Reflections on Meghan and Carla's Presentation

I really learned a lot about the UCC Church from Megan and Carla's presentation. First, I learned that this relatively young church is usually associated with contemporary liberal beliefs. That is, liberal in a political context. The big theme through out the presentation was not "playing god." This theme is reflected through out their beliefs on abortion, homosexuality, war, and many other social issues. They are the largest supporting gay rights religion. However, at Immanuel, the church, a mostly older crowd, tends to be a bit leery about this issue as there are no openly gay members. Right now it's more of a "we are waiting for it to happen to us before we have to form an opinion" kind of thing. On Abortion, they prefer it didn't happen but they believe it's the women's right to choose. They believe the life of the mom is more important and that in certain situations, such as rape and incest, it is justifiable. On war, they believe it is wrong. They believe that killing people is wrong and that it's humans just trying to play god. Women are allowed to be pastors, and historically women have been pastors in their church for quite a long time. There is still some bias about women in the church, but is overwhelmingly accepted. Divorce is not a problem. However, before getting married, regardless of orientation, couples are expected to meet with the pastor for marriage counseling type meetings. Their overarching ideas behind their religion are: take care of the "least of these," human dignity, love and compassion, and charity and justice.

When it comes to the Washington neighborhood, I found Carla and Meghan's assertions that Immanuel's interactions with the neighborhood are run on fear to be very interesting. This is something I've noticed too with my own conversations with Annie from St. Mary's about interacting with the Washington Neighborhood. It seems that everyone is scared to do anything with this neighborhood. My biggest question: why are we so scared? Obviously, there have been a few instances of violence that's possibly gang-related. However, I always pictured religious orders being sort of fearless in the determination to help those less fortunate then them. It saddens me in someways that even now these religious groups are afraid to step in and help because of a few instances of violence. This raises the question in my mind: how much of this fear is based on race? This saddens me even more if it the case that some of this fear is associated with racial tensions. I still believe that it's religious groups such as the UCC Church, especially because this particular Church does have a strong black following in different areas of the country, would be the best groups to go in and help make a difference. I know that the UCC Church does do some activities to help the neighborhood and is talking about more ideas, but I hope that all of our Churches can move past this fear and actually do something to help.

Reflections on Kelli and Crystal's Presentation

After Kelli and Crystal’s presentation, I felt that I had gained a better understanding of the Lutheran faith – however, I also began to question some of the things I was being told. I got the impression from Kelli and Crystal that when talking to the Pastor of their church, everything he said was kind of a “well. I’m not exactly sure but this is what I think about it…” type of a thing, which may be a general characterization of Lutheranism. It seemed very odd to me that Lutherans would form a larger group like the ELCA in which they try to determine uniform beliefs because that seemed like a very “Catholic” thing to do. Since Catholicism is supposedly the only universal church, and since Lutheranism is not universal in the sense that it has uniform ideas, in some ways I would understand how someone who’s a Lutheran may not be able to speak on behalf of their church about certain beliefs, but instead only from their own beliefs. I think that it must have been very difficult for Kelli and Crystal to determine what information was a universal belief of their church, and not just their pastor’s opinion.

I really enjoyed the segment of Kelli and Crystal’s presentation about women in their church. For a long time now, one of my biggest concerns/complaints about the Catholic Church is the role of women. A lot of people defend women not being priests based on tradition. I realize that Catholicism is based basically entirely on tradition, but this is one tradition that I see no point in keeping. However, the Lutheran faith does ordain women, and while there has been some controversy over the issue, it still seems to be a widely accepted Lutheran concept. I was kind of surprised to hear that women were the ones who had the most trouble with women pastors, and part of me still doesn’t believe it. In some ways I think it’s a conspiracy by the men who are not in favor of women pastors and thus project their beliefs onto women parishioners. However, that’s just a theory. It’s very possible that many women who do their best to make sure everyone thinks there are the most Christian and pious women, are upset by women who “one-up-them” and actually become pastors. If this is the case, I find it quite ridiculous. I was also surprised that there has been such a controversy about ordaining homosexuals. Since Catholicism has basically given a copout answer on homosexuality, I wouldn’t be shocked to hear about such a controversy in Catholicism. However, I always thought that the Lutheran church would be more open-minded about this issue.

New Goals and Objectives

Since becoming more familiar with my church and with my service project, I feel that my learning plan needs to be revised a bit. First, my service will most likely be served at the Maria House. Although the Maria House is not technically affiliated with St. Mary’s Parish, it is on their campus and is located in one of St. Mary’s old convents. I’m still waiting to hear back from one of the supervisors at the Maria House to work out a schedule, but I’m really excited to be volunteering here. Domestic Violence is one issue that I’m particularly vocal about have had some experience working in this kind of environment before. I hope to learn from this experience more about how this organization helps to empower women and help them and their children get a fresh start. Some of the things I will be doing here will range from: tutoring the residents, playing with the children, answering phones, watching the door, and possibly staying overnight to supervise.

As far as my learning objectives go, I think that it is going to be really difficult to come up with ideas to help St. Mary’s connect with the Washington neighborhood simply because they are closing. Annie, our site supervisor seemed really uncomfortable with the idea of Steve and me going door-to-door and asking members of the neighborhood what they wanted to happen to the church after it closes. She did however seem really excited about finding out what the city of Dubuque would want to happen to the building after it no longer is a church. I believe Steve is going to try to find out some of that info. Otherwise, I don’t really see a point of us trying to create and sustain a relationship with the Washington neighborhood.

Developing a historical concept of the church and maybe its relationship to the Washington neighborhood throughout history should not be a problem at all. I’ve watched videos, looked at books, and seen tons of pictures. Steven and I were given names of older parishioners in which Annie and those at St. Mary’s wish for us to interview as a way to gather their memories of what St. Mary’s parish life used to be like. I think the biggest challenge for Steve and I will be finding the time to put everything together and deciding which information is most pertinent.

Catholic Social Action

If I had to give a talk about Catholic Social Teaching to a group of people working at a Catholic Church....I would be a bit worried. However, for the sake of the assignment I would discuss one of the issues I find to be particularly intriguing. The issue I would like to discuss is found right at the beginning of Part II of Mater Et Magistra.
51. At the outset it should be affirmed that in economic affairs first place is to be given to the private initiative of individual men who, either working by themselves, or with others in one fashion or another, pursue their common interests.
52. But in this matter, for reasons pointed out by our predecessors, it is necessary that public authorities take active interest, the better to increase output of goods and to further social progress for the benefit of all citizens.
I think these are really interesting because they are two issues that are highly debated in American society. The first basically states that those who should be awarded for their work are those of "private initiatives." I'm not really sure what that means exactly, but I interpret that to mean that those who work hardest for what they want should be those that are awarded. However, the next one states it's necessaries for public authorities to take interest in economic affairs in order to increase social progress. I feel like this can be related to social welfare programs. These programs demonstrate how governments or public authorities can interfere to help society prosper. However, social welfare programs are rather controversial. Many people believe that these programs contradict the so-called "American Dream" attitude in which one pulls themselves up by their boot straps and makes something out of themselves. Also, people tend to generalize about these social welfare programs based off a few individuals who may abuse these programs. However, according to Catholic Social Teaching these programs have some sort of religious justification. I think that such examples as above are important for Catholics to discuss because they play on social controversies that Catholic will be called upon to make judgements about especially when it comes to political decisions.