Denver Catholic

23 DENVER CATHOLIC | OCTOBER 26-NOVEMBER 8, 2019 immigrants were treated like animals. CF&I's fear of union organizing was such that they provided no common areas for miners and their families to socialize, and any hint of miners con- gregating together was met with pis- tol-whipping, beating, even impris- onment. And, in Huerfano County, Deputy Silvio "Shorty" Martinez was one of the chief enforcers. It was a dangerous, violent place. But even Upton Sinclair didn't realize the full extent of the dehumanization of the immigrants in CF&I's care. In 1923, my grandmother was sterilized without her knowledge or consent, by CF&I doctors, at a CF&I facility, during a routine procedure. Appar- ently this was common. J.D. Rockefel- ler was a friend of Margaret Sangers, whose Birth Control League's motto was "More Children From the Fit, Less From the Unfi t." And these southern European immigrants, my ancestors, were the unfi t. And so they were neutered like animals, so that they couldn't propagate, and the likes of me couldn't enter the world. CF&I's problem was simple. It saw these workers — "labor" — as simply another form of capital. Their employees weren't treated like indi- viduals created in the image and like- ness of God, with dignity and dreams and aspirations. They were treated like machinery. They were useful in extracting coal from the ground. Out- side of that, they were simply problems to be controlled by any means neces- sary — up to and including violence. J.D. Rockefeller could have learned a lot from St. John Paul II. In Ver- itatis Splendor, he wrote about the "scandal of the dignity of every human person." Every person, no matter how poor or weak or small or ignorant, is created in the image and likeness of God. And the only appro- priate response to a human person — in any context — is love. Looking out for the best for him or her. Which, in business, means a fair exchange for labor, and safe working conditions, and the opportunity to advance and create a better life for oneself and one's family. I told a long, extreme story to make a short, simple point: Our Christian life doesn't end in the workplace. Businesses today may not house their employees in tar paper shacks or pay them in pretend "company" currency. But the story of CF&I should serve as an examination of conscience for any person who employs another person. Do I see them as images of God in my care? Or are they simply means to my own ends — a way to accomplish my goals, without regard for their aspi- rations and their welfare? Am I fair and reasonable? Do I strive to create a healthy working environment? Do I create opportunities for advance- ment, for my sta… to grow and learn? Do I pay a just wage? When funds are tight, do I l try to fi nd other ways to cut back before I lay o… employees? Do I refuse to bully my underlings, and root out bullying in manage- ment? If you want to learn more about the story, I recommend reading King Coal. If you want to learn more about the point, I recommend reading St. John Paul II's excellent Laborem Excercens. And whoever you are, whatever you do, I recommend taking "the scandal of the value of every human person" into the workplace with you. P ope St. John XXIII sought to initiate a new period of opti- mistic engagement with the modern world by opening the Second Vatican Council in 1962. He spoke of opening the windows of the Church, seeking to move beyond the entrenched position reacting against modern secular society. Pope St. Paul VI would later describe the purpose of Vatican II as evangelization, but what followed the Council led to the dark clouds of the modern world's confusion entering in through those open windows. False understandings of freedom, a mun- dane approach to liturgy, and politi- cally motivated disputes have blown in with those clouds, while more and more Catholics have stopped practic- ing the faith. Even as some Church leaders con- tinue to advance a naively optimistic approach to our secular culture, one voice has arisen to counter this approach and to point us back to the truth and beauty of the Gospel and the Church's life. Cardinal Robert Sarah released the third installment of his trilogy of interview books, The Day Is Now Far Spent (in conver- sation with Nicholas Diat, Ignatius Press, 2019). The fi rst volume, God or Nothing, related the Cardinal's amaz- ing life, beginning with his baptism from paganism as a young boy, his study in a French colonial seminary, becoming Archbishop of the capital of his native Guinea in his early 30s under an oppressive dictatorship, and his later work at the Vatican. The Power of Silence refl ected on a crucial topic for our culture, the need to withdraw from the omnipresence of technology to be able to listen to God's voice in silence. The Day Is Now Far Spent begins by explaining the crisis of faith that has led to a larger crisis within the Church. Cardinal Sarah explains that "the crisis that the Church is experiencing is much deeper [than problems with a business]; it is like a cancer eating away at the body from within ... In large sectors of the Church, we have lost the sense of God's objectivity. Each individual starts from his subjective experience and creates for himself a religion that suits him" (88). Over and against a "veritable cacophony [that] reigns in the teachings of pastors, bishops, and priests" which has led to "confusion, ambiguity, and apostasy," the Cardinal calls Catholics "to receive the Church's teaching with a spirit of discipleship, with docility and humil- ity" (91; 92). Following from putting God fi rst through faith, Cardinal Sarah invites the Church to recover a sense of the sacred. He quotes Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) that "the renewal of the liturgy is the funda- mental prerequisite for the renewal of the Church" (111). He comments on this passage: "I humbly beg bishops, priests, and the people of God to care more for the sacred liturgy, to put God at the center of it, to ask Jesus Christ once again to teach us to pray. We have desacralized the Eucharis- tic celebration" (ibid.). The liturgy should be the place to encounter God and to enter into a contemplative union with him. He unites the crisis of the liturgy to the broader crisis of culture: The West "no longer weeps with gratitude before the Cross; it no longer trembles in amazement before the Blessed Sacrament. I think that men need to be astonished in order to adore, to praise, to thank this God who is so good and so great. Wisdom begins with wonder, Socrates said. The inability to wonder is the sign of a civilization that is dying " (127). Sarah documents at great length the death of Western culture. "I am convinced," he relates, "that Western civilization is going through a lethal crisis. It has reached the limits of self-destructive hatred" (158). This requires that the Church awaken to preserve "what is most human in man. She is the guardian of civilization" (ibid.). He exhorts the Church to defend the goodness of creation and human nature, as well as the family. He also returns to the theme of his previ- ous book, the need to fi ght against the distraction of technology and to enter into the interior life where God can be found. "Modern man neglects his inte- rior life so much that he longer knows what it means. He is submerged in the mud of passions, preoccupied with musing himself and enjoying all the pleasures of the world" (251). Despite his challenging words on the crisis of the Church and the world, ultimately Sarah o… ers inspiration for renewal: "We must burn with a love for our faith. We must not tarnish it or dilute it in worldly compromises ... The day when we no longer burn with love for our faith, the world will die of cold, deprived of its most precious good. It is up to us to defend and to proclaim this faith!" (324). The Catholic Reader R. Jared Staudt, PhD, is a husband and father of six, the director of formation for the Archdiocese of Denver, a Benedictine oblate, prolifi c writer, and insatiable reader. DR. R. JARED STAUDT The prophetic voice of Cardinal Robert Sarah

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