far outstripped their numbers. Early Friday evening the entire Next Gen leadership team in matching t-shirts that read, “Question authority… Jesus did,” swept onto the stage and presented a hilarious infomercial about all the Next Gen events on the schedule and programs underway during the year.
Saturday’s plenary speaker, Seattle University Hispanic and liberation theologian Jeanette Rodriguez, teaches hundreds of undergraduates, and asked her audience to try to see the world through their eyes. “What are college kids preoccupied with?” she asked. Music, someone said. Computers. Clothes. She then showed a slide show created by her theology students. Against images of the stricken Twin Towers, the war, the hungry children, a plaintive song said, “These wounds won’t seem to heal,” and “When you cried, I’d wipe away all of your tears … but you still left.”
Rodriguez then spoke of our capacities to empathize, to seek truth and unmask lies, and to hope against hope in the midst of disillusionment. She said she learned these spiritual lessons working with the people of El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico: “It is the crucified people who will lead us to the center of things.” She has also taken many students to Latin America. Our young adults have these capacities, and our church must speak to them, she said.
The NCR coverage of the conference this year focused entirely on its young adult participants. “This generation has a yearning to really create a new world, and a new church,” said Nicole Sotelo of CTA staff, who coordinates Next Gen. She feels world and church are connected for young people. “I think the only way we can create a new world is to create a more just church.”
If young adults really feel that way, it augurs well for CTA’s new JustChurch Project launched at the conference (story, page 1 and below), and is a sign of hope for the whole Call To Action movement.
Who are the shepherds?
Rodriguez deemphasized the leadership shortcomings of today’s bishops. “They were chosen for their administrative role, not because they are spiritual leaders.” Throughout church history, “what must often rescue the church is the laity’s courageous insistence on what is right, even when their leaders are not only deserting them, but even doing violence to them,” she said.
The final plenary speaker of the weekend, theologian Diana Hayes, made the same point repeatedly. She called her talk “Rise Up, Shepherds,” — meaning all of us. She looked to the next ecumenical council as predominantly lay people, “with cardinals, bishops and priests welcome to participate fully, but as a minority.” (Hayes’ talk was published in the Nov.-Dec. issue of CTA Spirituality/Justice Reprint.)
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