The notebook by Pax Romana

THE MAGAZINE OF PAX ROMANA / CATHOLIC MOVEMENT FOR INTELLECTUAL & CULTURAL AFFAIRS USA

Participants at 2008 Pax Romana Icmica World Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya

The Study and Promotion of Catholic Social Teaching for the New Global Civilization

SPRING 2009

uided by the still developing intellectual-spiritual tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, THE NOTEBOOK is the magazine of Pax Romana/Catholic Movement for Intellectual & Cultural Affairs USA (CMICA-USA), which is the US fed-

eration of Pax Romana/International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMICA). It is published by the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, a division of Pax Romana/CMICA-USA. THE NOTEBOOK

provides articles, documentation, and book reviews on economic, political, cultural, and spiritual topics related to the

global interests of the worldwide Pax Romana movement. Editorials and signed articles do not necessarily express the opinions of Pax Romana. THE NOTEBOOK welcomes materials from various intellectual perspectives. Both members and non-members of Pax Romana may offer submissions to THE NOTEBOOK. Submissions should adhere to the following guidelines: 1) they should be on the topics relevant to the work of Pax Romana; 2) articles should run between 1,000 and 3,000 words; 3) book reviews should be between 600 and 800 words; and 3) all articles and reviews should follow guidelines found in THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE or the shorter “Turabian” manual. Manuscripts should be sent by email in an MS Word format to paxnotebook@gmail.com

CÉSAR J. BALDELOMAR, EDITOR Telephone: +1 (305) 474.6913, Email: cbaldelomar.prcenter@gmail.com

P AX RO M A N A Ca tho l ic Mo v e me nt fo r In te l l ec t ua l & C u lt u ra l A f fai rs USA 1025 CONNECTICUT AVENUE NW, SUITE 1000, WASHINGTON DC 20036 USA TELEPHONE: +1 (202) 269.6672 - EMAIL: WEBSITE:

PAX.ROMANA.CMICA.USA@COMCAST.NET

WWW.PAX-ROMANA-CMICA-USA.ORG

IN MEMORY OF

WALTER T. HUBBARD 1924-2007

D EC EASED M EM BER OF THE P AX ROM AN A C MI C A-USA BOARD OF D IREC TORS P A X R O M A N A / C A T H O L I C MO V E M E N T F O R I N T E L L E C T UA L & C U L T U R A L A F F A I R S U S A A B L A C K C A T H O L I C W H O W E N T F R O M B O Y H O O D IN N EW O R L E A N S T O A Y O U N G S O L I D E R O N T H E B A T T L E F I E LD S OF WORLD WAR I I , AN D F INALLY TO SEA TTLE TO BE C OM E A C OUR AG E OUS UN I ON LE AD E R , A PR OM I N EN T C I VI L- R IG H TS LE AD E R , A P I O N E E R L A Y L E A D E R IN T H E B L A C K C A T H O L I C M O VE M E N T , AN D A D I STIN G UI SHED P UBLI C OF F IC I AL.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Pax Romana’s Identity, Mission, and Work …………………………………………………………. 1 Lay Leadership Feature: James A. Donovan ………………………………………………………… 2 Letter from the Editor ………………………………………………………………………….......... 3 Letter from the President ……………………………………………………………………………. 4 ARTICLES Report on the Raskob Foundation Grant, César J. Baldelomar & Nicole Roman ……………………….. 6 Brief History of Pax Romana, Joe Holland ……………………………………………………………. 8 Reflections on the Identity and Mission of Pax Romana, Joe Holland ………………………………... 13 Global Ecological Ethics & Global Spirituality, Elisabeth Ferrero ……………………………………... 18 Globalization, the Modern Mechanistic Philosophy, & Pax Romana, César J. Baldelomar ……………... 20 Pax Romana in the Postmodern Global Era, Joe Holland …………………………………………….. 26 Pax Romana Global Leadership Law-Student Internship at the United Nations, Mark J. Wolff ……… 32 Sister Pat Kelly: Contemplative without Borders, Stephen P. Judd …………………………………….. 34 BOOK REVIEWS Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World, by Dorothy Day & Francis J. Sicius – César J. Baldelomar ……...... 36 Compass for Uncharted Lives: A Model for Values Education, by Donald J. Kirby – James Donovan … 38 Ethics for a New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama – Ernesto J. Fernández ……………………………..... 39 I Never Stopped Believing: The Life of Walter Hubbard, by Roger Yockey – César J. Baldelomar ……. 40

IDENTITY

STUDY CIRCLES

Pax Romana is a more than 120-year-old worldwide lay Catholic movement of 420,000 intellectuals, professionals, and university students from both the Eastern and Western Catholic Churches. Today the global Pax Romana network spans 80 countries of Africa, Asia/Pacific, Eastern/Western Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, and North America.

In service of this mission our primary strategic goal is to expand our network of Pax Romana Study Circles devoted to prayerful study of the issues and themes of Catholic Social Teaching. We seek to do so especially on or near colleges and universities, as well as in residential communities and in communities of work. We form these Study Circles for friendship, prayer, and study, as well as for personal intellectual-spiritual development and societal transformation. Since philosophy provides the ethical language for secular institutions, we study especially the philosophical dimension of Catholic Social Teaching.

We are the US Pax Romana federation for intellectuals and professionals. For the spiritual-intellectual development of our members, associates, and friends, we produce educational materials, organize educational events, and sponsor Pax Romana Study Circles, all on issues and themes related to the rich ethical wisdom tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. We do this in humble and loving service of the new global civilization and world church, and with special focus on the United Nations. By deepening our spiritual-intellectual study of the wisdom tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, we humbly seek to become in our personal and professional lives visionary servant-leaders who will promote across the new global civilization a global ethics based on the holistic regeneration of ecological, societal, and spiritual life.

Members of our Study-Circles are invited to take part in Pax Romana's international conferences and global communications system. Through intercultultural dialogue and solidarity across the worldwide Pax Romana movement, we learn from our sisters and brothers worldwide who share their rooted and wise insights into what is happening to the human family and to its wider ecosystem within the turbulent yet hope-filled transition to the new global civilization.

THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE HOLY SEE MISSION Our federation's mission is threefold: first, to prayerfully study the rich ethical wisdom tradition of Catholic Social Teaching and its roots in the wider Catholic intellectual tradition, so that we may live it out in our sacred vocations of family, work, and citizenship; second, to mentor university students in Catholic Social teaching, so that they may become wise and visionary future leaders; third, to cooperate with the Holy See in its support of the United Nations and in its efforts at the UN to guide the new global civilization toward ecological sustainability, defense of the dignity of human life, justice and peace, participatory democracy, intercultural dialogue, and spiritual depth.

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Following Catholic Social Teaching we especially support the United Nations, for we now live in a world where global governance for the common good is essential for the welfare of the human family and of the wider ecosystem. Pax Romana has long been an important UN Non Governmental Organization (NGO) holding consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and also with the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Pax Romana maintains Pax Romana representatives at UN centers in New York, Paris, Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi, and offers Pax Romana UN-NGO internships in New York and Geneva. We also offer our prayerful and loving support to the work of the Holy See at the UN. Pax Romana is officially accredited to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity, and it has had a long close relationship with the Vatican's Secretary of State, as well as with papal nuncios at UN Centers across the world.

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LAY LEADERSHIP FEATURE

JAMES A. DONOVAN

Jim Donovan with Bill Cosby

A. Donovan, President/CEO of Donovan ManJ ames agement, is a career veteran of the nonprofit sector. He

has spent his entire professional life in philanthropy, beginning in 1972 with his first staff position with the United Way in his hometown of Utica, New York. He has held senior level staff positions with the United Negro College Fund, Tusculum College in Tennessee, East Tennessee State University, University of Central Florida and Clemson University.

Mr. Donovan is the author of two bestselling books – Take The Fear Out of Asking For Major Gifts and 50 Ways To Motivate Your Board – and he has published many articles including: Fund Raising Management, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Case Currents, Charitable Giving and Solicitation, the Orlando Sentinel My Word Column, and Metropolitan Universities Quarterly. He is also editor of Resources, the DMI corporate newsletter. His Donovan’s Donor Diary blog is frequently linked to nonprofit journals. To learn more go to: www.donovanmanagement.com Under his direction Donovan Management has guided over 300 clients in assessing, establishing and running annual, major donor club and capital campaigns that have raised

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millions. In 2000, his firm launched its eZ Screen Prospect Research Service to assist clients in identifying major gift prospects. It has since researched over a million donor records for clients. A graduate of Wadhams Hall Seminary College in upstate New York, Mr. Donovan served a ten-year term as a trustee for the college, five as Vice Chair of the Board, and lately as emeriti trustee. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Institute of the St. Thomas University School of Law and of Pax Romana, CMICA/USA, an NGO affiliated with the Vatican. He provides pro bono services to Catholic causes such as: Catholic Volunteers of Florida, Safe Haven for Newborns, Timkatec of Haiti and Pax Romana. He attends All Souls Catholic Church in Sanford, Florida and was a Eucharist Minister in his former parish St. Stephen’s in Winter Springs, FL. He and his wife Janet have been married 35 years and have two grown daughters, Kelly Donovan Rockouski and Katie. Donovan’s father, the late Senator James H. Donovan of Utica, New York, was recognized for his lifelong commitment to Right-to-Life legislation. Prior to his death, Senator Donovan received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Wadhams Hall Seminary College.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR C É S A R J. B A L D E L O M A R

reetings to our readers and members! We at Pax Romana/CMICA-USA are excited to re-launch our magazine, The Notebook, which is a celebration of holistic thought. In its pages you will find articles that address social, spiritual, and ecological issues related to the global interests of the worldwide Pax Romana movement. We believe that today’s global three-fold social, spiritual, and ecological crises are the result of a mechanistic ideology that views humans as fragmented from other humans, from the natural world, and from the Divine. This mechanistic system professes material progress as its sole criterion of success. And its concomitant utilitarian ethical system values that which yields the most pleasure and/or profit for the individual decision-maker. Consequently, the ethical life becomes, as Harvard theologian Harvey Cox says, a “solo-flight.” Joe Holland’s article, as well as mine, gives readers the opportunity to study the origins, development, and modern implications of the mechanistic metaphor. Before we act to help build a more humane and sustainable global society, we need to understand the destructive ideology at work behind our modern educational, entrepreneurial, governmental, and medical institutions. As I mention in my article on GLOBALIZATION, THE MODERN MECHANISTIC PHILOSOPHY, AND PAX ROMANA, “Peter Maurin, co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement, insisted that the first essential step in building a better civilization is ‘clarification of thought,’ in order to understand the deeper reasons for society’s injustice.” Once we clarify our thought, we can shift from a mechanistic-utilitarian paradigm to a holistic-natural law zeitgeist. Comprehending the connections among all issues becomes vital in this challenging endeavor. At the center of this shift are lay leaders, who through their professions, can help forge a socially just, spiritually meaningful, and ecological sustainable global society. In this issue, we highlight one outstanding lay leader, James Donovan. We plan to continue honoring lay leaders in future Notebook editions, so we welcome your nominations for future honorees. It is these lay leaders who infuse energy in the Church’s continual task of “reading the signs of the times.” We at Pax Romana continue reading the signs of the times. Thanks to Holland’s articles, readers will learn about Pax Romana’s rich history, as well as gain insight into its identity and mission in the emerging postmodern global era. While all issues are interconnected, we believe that the ecological crisis deserves special attention. For without a

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sustainable ecological matrix, humans would not exist. Elisabeth Ferrero’s article GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ETHICS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUALITY accentuates the need for speaking “of the essential Earth-human relationship, and to understand what exactly this relation means in order to determine what are humans’ responsibilities [to the Earth and to each other].” For those who enjoy poetry, we have included a “Nature” poem by Brenda Hixson. You will also read about the exciting and excellent work of Pax Romana Global Leadership Law student interns at the United Nations in New York under the guidance of Mark Wolff, professor of law at St. Thomas University and VicePresident for North America of Pax Romana/International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs. Wolff states in his article that “the purpose of this program…is to form a fresh international generation of young transformative lay leaders committed to the prophetic vision of Catholic Social Teaching for the loving care of all creation and for a humanistic global civilization of love, life, and solidarity.” We are proud of Prof. Wolff’s and the students’ work! For those readers seeking spiritual writings, we are pleased to include a great article by Maryknoll missionary Father Stephen Judd. His article celebrates the life of Sister Pat Kelly, who achieved “an unmistakable and enduring identification with people across all cultures, social classes and physical distances to become the catalyst of unity in the celebration of diversity.” Sister Pat’s actions are grand examples of how to forge a socially just global village, and we see her light continue to shine through Father Judd’s article. And lastly, you will find four book reviews. We at the Pax Romana Center recommend these reviewed books, for one deals with ethics, another with education, and the other two celebrate the lives of two great lay leaders: Peter Maurin and Walter Hubbard (to whom we dedicate this magazine). I wish to thank everyone who has contributed to this wonderful resource. And I wish you the reader the best as you delve into our magazine. Your comments are always welcome, and I encourage you to contact me at cbaldelomar.prcenter@gmail.com Happy reading!

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TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL CIVILIZATION A

L E T T E R F R O M J O E H O L L A N D , P H . D. , P R E S I D E N T O F P A X R O M A N A / C M I C A - U S A

PRAISE BE JESUS CHRIST and greetings from Pax Romana! I am grateful for the opportunity to tell you about the more than 120-year-old and worldwide Pax Romana Catholic lay movement with 240,000 members in 80 countries. For example, two recent popes served in their pre-papal years as Pax Romana chaplains, namely Pope Paul VI for Italy and Pope John Paul II for Poland, and our founding chaplain in the United States was the distinguished Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray. LIVING JESUS’ GOSPEL IN SOCIETY

ur Pax Romana global family is a worldwide movement of lay Catholic intellectuals, professionals, and university students seeking intellectual development, spiritual growth, and ethical guidance from the wisdom tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. As members of Pax Romana’s global branch for intellectuals and professionals, we seek to live the Gospel of Jesus within human society through the spiritual depth and sacred creativity of family, work, and citizenship. In the United States, our federation sponsors Pax Romana Study Circles, works in close cooperation with the United Nations and the Holy See, and seeks to ground the emerging global civilization in intercultural dialogue, ecological sustainability, human dignity, justice and peace, and spiritual meaning. Since our foundation, we have placed our intellectualspiritual energy at the service of the poor and oppressed, who are so central to Jesus’ message of love. In recent times, we have added ecological concern, as God’s beautiful and holy creation comes under increasing global attack, and also defense of human life, as legal assaults are mounted against the unborn, the elderly, the handicapped, and prisoners.

NEED FOR

GLOBAL ETHICS

n our own country and across the entire human family, we face today a staggering global crisis of ethics at every level from the biological, to the ecological, to the societal, and to the spiritual. Global climate change, ecological pollu-

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tion, and species destruction … global poverty, malnutrition, and starvation … rampant abortion and euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and threats of human cloning … crass materialism in the media, colossal business scandals, and anti-immigrant prejudice … campaigns of ethnic genocide, unjust wars, and epidemic levels of criminal, political, and terrorist violence … selfish individualism, sexual promiscuity, and breakdown of family life … these are but some of the pervasive ethical challenges facing the newly emerging global civilization. According to Catholic Social Teaching, so profound is this global crisis of ethics that it constitutes a philosophical crisis of modern civilization – something far deeper than a “clash of civilizations.” Despite modernity’s wonderful achievements, Catholic Social Teaching has long argued that the philosophical roots of modern civilization contain basic and serious philosophical errors about the human person, about human society, about the wider natural world, and about the Creator of all. Today we are seeing the full-blown negative fruit of those philosophical errors – expressing themselves on a global scale as interdependent biological, ecological, societal and spiritual breakdowns. For this reason, the late Pope John Paul II, himself a distinguished academic philosopher, spoke of our era as threatened by a “culture of death.” CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

ecause of this profound crisis of modern civilization, recent Catholic popes have drawn on Catholic Social Teaching to call repeatedly and insistently for a global civilization founded on truthful philosophical foundations. Pope John XXIII called for a global humanistic civilization. Pope Paul VI called for a global civilization of love. Pope John Paul II called for a global civilization of life. In his recent encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is love), Pope Benedict XVI placed Jesus’ good news of love at the heart of the entire human project. Similarly in his newest encyclical Spe Salvi, Benedict held high the virtue of hope, including the hope for personal and societal transformation.

To guide us in seeking to create a humanistic, loving, and life-giving global civilization, the Church’s social magisterium has issued a new book called The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Holy See's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace published this important 525-page text in 2004. Recently the Council’s President, Cardinal Renato Martino, hosted a delegation of US Pax Romana members visit-

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ing Rome, and he shared with us his personal reflections on the Compendium. With Cardinal Martino’s encouragement, our Pax Romana Center plans to publish soon an easy-reading study-guide on the Compendium for lay Catholic intellectuals, professionals, and university students. In addition, our Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching has already published, and will continue to publish, other important books, newsletters, and pamphlets that provide valuable resources for continuing education in Catholic Social Teaching. The magisterial doctrines of Catholic Social Teaching, articulated especially in papal encyclicals, are not naïve or utopian prose, but are rather realistic expressions of the firm belief that a more humanistic, loving, and life-giving world is possible. Its social doctrines are the powerful core of Catholic Social Teaching’s long and deep tradition of synthesizing human ethical wisdom. Drawing on Divine revelation and on the philosophical depth of human experience, Catholic Social Teaching represents the richest tradition of practical ethical wisdom to be found across the human family, and it is still developing in dialogue with new historical realities and with new intercultural engagement with non-Western human cultures. Catholic Social Teaching stands out as an extraordinarily valuable resource for helping to shape in a creatively ethical way the new global civilization now being born. TRANSFORMING GLOBALIZATION In the face of the global ethical crisis, lay Catholics living and working in society carry a great responsibility before the en-

tire world. Globally, Catholics now constitute almost 20% of the human race, and more than 99% of Catholics are lay. In the United States, Catholic intellectuals and professionals are among the most highly educated religious group in the nation, and are strongly represented in the leadership of all social institutions. For this reason, it will be only in and through lay Catholics that Catholic Social Teaching will bear fruit. Without the formation and participation of lay Catholics, the bishops of the Catholic Church can “talk the talk” of Catholic Social Teaching, but they cannot make it “walk the walk” to become effective in the wider society. A very long time ago, Catholic Christians transformed the brutal Roman Empire into a better human civilization (though certainly not a perfect one). Today Catholic Christians worldwide are called by the Holy Spirit to help humbly, prayerfully, and in an intercultural and dialogical manner to transform the still emerging technological-economic globalization. The Holy Spirit calls us to transform the new global civilization to become ecologically sustainable, respectful of human life, socially just, politically democratic, militarily peaceful, and spiritually meaningful. To accomplish this objective, lay Catholic intellectuals, professionals, and university students need to study the breadth and depth of Catholic Social Teaching. To make such study feasible, we invite all concerned intellectuals and professionals, as well as university students seeking intellectual-spiritual mentoring, to join or to form one of our Pax Romana Study Circles. More information is available on our website at: www.pax-romana-cmica-usa.org

Attorney Hannah Bible, as a Pax Romana Global Leadership Law-Student Intern, addressing the UN General Assembly

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REPORT ON THE RASKOB FOUNDATION GRANT C É S A R J. B A L D E L O M A R & N I C O L E R O M Á N César J. Baldelomar is Director of the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching and Editor of The Notebook. He will begin graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School this Fall. Nicole Román is an elementary school teacher at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami. Both are products of the Global Leadership Program at St. Thomas University in Florida. Their article is adapted from an earlier version in The Florida Catholic.

In November 2006, the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities awarded a major grant to Pax Romana/CMICA-USA to support its Millennium Membership Campaign. The Campaign promotes Catholic Social Teaching among the US Catholic laity by means of membership in our US Pax Romana federtion for intellectuals and professionals. John J. and Nicole Roman Helena Raskob established the Raskob Foundation, based in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1945. John J. Raskob had served as a senior executive and director with General Motors and the DuPont Company. The Raskob grant gave Pax Romana/CMICA-USA $10,000 up front to prepare the membership campaign. The Foundation also offered to match $15,000 more for revenues generated from new members who join or from friends who become contributors. The year 2007 was spent raising marching funds for the Raskob grant. By the end of November, Pax Romana/CMICA-USA had reached its goal and qualified for the full matching grant. The sum total of the original grant, of the funds raised, and of the marching grant came to $40,000. In 2009, the organization was well into its Millennium Membership Campaign. On 1 January 2008 Dr. Joe Holland, President of Pax Romana/CMICA-USA, announced: “We have matched the challenge-grant from the Raskob Foundation, and we are now strengthening our membership drive by aiming especially at Catholic universities and Catholic parishes.” Jim Donovan, President and CEO of Donovan Management and the key Pax Romana/CMICA-USA Board Member who guided the grant process, commented on this achievement:

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“Thanks to the Raskob Foundation, new Pax Romana members and supporters will gain a rich experience of global Catholic solidarity. Plus, they will have the opportunity to study Catholic Social-Ecological Teaching and to apply it in their daily lives of family, work, and citizenship. We can indeed make a world of difference!” MILLENNIUM MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN

n the United States, Pax Romana/CMICA-USA had traditionally remained small, centered especially in lay Catholics related to the United Nations. But in recent years, due to the impact of electronic globalization and the birth of a truly “world church,” there has been growing interest in the movement among US lay Catholics from across the country and especially at universities. Supported by the Raskob grant, Pax Romana/CMICAUSA has been inviting intellectual and professionals – be they young adults, mid-lifers, or retirees – to join the movement as Members. It has also been welcoming students and members of other faith traditions to become Associates. Those who do not wish to be Members or Associates, but do wish to support the movement financially, have been invited to become Friends of Pax Romana. “The purpose of this campaign,” said Dr. Holland, “is to help intellectuals, professionals, and students to study Catholic Social Teaching and use it humbly and prayerfully in service of solving the great ecological, societal, and spiritual challenges of the new globalization.” PAX ROMANA RESOURCE CENTER

o support this goal, Pax Romana has set up at Florida’s St. Thomas University the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching.

The Center already provides Pax Romana Members, Associates, and Friends with books and other intellectual resources for study of Catholic Social Teaching.

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Central to the Center’s work is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The Compendium offers an authoritative overview of Catholic Social-Ecological Teaching for the new era of globalization. The book’s topics include principles of Catholic Social Doctrine, the centrality of human rights, the fundamental importance of the family, the dignity of human work and rights of workers, the necessity for all to participate in political life, the value of international organizations, the promotion of peace, safeguarding the environment, and how to build a global civilization of love. In several meetings with US Pax Romana leaders, Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, encouraged the Center to publish an easy-reading study-guide for the Compendium. The study-guide will be available from the Center later in 2009.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAX ROMANA FROM A UNITED STATES PERSPECTIVE JOE HOLLAND, PH.D.

Pr es id e nt, Pa x R oma na / Ca th o lic M ov e m en t f o r I nt el l ec t ua l & C u lt ur al A ffa ir s US A Pr o fe ss o r of Ph il o so p h y & Re lig i on , S t . Th om as U niv e rs ity , Mia mi Gard e n s, F l or i da D ev e l op ed fr om a n es say p u bli sh e d i n C o lle gi u m i n 2 0 03.

ith more than a hundred years of experience, the global Catholic lay movement known as Pax Romana has a rich historical development. One way to understand this important movement is through its story, which so far includes five stages of evolution. 1 The story is told here from a US perspective. 188 7- 19 21: C R E A T I O N O F A E U R O P E A N CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY-STUDENT MOVEMENT

he story begins in 1887 with foundational intellectual figures in the European Catholic social movement, namely individuals like Baron George de Montenach, Cardinal Mermillod, Comte Albert de Mun, Marc Sagnier, etc. The Swiss Baron de Montenach led an attempt to form a Catholic international confederation (largely European) of university students plus supportive intellectual-cultural leaders – in effect a European “Catholic University Student International” designed along the lines of competing Socialist, Liberal, and Protestant international student movements.

With an initially favorable response from Pope Leo XIII, de Montenach was charged with organizing a major congress for the movement at the Catholic intellectual center of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In following years, the movement organized Catholic university-student congresses in various European cities, including a 1891 congress in Rome that drew 1,500. This was the same year as the publication of the great papal social encyclical Rerum Novarum. Central to the birth of the Pax Romana movement was the search for a Catholic intellectual response to the “social question.” 2 A rich history of the movement up to 1946 may be found in Guillaume de Weck, Histore de la Conféderation internationale des Etudiants catholiques: “Pax Romana” 1887-1921-1946 (Fribourg, Switzerland: Max Jendly, no date). For current information about the movement, consult its website: www.paxromana.org. 2 Another international congress in 1900, again in Rome and including a personal audience with Pope Leo XIII, placed strong emphasis on the “social question.” According to de Weck, “the congress recognized: 1) for every student the necessity of a serious and methodological study of Christian sociology, as developed in the encyclical Rerum Novarum, as well as the entire ensemble of the modern social movement; and 2) for Catholic student societies with equal necessity to participate actively in efforts made

The Late Edward J. Kirchner, Past International President of Pax Romana

Final Vatican approval for a formal international confederation was not forthcoming, however, reportedly due to political complications with the “the Roman Question” (the still unresolved legal status of the papal territory within the newly unified nation of Italy). Nonetheless, the European Catholic networking of university students and intellectuals, including pan-European and national congresses, continued with study of the “social question” as central. 19 21- 1 93 9: P A P A L R E C O G N I T I O N & POST-WORLD-WAR-I RECONCILIATION

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n 1921, by means of an official letter from the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Pope Benedict XV officially approved the establishment of the movement as an interna-

with a view toward solving the social question in a form adapted to particular circumstances and opinions.” (page 72, my translation)

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tional union of Catholic university students. But most of the founders were well beyond the age of students -- typical at that time of European “student” movements. The movement continued to embrace post-students who had become intellectual-cultural leaders. Benedict described the movement as a “great center of culture and religious action.” Key among the foundational points approved by the pope was the study of and the search for solutions to the great social questions of the time. Also, because of its international prestige, Pax Romana was invited to appoint a delegation to the League of Nations. The movement’s Secretariat was based at the Catholic University of Fribourg in Switzerland, as had been the case with the earlier informal movement, and it became known as “Pax Romana.” 3 In later years, Pax Romana would become one of the select list of International Catholic Organizations (ICOs) accredited to the Holy See’s Secretariat of State.

193 9- 19 47: D I S R U P T I O N O F W O R L D W A R II DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE AMERICAS

AND

n 1939, during the first ever Pax Romana congress held in the United States, World War II broke out. To protect the movement, its headquarters were temporarily established in Washington DC. There the new International President, American Edward Kirchner, his future American wife Louisa Byles, Lousia’s sister Winifred Byles, their dear friend and famous Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray, along with the displaced Pax Romana Secretary General, Rudi Salat (unable to return to his native Germany) set up the international Pax Romana Secretariat near the Catholic University of America.

One of the movement’s most immediate and demanding tasks was to bring reconciliation and healing to a Europe so recently divided and devastated by World War I – a cause strongly supported by Benedict. Pax Romana provided housing, scholarships, and other assistance for Catholic university students across the continent. Its official motto was “Pax Christi en Regno Christi” (The Peace in the Reign of Christ). The movement also organized study-weeks and congresses in various cities. Though still formally a university-student movement, it now included more than ever some of the leading European lay Catholic intellectuals of the times: university professors, political leaders, and priests from Catholic social movements, all working in cooperation with university students. Though the movement was overwhelmingly European, there was at that time some participation from outside Europe, but it was necessarily limited by distance and cost. Nonetheless, the final official Latin name of the movement, approved by the Holy See, revealed its global and studentcentered ambition: Confederatio Studentium Universi Terrarum Orbis Catholica. Pax Romana soon became the largest and most important European network for Catholic university students and related intellectual-cultural leaders working on behalf of Catholic Social Teaching. For example, a young priest by the name of Montini, later to become Pope Paul VI, became the movement’s Italian chaplain. Later, Pope John Paul II, before becoming pope, served as the Polish Pax Romana chaplain. 3 The letter from the Holy See spoke of the movement as creating “a great center of culture and religious action” and indicated that Pope Benedict XV had approved among others the following goal: “to facilitate and encourage the study and solution of the vital questions of religion, of philosophy, of sociology, etc.” (de Weck, page 101, my translation.)

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2004 Pax Romana/ICMICA World Assembly Meeting in the Polish Senate Building in Warsaw

During these war years, the war rendered much of the European activity necessarily dormant. So Ed Kirchner and Rudi Salat worked on developing the movement in Latin America. In response to their initiatives, new Pax Romana federations sprang up across the Southern region, and with them there emerged new young Pax Romana leaders – for example, Eduardo Frei, a pioneering Christian Democratic politician later to become President of Chile. When the war ended and the Pax Romana Secretariat returned to Fribourg, Ed and Louisa married and set off for Europe. Ed had been appointed Director of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) Resettlement Center for the American Zone of Germany. The Center was an enormous refugee camp for displaced persons from Eastern Europe, and it was filled with displaced Catholic university students, many of whom had belonged to Pax Romana in their native homelands. In the camp and elsewhere, Ed and Louisa, along with so many young leaders from Pax Romana, worked tirelessly on behalf of homeless and often starving refugees.

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At the end of World War II, when the United Nations was established, Pax Romana took a strong interest in the new organization. Catherine Schaefer, a US Pax Romana member, was sent by the US Catholic bishops to the UN’s founding San Francisco conference, and there she helped to make possible the accreditation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – with Pax Romana as one of the UN’s first NGOs. Also Eileen Eagan, another US Pax Romana member and later to be known for helping to secure official Catholic recognition of conscientious objection to war, and also instrumental in establishing Pax Christi in the United States, served during those years as a Pax Romana representative at the UN.

fairs, alternately known in the romance languages as the International Movement of Catholic Intellectuals (ICMICA-MIIC) Today these two branches jointly constitute Pax Romana. Both branches work closely together across the UN system and in many other ways. The Pax Romana university-student branch has its headquarters in Paris, France, where it shares offices with the movement known as International Young Christian Students (in the United States serving secondary school students). The Pax Romana branch for intellectual-cultural

As one of the first UN NGOs, Pax Romana eventually became a member of the UN-NGO governing committee known as CONGO, and has ever since held one of its vicepresidencies. Currently Pax Romana maintains NGO missions to the UN in New York, Geneva, and Vienna, as well as to UNESCO in Paris and to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Later with the advent of the Cold War, Ed and Louisa Kirchner welcomed to the United States multiple Pax Romana “federations-in-exile.” Along with the new Pax Romana International President, Joaquín Ruiz-Gimenez of Spain (a key figure in ending Spanish fascism), and with the assistance of Catholic Relief Services, they set up the “Pax Romana Service” to assist countless Catholic university-student refugees to find scholarships in the United States and elsewhere. The Pax Romana Service also sought out housing and jobs for a vast number of refugees who were Catholic intellectual-cultural leaders, and for their families. Reportedly more than 4,000 university students and intellectual-cultural leaders, mostly fleeing communism in Eastern Europe, were resettled in these years. The Kirchner family home in Connecticut became a veritable refugee-hostel for Pax Romana university-students and intellectual-cultural leaders. The same pattern was repeated later following the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution. 194 7: P A X R O M A N A ’ S R E O R G A N I Z A T I O N INTO TWO COOPERATING BRANCHES

n recognition of the two distinct constituencies within its movement, and with the assistance of its US chaplain John Courtney Murray SJ, the global Pax Romana movement reorganized itself in 1947 into two autonomous branches working in close cooperation with each other. These were: 

For university students: the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-MIEC)



For intellectual-cultural leaders: the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Af-

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leaders recently moved its headquarters from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland to Geneva, Switzerland. 194 7- 19 75: I N I T I A L R E S P O N S E T O P O S T COLONIAL & COLD-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

uring the post World War II years, as the formal structures of European and American colonialism were finally defeated, Pax Romana began to develop new federations in Asia-Pacific and Africa, and to strengthen its roots in Latin America-Caribbean. With the post-war spirit of anti-colonial liberation, Latin America gave birth to a new Theology of Liberation. With the founding liberation-theologian Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru serving as the Pax Romana chaplain for Latin America, the Pax Romana movement quickly embraced Liberation Theology and its preferential option for the poor, and it also helped to spread this profoundly biblical vision across Africa and Asia. Pax Romana thus has had the remarkable international experience of deeply supporting Western European liberation from right-wing fascist dictatorships, Eastern European liberation from left-wing communist dictatorships under

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Russian communist hegemony, and Latin American liberation from right-wing capitalist dictatorships under US hegemony. Because of its firm commitment to and clear understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, polarizing modern ideologies were never able to divide Pax Romana. The global Pax Romana movement was further united by the blood of countless martyrs among its members during World War II, during the Cold War, and still later during the cruel wave of right-wing dictatorships that swept the Third World in the late 20th Century. 197 5 F O R W A R D : T R U L Y G L O B A L M O V E M E N T WITH LEADERSHIP FROM GLOBAL SOUTH

Pax Romana ICMICA’s current International President is Javier Iguiñez, a Professor in Economics at the Catholic University of Peru, and its current Secretary General is Lawrencia Kwark of Korea. Past Presidents and Secretary Generals have included Jean Lokenga from Congo, Mary Mwingira from Tanzania, the late Patricio Rodé from Uruguay, Paul Ortega from Basque Country, Seonghoon Lee (Anselmo) from Korea, and Raj Kumandar from India. Pax Romana IMCS’s current International President is Mehulbjao Kantibhai Dabhi from a Dalit family in the State of Gujarat in India, and the Secretary General is Christopher Derige Malano, from a Filipino family that moved to Hawaii to work in the Dole pineapple fields. The past International President was Kevin Ahern, from the United States and a graduate of Fordham University. Its past Secretary General was Zobel Behalal, a native of Cameron. Today Pax Romana stands as one of the largest and most active international Catholic lay movements devoted to the theory and practice of Catholic Social-Ecological Teaching. It counts among its members some 420,000 university students and intellectual-cultural leaders. These are found in 80 national federations and contact groups across 5 continents. In addition, Pax Romana has long maintained specialized and active international secretariats for multiple professions, including for scientists, jurists, engineers, agronomists, business people, secondary school teachers, and artists. As globalization continues its rapid advance, Pax Romana will no doubt become ever more important for church and society.

Pax Romana ICMICA-Africa meeting in Nairobi, Kenya

ccording to former Pax Romana International President William Neville, an Australian, the “watershed year” for the movement’s mature internationalism was 1975. At the Pax Romana World Assembly held that year in Rome, the movement “for the first time (saw) a substantial representation from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”

In addition, Neville notes, French as the former common language of Pax Romana yielded to the admission of English and Spanish. The globalization emerging with the postmodern electronic revolution was bringing Pax Romana to international maturity. Today Pax Romana’s most dynamic energy and most important leadership for some time has been often coming from the Third World, while there is also vigorous renewed life among young leaders in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, and in North America. Many recent International Presidents and Secretary Generals of Pax Romana have come from the Global South of Africa, Asia/Pacific, and Latin America/Caribbean.

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Pax Romana Representatives at an International Pax Romana Seminar held on the campus of the Pontifical Catholic University in Porto Alegre, Brazil during the Second World Social Forum

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A PROMISING FUTURE FOR PAX ROMANA IN THE UNITED STATES

Romana movement with research, conferences, publications, and study-tours in service of Catholic Social Teaching.

ere in the United States, The US federation of intellectual-cultural leaders, known as Pax Romana/CMICA-USA, is incorporated as a tax-exempt nonprofit body in Washington DC, and it is listed as a lay organization in the OFFICIAL CATHOLIC DIRECTORY under the Archdiocese of Washington.

Pax Romana/CMICA-USA has also joined in partnership with Saint Thomas University to create a new undergraduate program with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, know as the “Global Leadership Program.” This program, established in the Fall of 2004, forms young intellectual leaders in Catholic Social Thought for the new global civilization. Students receive a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Philosophy, plus a second pre-career major.

During its initial decades, perhaps due to the isolationist spirit of American culture, the US Pax Romana ICMICA federation remained a small movement. But now, in the maturing era of “globalization,” it promises new growth. This US intellectual-professional federation, along with its sister US university-student federation, supports the worldwide work of Pax Romana at the United Nations in New York City. Prof. Mark Wolff, Professor of Law at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida and one of the five International Vice-Presidents of Pax Romana ICMICA, serves as the Main Pax Romana NGO Representative to the United Nations. To advance the work at the UN, Prof. Wolff has founded an innovative long lawstudent internship at the United Nations, in which law students become NGO and sometimes IGO representative to the UN. In 2003 Pax Romana/CMICA-USA established its Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. The purpose of this Center is to aid the global Pax

Pax Romana/CMICA-USA also organizes or co-sponsors occasional symposia at the UN in New York on “Catholic Social Teaching and the United Nations,” in collaboration with Pax Romana/IMCS and Pax Romana/ICMICA and with the Holy See Mission to the UN, plus occasional symposia on “Catholic Social Teaching and Globalization” at Saint Thomas University. Both are also co-sponsored by the University and its School of Law. Beginning in 2008, Pax Romana CMICA-USA is starting a program of founding chapters at universities and parishes across the country, with faculty members of major Catholic universities already expressing interest In this new truly global human era of email, websites, and jet planes, Pax Romana stands out as a vigorous transnational network of Catholic intellectuals, professionals, and university students – all working together in global solidarity on behalf of Catholic Social Teaching’s commitment to human life, human rights, family, justice, peace, democracy, and ecology.

Pax Romana Intellectual-Professional Delegates from around the World In front of the Polish Senate where they met for the Pax Romana Icmica 2004 World Assembly in Warsaw

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REFLECTIONS ON THE IDENTITY AND MISSION OF PAX ROMANA

JOE HOLLAND, PH.D.

Pr es id e nt, Pa x R oma na / Ca th o lic M ov e m en t f o r I nt el l ec t ua l & C u lt ur al A ffa ir s US A Pr o fe ss o r of Ph il o so p h y & Re lig i on , S t . Th om as U niv e rs ity , Mia mi Gard e n s, F l or i da

hat follows are five theses plus a conclusion which, I propose, describe the original identity and mission of the worldwide lay Catholic movement of university students and intellectual-professional leaders who form “Pax Romana.” These theses reflect the US experience and are proposed for a strategic renewal of the Pax Romana movement in the United States. T H E S I S 1 . Pa x Ro m a na or i gi n a l l y d e v e l op e d a n d w a s la t e r r e co g n i z ed b y t h e H o l y S e e a s a n i n t e rn a t i o n a l m o v e me n t o f C a t h o l i c u n i v e rs i t y s t ud e n t s s u pp o rt e d b y l a y C at ho l i c in t e l l e ct u a l - p ro f es s io na l l ea d e rs wo r k in g t o g e th e r wi t h th e s t ud e n t s . The original identity of Pax Romana was that of a single international organization of lay Catholic university students and of lay Catholic intellectual-professional leaders, all working together. With roots going back to initiatives as early as 1887, the movement was officially approved by the Holy See in 1921 as “The International Union of Catholic Students.” Though formally a university-student movement, largely lay Catholic intellectual-professional leaders led the planning process to establish the movement, played both leadership and mentoring roles within it, and secured the Holy See’s formal approval. Catholic intellectual-professional leaders also established in Switzerland the first secretariat for the movement. It was described as an “International Catholic Bureau for Information and Liaison.” The secretariat was later named “Pax Romana,” meaning the pope’s lay Catholic instrument for bringing peace and reconciliation to Europe in the wake of World War I. The Pax Romana bureau was located in Switzerland because it had been a neutral country during World War I, because it was an important center for international relations, and because it stood in the geographic center of Europe. Switzerland’s Catholic University of Fribourg, which had been the site of the movement’s first initiatives beginning in 1887, became the base for the Pax Romana secretariat.

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Lawrencia Kwark of Korea Secretary General of Pax Romana ICMICA, during the 2004 World Assembly in Warsaw, Poland

“Pax Romana” also became the name for the entire movement, eventually including new national organizational initiatives by the growing number of intellectual-professional leaders who had been formed as university students in the movement. These intellectual-professional leaders were devoted both to their own continuing lay Catholic spiritual and intellectual-professional formation linked to social action, and also to providing organizational guidance and personal mentoring for the growing international Catholic network of lay Catholic university students. Graduating university students formed by Pax Romana provided fresh youthful energy to the intellectual-professional leadership cadres. In the post-World War-II period, however, reportedly for reasons linked to the Cold War, Pax Romana reorganized itself into two autonomous organizations, one for university students and another for intellectual-professional leaders.

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Pax Romana/IMCS-MIEC The first autonomous international Pax Romana organization – serving Catholic university students – was named the “International Movement of Catholic Student, Movement International des Etudiants Catholiques, Movimiento Internacional de Estudiantes Católicos – IMCS-MIEC.” It established its international headquarters in Paris, France. In the United States, the IMCS-MIEC federation is known as the National Catholic Student Coalition (NCSC), and its national office is at the University of Delaware. Pax Romana/ICMICA-MIIC The second autonomous international Pax Romana organization, serving the movement’s intellectual-professional leaders, was named the “International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, Movement International des Intelectuels Catholiques, Movimiento Internacional de Intellectuales Católicos – ICMICA-MIIC.” It maintained its office in Fribourg, Switzerland. In recent years its international secretariat was moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in order to be closer to United Nations offices and other international organizations based in that city. In the United States, the ICMICA-MIIC federation is “Pax Romana / Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA” (PR-CMICA-USA), and its national office is in Washington DC. It has also established a Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida (which was the site of the founding meeting of the NCSC). I believe that this post-World-War II internal division of Pax Romana into two autonomous organizations, while no doubt historically necessary and still important, had two unfortunate consequences for the movement. Loss of Lay Professional Mentoring First, by the close of the Twentieth Century (decades after the movement’s split into two branches), the US Pax Romana university-student organization (NCSC) had lost its close connection with the US Pax Romana branch for intellectual-professional leaders (PR-CMICA-USA). As a result of this organizational separation, the US Pax Romana federation for university students today generally lacks intellectual-professional formation by the movement’s lay intellectual-professional leaders and it appears to function as part of “campus ministry” programs. So it often does not adequately receive the lay intellectual-professional mentoring needed to mentor students to become future lay Catholic intellectual-professionals leaders in society, and in turn to play active roles in the worldwide Pax Romana intellectual-professional branch. Few graduating NCSC member ever join PR-CMICA-USA. Probably most NCSC graduates are hardly aware of its existence.

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Gratefully the leaderships of NCSC and of IMCS-MIEC are both aware of this problem, and are working together to solve it. But it remains a problem. Loss of Young Professional Energy Second, by the close of the Twentieth Century the US Pax Romana lay Catholic intellectual-professional leaders’ federation had lost most of its earlier regenerating energy of youth. As a result it experienced organizational deterioration, due to a declining and aging membership. If not challenged, this failure to renew itself from the youthful branch of Pax Romana would have eventually led to the demise of the US Pax Romana intellectual-professional leaders’ branch. For some time now, however, the current leadership of PR-CMICA-USA has given priority to reestablishing close mentoring linkages with Catholic university students, beginning with a pilot-project at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. But there is still a long way to go. Hence, I propose that in the United States, for both branches of Pax Romana to be faithful to the movement’s founding charism, it is essential that more organic and structured collaboration be developed between the two movement’s two branches. T H E SI S 2 . P a x R o ma n a w a s o r ig in a l l y f o un d ed a s a l a y C a t h o l i c m o ve m e n t ce n t e re d i n C a t h o li c u n i v e r s it i es . From its early roots in the late 1800s through to World War-II, the movement’s organic mutuality of university students and intellectual-professional leaders functioned as an intellectual movement centered in Catholic universities. Pax Romana had begun in 1887 as an attempt to create a single European movement of university students and intellectual-professional leaders with its center in the Catholic University of Fribourg in Switzerland. In subsequent decades the initiators worked closely with Catholic university student movements across Europe and to some degree beyond Europe. Finally in 1921 the movement was officially approved by the Holy See under Pope Benedict XV. Its success during much of its subsequent history was grounded in networking students and intellectualprofessional leaders through Catholic universities in multiple countries. For example, in Italy the movement’s famous chaplain was Monsignor Montini, later to become Pope Paul VI. He served as spiritual guide and close friend to many of Italy’s most prominent post-World-War-II intellectual-professional leaders, who had been formed in the Italian university student federation of Pax Romana. Similar,

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earlier in his career, Pope John Paul II served as Pax Romana chaplain in Poland. But with the post-World-War-II organizational separation of Pax Romana’s intellectual-professional leaders from Pax Romana’s university students, two major weaknesses developed in the United States’ movement. Decline of Public Intellectual Leadership First, the US Pax Romana branch for intellectual cultural leaders (PR-CMICA-USA) lost contact with the invigorating intellectual life of a Catholic university. As a result, while this US branch certainly maintained a strong interest in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and especially in Catholic Social Thought, it often failed to offer scholarly depth in this area, and also often failed to offer public intellectualprofessional leadership to the American Catholic laity at large. Focus on Inner-Church Ministries Second, within most Catholic universities the Pax Romana US university-student branch (NCSC) has frequently functioned more as an inner-directed ecclesial-pastoral movement – valid in itself, but not representing the movement’s original outer-directed lay intellectual charism of supporting the spiritual vocation of future lay professionals for the wider society by means of mentoring by mature Pax Romana lay professionals. As a result, few US universitystudent members were deeply formed in Catholic Social Thought, and only limited public lay intellectualprofessional leadership has thus far emerged from university-student-movement graduates. Hence it is essential that the US Pax Romana branch for intellectual-professional leaders (PR-CMICA-USA) reestablish close connections with Catholic university life and with Pax Romana university students (NCSC) in the Catholic university. For this reason, PR-CMICA-USA is developing important pilot-projects at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. Hopefully in the future these projects will be replicated in some form on other university campuses. THESIS 3. Pax Romana has been historically an intellectual movement devoted especially to Catholic Social Thought in professional and political life. While the original mandate of Pax Romana from the Holy See defined several purposes, one has strongly stood out over time. This has been its intellectual commitment to Catholic Social Thought, organically connected to and in humble service of Catholic Social Action. When the movement arose originally at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, it was informally linked to the Fribourg Circle,

PAX ROMANA/CMICA-USA

which was one of the most important intellectual contributors to Pope Leo XIII’s landmark social encyclical Rerum Novarum. Through its history Pax Romana has remained deeply committed to Catholic Social Thought. In the mid-twentieth century perhaps its most inspiring intellectual figure was the famous Catholic philosopher JACQUES MARITAIN, whose philosophical work was considered foundational for the development of Catholic Social Thought in the midTwentieth Century In the late twentieth century, Pax Romana helped to birth Liberation Theology, founded by the Pax Romana’s Latin American chaplain G USTAVO G UTIERREZ . Soon afterwards, the Pax Romana intellectual-professional federation in Poland, the Klub Inteligentcji Katolickiej (KIK, with its name translated into English as the “Club of Catholic Intellectuals”) provided the Catholic intellectual leadership for the famous Polish “Solidarity” movement, which led to the defeat of Soviet Communism. Again, a one-time chaplain of the KIK in Poland was KAROL WOJTYLA, later to become Pope John Paul II. Today in the era of globalization, Pax Romana, through its annual global conferences, holds the possibility of making major contributions to the new global stage of Catholic Social Thought. We may thank the Holy Spirit that this devotion to Catholic Social Thought has not been lost in the movement, and that in many ways it has even grown stronger, especially in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. It is in the area of Catholic Social Thought, or more broadly of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (again with both linked organically to Catholic Social Action), that I believe the two US branches of Pax Romana need to work more closely together. T H E SI S 4 . P a x R o ma n a ’s i n t e l l ec t u a l c h a r i s m h a s b e e n es p e c ia l l y an i m at e d b y t h e r i ch an d d e ep s p i r i t u a li t y o f t h e Ca t h o l i c I n t e l l e c t ua l T ra d i t i o n . Throughout its pre-World-War-II history and also after World War II, Pax Romana was devoted especially to intellectual service, again thanks to its roots in Catholic universities. While again intellectual service is in no way superior to practical action, and should always be the humble servant of practical action, such intellectual service contains its own form of the spiritual life. Half a century ago the French Catholic monk JEAN LECLERC wrote a book widely read in Catholic circles, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. About the same time the late Catholic philosopher ETIENNE GILSON stated in an

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address to an international Pax Romana conference that the intellectual life in relation to the love of Christ stood as central to Pax Romana’s identity and mission. Leclerc’s book was about classical monastic learning, but Gilson’s remarks were about Pax Romana’s role in modern industrial civilization. In a recent interview, Ramon Sugranyes de Franch, a legendary intellectual in Pax Romana, raised the question of whether this intellectual-spiritual tradition was being weakened in the European (and North American?) movement today, though he praised the intellectual vitality of the movement in Asia and Africa. Sugranyes declared: I am very afraid that Pax Romana is not sufficiently concerned with the great intellectual debates of the moment. I do not know whether we are sufficiently interested in the great problems. There are exceptions, of course, like the meeting organized by the Asians in Seoul. Have you read the great document that they drew up? Perhaps it does not speak of philosophy, but it makes a brilliant analysis of the cultural and economic reality that these countries live today. (And the document of the meeting of the International Council in Tanzania follows the same line.) In Europe … it was Maritain, it was Gilson, they were our sponsors, and also Congar, and De Lubac … I know that some consider that the word intellectual is pretentious, but, as Gilson used to say, "put the intelligence at the service of God." Our mission was precisely "to organize the universal fraternity of spirits who put their intelligence at the service of God." That is what we have ceased doing. Surely we are at the service of God. We work in the perspective of human rights, but we do not elaborate the problems intellectually. 4 Today amidst the new postmodern consumerist globalization, as the entire modern industrial era enters into profoundly interrelated biological, ecological, sociological, psychological, and spiritual crises, and as a new but still undefined global civilization emerges, there is a deep global hunger for a creative postmodern Catholic intellectual-spiritual vision, and especially for prophetic lay Catholic intellectualspiritual leadership. Thus, Pax Romana’s postmodern lay Catholic leadership needs to help create a new postmodern stage for the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. Yet despite the global hunger for creative and prophetic Catholic intellectual-spiritual vision, many Catholic universities in the United States are today threatened with loosing much of their roots in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. 5

4 From an undated interview by Charles Torner, supplied by the Pax Romana ICMICA International Secretariat. 5 This crisis of identity in many Catholic universities has been sociologically documented by careful scholarship in the major study of Melanie M. Morey and John J. Piderit, SJ, Catholic Higher Education: a Culture in Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2006). See also Philip Gleason’s rich but disturbing historical study of the development of the crisis, C ONTENDING WITH Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the

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In particular, many of these Catholic universities are implicitly disconnecting the theory and practice of various disciplines of the Human and Natural Sciences from organic dialogue with Catholic Philosophical-Theological Ethics. As Alastair McIntyre, a distinguished professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in a recent essay, university disciplines are increasingly becoming autonomous fragments disconnected from each other, and as a result there is no longer any semblance of an integral intellectual life. As the intellectual foundations of culture fragment, so too an addiction to technocracy advances, and the inevitable “culture of death” about which recent Popes have so strongly warned, begins to triumph. In this new stage, I propose, there cannot be any authentic Catholic university without all disciplines being grounded by Catholic Ethics, at least in its philosophical dimension, and without establishing across the university at the most fundamental level a vigorous inter-disciplinary humanisticscientific dialogue about the full range of the ecological, biological, and sociological crises threatening the new globalization. Hence, a major challenge for both the US Pax Romana university-student movement (NCSC) and the US Pax Romana movement of intellectual-professional leaders (PR-CMICAUSA) is to provide lay intellectual-spiritual leadership for the renewal of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition in contemporary Catholic universities and to help to create the new stage of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition for the new era of globalization. T H E SI S 5 . P a x Ro m a n a s t a n d s o ut a s a l a y C a t h o l i c i n t e l l e c t ua l m o v e m e n t s t ro n g l y d e vo t e d t o t h e U n i t ed N a t i o n s a s a c e n t ra l i n s t r u m e n t fo r g l o b a l g o v e rn an c e . Since the foundation of the United Nations (UN), Pax Romana has been one of the most important UN nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It was present at the founding conference of the UN in San Francisco in 1945. Pax Romana had also been represented at the earlier League of Nations, founded in the wake of World War II. Today Pax Romana, representing both branches of the movement, holds the highest level consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and it maintains NGO missions to the UN in New York, Paris (UNESCO), Geneva, and Vienna. It has also developed close working

Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). For an earlier historical analysis warning of the impending crisis, see Christopher Dawson’s prophetic study, The Crisis of Western Education (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961).

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relationships with papal nuncios at UN offices around the world.

both branches of Pax Romana in the United States, and for jointly responding to the other four challenges noted above.

A special challenge for Pax Romana today in the new global stage of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition is to support the Holy See’s commitment to the United Nations as an important instrument for global governance and global ethics, and to communicate these elements of Catholic Social Thought to the Catholic lay public and to society at large. Pax Romana has been working day-by-day at the United Nations in close cooperation with papal nuncios and other Catholic NGOs – at UN offices in Geneva, New York, Paris, and Vienna. But it has yet to develop the communications outreach to promote to society at large the commitment of Catholic Social Teaching to the important role of the United Nations in global governance.

During the past few years, Pax Romana CMCIA-USA has helped to create at this important Archdiocesan University three creative initiatives to meet these new challenges.

FACING THE FUTURE

In conclusion, I believe that these five theses about Pax Romana’s identity and mission constitute foundational challenges for developing closer cooperation between Pax Romana’s US university-student federation (NCSC) and its US professional-intellectual federation (PR-CMICA-USA). Again, these challenges are: 

Reconnecting organizationally the university-student and intellectual-professional-leader branches of Pax Romana;



Rerooting the entire Pax Romana movement in the laycentered intellectual life of Catholic universities, and doing so in humble service of lay Catholic professional and political life in society;



Devoting the movement’s intellectual life especially to the new stage of Catholic Social Thought in the era of globalization;



Re-grounding the movement’s intellectual charism in a Catholic spirituality of the intellectual life, again in humble service of lay professional-political action in society;



Stressing the movement’s NGO role at the United Nations as a key instrument for global governance in the new era of globalization.

In response to the above challenges to the identity and mission of Pax Romana, I believe that Pax Romana / CMICAUSA is currently developing at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida a small but important experiment that points toward a new model for the linked renewal of

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Global Leadership Program First, in partnership with Pax Romana, Saint Thomas University now has a new “Global Leadership” undergraduate program that is centered in social and ecological philosophy of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. This program works in close partnership with Pax Romana’s presence at the UN in NY and with the papal nuncio there. Students receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies, including a Minor in Philosophy, with the entire program centered in Catholic Social Thought. Students also do a second major or minor in a pre-professional area. The students are also members of the St. Thomas University Pax Romana Chapter of the National Catholic Student Coalition. Center for Catholic Social Teaching Second, we have created at Saint Thomas a new Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching. This Center convenes an annual intellectual symposium in New York City on Catholic Social Teaching in relation to the United Nations, and another annual intellectual symposium in Florida on Catholic Social Teaching in relation to globalization. It also undertakes research projects and does extensive publishing. Pax Romana UN-NGO Internships Third, we have created two sets of internships with the Pax Romana NGO Offices at the UN in New York: first, for Pax Romana “Global Leadership” undergraduate students from St. Thomas University (for one week); and second, for law-school students from St. Thomas University (for a full semester). These internships are also open to Pax Romana university-student members from other colleges and universities, and also to Pax Romana’s intellectual-professional leaders, especially young professionals. Global Leadership students, who do one-week internships, receive three undergraduate credits. Law students, who do semester-long internships, receive 12 law-school credits. The law students take a special Jurisprudence Seminar in the United Nations, Catholic Social Teaching, and Global Ethics, and the undergraduate students take a special course on the United Nations.

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GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ETHICS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUALITY

ELISABETH FERRERO, PH.D. B oa rd M emb er , Pa x Ro ma n a / Ca th ol ic M ov e me nt f o r I n tel l ec t ual & C ul t ura l Af fai rs US A Pr o fe ss o r of Ph il o so p h y , S t. Th oma s U n iv e r sity , Mi ami Gard e ns , F l or ida Th e a rtic le is a d a p ted f ro m h er b o o k , The Earth Charter: A Study Book of Reflection for Action.

here is a great urgency for global ethics and global spirituality, especially in light of the multiplicity and escalation of environmental, social, and spiritual problems that we confront today in our lives. This visionary document calls us to action, as a human family, to work together to solve the full range of problems before us all – with no longer a separation between spirit and matter. This is a moment of real opportunity that carries within it the transformative power of those events that can change the course of history and life on Earth. One of the major tasks and responsibilities of our times is centered on halting the immeasurable harm caused by the faulty perception of the relationship of the human to the natural world. We need to speak of the essential Earthhuman relationship, and to understand what exactly this relation means in order to determine what are humans' responsibilities. The sacred nature of all creation has deep theological roots in all religions. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas clearly states in his Summa Theologiae that, because the Divine could not express itself in one single being, it created the great multiplicity of beings so that the perfection lacking in one could be supplied by the others. 1 The differentiation of all species – human and non-human, the rivers and the stars – expresses the Divine both within the interior of human consciousness and across the order of the universe. This divinely ordered integration of exterior and interior, personal and cosmic, is the inner law mentioned by Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. 2 The natural world is not simply a background for the human or a context into which humans are inserted. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 47, Art. 1. Thomas Berry has repeatedly referred to this reference in all his writings. Saint Thomas consistently refers to the "order of the universe", and his Summa Contra Gentiles he refers to this order as "the ultimate and noblest perfection in things"(Chapter 45). 2 Romans. 4:8, cited from The Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966). 1

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Dr. Elisabeth Ferrero

Humans are absolutely dependent upon the rest of creation not only for survival, but also for spiritual growth and identity. By experiencing nature the human experiences the divine as well. The Bible speaks again and again of the goodness and beauty of creation. Moreover, all major religions seem to have several points of agreement in environmental ethics.   

"The natural world has value in itself and does not exist solely to serve human needs." "Non-human living beings are morally significant, in the eyes of God and/or in the cosmic order." "Greed and destructiveness are condemned."

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 

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"Humans and non-human beings are morally significant, in the eyes of God or the cosmic order." "Moral norms such as justice, compassion and reciprocity apply (in appropriate ways) both to human beings and to non-human beings. The well-being of humans and the well-being of non-human beings are inseparably connected." "The dependence of human life on the natural world can and should be acknowledged in ritual and other expressions of appreciation and gratitude." 3

Although each part of creation exists for itself, for its own growth and development, primarily and above all, each part exists to bring life to a single integral community, to creation itself. The human cannot function independently from the rest of the universe; we humans cannot exploit for their own good, because by seeking our own well being at the expense of the wider community of life we diminish our own well-being and the well being of all creation, of the entire universe. Bedrich Moldan speaks of the human dominance on the natural world as our magnificent contemporary feast without a price. The problem is that this price is not paid by us who enjoy the feast. It is paid by somebody else. It is paid by nature, by the global geosphere that provides us with all the essential services we need for our rich banquet. 4 This domination on Earth is aggravated by the fact that the carrying capacity of the planet is limited. Therefore, a utilitarian approach (the dominant ethos guiding modern Western culture) to the environment of the non-human world can only increase the disorder of the universe, with the resulting spiritual and social degradation of humankind as well. 5 Greed, selfishness, instant gratification, and overconsumerism (only to mention some of the great social problems of today) have disturbed the natural balance of the universe and in the process have impoverished our souls and hearts. What is needed is a fundamental shift as a global society to adopt a transformative global ethic.

The Earth Charter presents us with a blueprint to meet the challenges before us. We must pledge a strong commitment to its principles in our attitudes, our values, and in the way we live. Institutions and governments must shift drastically from their myopic human-centered values and services to embrace the universe. As Robert Muller has expressed it so well, We are entering a thrilling, transcending, new global, cosmic phase of evolution in the line indicated by Teilhard de Chardin, the anthropologist, if the human species understands its suddenly momentous, incredibly important evolutionary role and responsibility. Existing institutions must be reformed and/or created to perform this role. 6

POETRY CORNER Food of the Earth so luscious and whole, when taken into the body it replenishes the soul, Why must mankind try to outsmart his creator? One only knows what it is he must realize, perhaps sooner than later, We cannot go on allowing things to remain as they do, For the pain the Earth feels will no doubt flow unto you, Food of the Earth now only part of its soul, When taken into the body destroys the soul.

BRENDA HIXSON

The solutions to our problems today are acceptable only if they are sustainable in every way. A sustainable society satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects for future generations. We should not work for efficiency but to preserve the whole network of relationships of the humans to the non-human world. 3 Interfaith Partnership for the Environment, Earth and Faith, Libby Bassett, ed. (New York: United Nations Environment Programme), p. 78. Moldan Bedrich, in “Global Ethics, Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter,” Earth Forum, An on-line Conference, April 6-9, 1999, p. 1, at www.earthforum.org/9904/moldan/paper.htm. 4 See the prior reference. 5 Thomas Berry, The Dream of Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988), pp. 33-35.

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6 Robert Muller, "The Absolute, Urgent Need for Proper Earth Government", in “Global Ethics, Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter,” in Earth Forum., An on-line Conference, April 6-9, 1999, p. 6, at www.earthforum.org. Dr. Muller, a past Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, is a long-time member of Pax Romana/CMICA-USA.

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GLOBALIZATION, THE MODERN MECHANISTIC PHILOSOPHY, AND PAX ROMANA

CÉ S A R J. B A L D E L O M A R César J. Baldelomar is Director of the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching and will begin graduate studies in Theology this Fall at Harvard Divinity School. The article is reproduced from the Delta Epsilon Sigma Journal, Winter 2009 (Vol. LIV, no. 1)

INTRODUCTION

n an address to the University of Notre Dame’s 2008 graduating class, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick implored the graduates to “make our globalized world more human and more humane, more committed to the protection of life and dignity, of peace and justice, of faith and love.” A glance at the local newspaper reveals that today’s globalized society is anything but humane, with the modern globalization project experiencing a profound intertwined ecological, social, and spiritual breakdown. 

The ecological crisis is characterized by the rapid destruction of the rainforests, mass extinction of species, global warming and the melting of the polar icecaps, and the rapid depletion of fossil fuels.



The social crisis is compounded by wars and proliferation of nuclear weapons capable of destroying all life on earth; sweatshops that demean the worker and the holy act of work; economic neo-liberalism and its concomitant technocratic market ideology praising only the rich and powerful; and the many attacks on the most vulnerable groups in society who are unable to produce or consume at a proficient level, such as the unborn, physically and mentally disabled, elderly, children, and women.



And, in the spiritual crisis, many youth and adults have lost interest in organized religion, and wars in the name of God are being waged across the world.

But hope for Cardinal McCarrick’s vision is present in the form of creative organizations – including the worldwide Catholic lay movement of intellectuals, professionals, and university students known as Pax Romana – that are striving to steer the globalized world on a path that is ecologically sustainable, socially just and peaceful, and spiritually meaningful. This essay discusses how Pax Romana/Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA (CMICA) is working to make globalization a “more human and more humane” process through its mission of educating intellectuals and professionals in Catholic Social-Ecological Thought for

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the new global era. To do so, this essay first attempts to describe the historical phenomenon of globalization by offering a working definition, by describing the destructive atomistic-mechanistic philosophy guiding it, and by listing the negative repercussions of that philosophy. Then, offering a brief explanation of Pax Romana’s roots, mission, and activities, this essay demonstrates how Pax Romana’s works counter the current destructive path of globalization.

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF G L O B A L I Z A T I O N

lobalization is an on-going process that is constantly transforming the way societies conduct business, communicate, learn, and travel. Globalization’s metamorphic characteristics make it nearly impossible to define accurately. For instance, Samuel Huntington and Peter Berger state that for some globalization

implies the promise of an international civil society, conducive to a new era of peace and democratization. For others, it implies the threat of an

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American economic and political hegemony, with its cultural consequence being a homogenized world resembling a sort of metastasized Disneyland. 1 This ambiguity toward this “still unfinished, fluid, and multi-dimensional process” 2 of globalization should not discourage one, however, from trying to understanding its complexity and trajectory. One working definition of globalization may prove helpful: Globalization denotes a process in the course of which the volume and intensity of trans-boundary transportation, communication and trade relations are rapidly increasing. It is undermining the divisive connotations of national boundaries and intensifying the impacts of border crossing economic, social and political activities for national societies. 3 In short, globalization, through its communication (phones, internet, email, blogs) and transportation (planes, boats, automobiles) technologies, significantly reduces time and space. 4 Also helpful in comprehending globalization is Nozomi Miura’s understanding of globalization as comprised of five interrelated dimensions. 5 The first is economic and characterized by the rapid movement of capital, increase in international trade, and the growth of the free market. The second is sociopolitical, which has shifted from national governing bodies to transnational institutions – such as the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank – with the power to influence national governments. The third is technological, in which new communication and transportation technologies condense time and space by facilitating rapid travel and communication. The fourth is cultural, wherein there is a paradoxical strengthening and weakening of local identity. And the fifth is ecological, since environmental destruction and sustainability affect all societies. The process of globalization, which stems primarily from the electronic revolution, confirms the appearance of a fourth or postmodern era in the history of human evolution. 6 The emergence of this postmodern era offers all hu1 Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington, Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2. 2 Joe Holland, “Toward a Global Culture of Life: Cultural Challenges to Catholic Social Thought in the Postmodern Electronic-Ecological Era,” in Globalization and Catholic Social Thought: Present Crisis, Future Hope, eds. John A. Coleman and William F. Ryan (New York: Orbis, 2005), 114. 3 Dirk Messner, “World Society: Structure and Trends,” in Global Trends and Global Governance, eds. Dirk Messner and Franz Nuscheler (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 39. 4 John A. Coleman, “Making the Connections: Globalization and Catholic Social Thought,” in Globalization and Catholic Social Thought: Present Crisis, Future Hope, eds. John A. Coleman and William F. Ryan (New York: Orbis Books, 2005), 13. 5 Nozomi Miura, “Justice in the Bible, Globalization, and Jubilee,” Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa 28 (2004): 38-58. 6 For more on the four eras of human evolution, see Holland, “Toward a Global Culture of Life,” Globalization and Catholic Social Thought, 116-117.

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manity the unique opportunity to forge in solidarity a new world order based on love, compassion, justice, peace, spirituality, and ecological sustainability. To do so, however, requires an understanding of the ideologies guiding the modern globalization project. THE UNDERLYING MECHANISTIC PHILOSOPHY

he entire globalization phenomenon has been guided by technocratic neo-liberal market ideologies that seek financial progress at any cost, whether this sometimes means eliminating (through euthanasia) those who are a burden to progress, or destroying the natural world until all resources are extracted. 7 Undergirding these neo-liberal market ideologies, however, is an ideological conception of the world and everything in it as fragmented (like atoms) and without value, meaning, or purpose (and so ultimately nihilistic). 8 According to this atomistic-mechanistic metaphor, all things, including humans, are mechanical agents that have no relation with the Divine, each other, and the natural world. The atomistic-mechanistic worldview has roots in the philosophy of the ancient pre-Socratic atomists, especially Leucippus and his successor Democritus, who posited that all creation was composed of one material substance, atoms. 9 Various atoms of different shapes and sizes, according to the atomists, randomly collided in a void space to form an object. These atoms were not moved by a Divine being, but rather by anankē, or blind chance. Thus, all phenomena, including one’s existence, concluded the atomists, could now be explained as the random collision and combination of atoms – allowing Latin atomist poet Lucretius to state boldly, “…death is nothing to us, nothing that matters at all…” 10 The atomistic-mechanistic metaphor received impetus from the Protestant Revolution’s stress on individual spiritual salvation, and developed fully in the empirical-scientific method, particularly with the emergence of Newtonian physics. According to philosopher Freya Mathews, “In Newtonian physics, atomism was mathematically and conceptually articulated.” 11 Mathews notes that atomism did not simply appear with Newton, but had a long earlier history in both philosophical and scientific thought. She mentions that French philosopher and scientist Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) revived the atomism of Democritus in the context of mechanism, that is, the view that all is like Ibid., 114-15. Ibid., 114-17. 9 Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991), 21. 10 Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 92. 11Freya Mathews, “The Ideological Implications of Atomism,” in Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application, ed. Louis P. Pojman (Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005), 40. 7 8

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a grand machine operating through mechanical laws. 12 Mathews states that German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) then developed Gassendi’s theory by establishing “measurement and mathematics as the method for investigating nature, and thereby breaking with the Aristotelian method, which categorized nature in terms of forms, functions, essences…” 13 Kepler was convinced that the universe could be understood only mathematically “because God the creator had mathematics as the archetype with him from eternity in most simple and divine abstraction from quantities materially considered.” 14 Following Kepler, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) held that truth about an object could only be acquired through measurement and observation of its size, shape, velocity, acceleration, direction, and weight (primary qualities). An object’s color or smell constituted secondary qualities and should be excluded from the process of attaining the truth, as should all qualities that could not be measured or weighed, which he classified as subjective properties. Galileo claimed that they did not reveal the truth about an object, since they were relative to the perceiver and thus irrelevant in the search for certainty. Having observed the time’s scientific developments, René Descartes (1596-1650) asserted that the whole could be understood only in terms of analyzing its parts, a theory called reductive analysis. Further, building on the distinction between an object’s primary qualities (which can be measured and weighed) and secondary qualities (which cannot be mathematically or geometrically analyzed), Descartes forged the mind/body dualism, which has influenced Western thought up to the present. He believed that the material body was fundamentally mechanistic and could be mathematically analyzed, while the mind or soul was beyond measurement by virtue of its pure non-material nature. For Descartes the body was a machine that transported the mind/soul, which, in turn, powered the body through the pineal gland. 15 Descartes went further and posited that the body, made of tiny particles, was inferior to the mind/soul by virtue of its constantly evolving nature. This led to his doubting the existence of all things except his own consciousness; hence his “Cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). 16 His rational outlook led to the conclusion that one must doubt all things in the material world, except for one’s own existence, until it could be geometrically or mathematically proven. So if I look at, say, John, I must doubt John’s existence until I can geometrically and mathematically reduce John to measurable parts. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 14 Ibid., 15 Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 58-62. 16 Ibid., 59. 12

In essence, according to Descartes, all physical phenomena could be comprehended by observing the functions of a machine, which required that one analyze its parts and its motion. This reductive analysis led to the conclusion that all was governed by mechanical laws of motion. From a theological perspective, Descartes held that after God created the world and set it in motion, God retreated to allow the laws of motion to govern the world. The Cartesian theory was considered to be partial until Isaac Newton (1643-1727) came along. Richard Tarnas claims that “Newton’s astounding achievement [was] to synthesize Descartes’ mechanistic philosophy, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, and Galileo’s laws of terrestrial motion in one comprehensive theory.” 17 Newton, through empirical research and deductive analysis, concluded that the universe was governed by the three laws of motion (inertia, force, and equal reaction) and by the theory of universal gravitation. 18 All in the universe, according to Newton, could be explained as follows: “Every particle of matter in the universe attracted every other particle with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” 19 Thus, the secrets of the cosmos, which eluded philosophers and scientists for ages, were now revealed as being nothing more than a mere set of physical laws governing all the atomistic parts that combined to form the super machine. As Tarnas states, “Descartes’ vision of nature as a perfectly ordered machine governed by mathematical laws and comprehensible by human science was [now] fulfilled [through Newtonian analysis].” 20 In contemporary times, the rationalistic nature of this cosmology forces religion and spirituality out of the public sphere and into one’s interior. Thus, it assumes that one’s belief in a deity should remain one’s personal belief, to be expressed only through devotional piety in prayer at church and home. God, in this context, is viewed as a master clockmaker who simply built the world and then set it in motion only afterwards to retreat and let scientific laws govern daily life. Consequently, humans no longer perceive God to be present within nature or society – thereby making the natural world easy prey for exploitative individuals and institutions bent on hoarding its precious resources. Atomistic-mechanistic thinking has also led our culture to claim that happiness and meaning can only be found in individualism and consumerism. Thus, many view the free market, with its commodities valued only through money, as the savior. The resulting consumer society has obstructed our recognition of nature and humans as possessing their

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Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, 269. Ibid., 269-70. 19 Ibid., 270. 20 Ibid., 17 18

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own integrity. It has also replaced traditional religions with its own religion and mammon as its god. The high priest, pope, or prophet of this religion is Adam Smith. Corporate CEOs replace the clergy. The malls become the cathedrals. The Eucharist has been replaced by the costliest and most popular commodities. And, of course, the faithful laity are the consumers who blindly follow the dogmas of the free market and participate in its rituals, such as “Black Friday.” The atomistic-mechanistic metaphor, through its resulting consumer society that measures success through the “objective” lens of profit, fosters an individualistic-egoistic and overly competitive anthropology. Gibson Winter noted this point, when he stated that “mechanistic[-atomistic] orientations undercut many of the intimate ties that bind persons, families, and communities together.” 21 Increasingly in this mechanistic zeitgeist, unwanted children, individuals with mental or physical anomalies, and the elderly all represent hardships that must be placed in a nursing home or disposed of through “mercy-killing.” Since, according to the mechanistic worldview, all humans are simple cogs in the machine with no inherent value or purpose, it is morally permissible to euthanize or isolate individuals who – by virtue of their physical or mental condition – cannot contribute to the economy with the same efficiency as a “regular” adult.

portant. This ultimately blinds one to the reality and suffering of others. 

Corporate and Governmental Inattention to Environmental Sustainability. To ensure an adequate supply of commodities for the expanding global market, corporations must procure, at any cost, precious natural resources. Again, the atomistic-mechanistic cosmology recognizes all, including nature, as fragmented mechanical pieces with no inherent value or purpose. The natural world is seen as a dead pile of raw material ready to be extracted and converted into commodities, where their price determines their value. Nature, in other words, serves no purpose other than to placate the needs of the free market.



Growing Economic and Political Polarization. The gap between the rich and poor is expanding every year at the local, national, and global levels. 23 There also seems to be a widening gap in Internet access between the inhabitants from industrialized and nonindustrialized nations. 24 To reiterate what has been stated in the first point, the atomistic-mechanistic individualistic view of humanity has been buttressed by the neo-liberal ideals of monetary progress at any cost. If earning a job promotion and increase in salary means sacrificing one’s marriage, care of parents or disabled children, or volunteering time to the community, then so be it. This is in line with the thought of mechanistic English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who once stated that one’s life purpose was to preserve his or her own body-machine at any cost.

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Inability of National Governments to Care for Citizens. Coleman argues that many fear that national governments, in an attempt to remain competitive in the international economy, will sacrifice its citizens’ societal needs, such as healthcare, social security, and welfare. This, in turn, may lead the economic elite to intensify attacks on the vulnerable populations (the unborn, elderly, handicapped, and children) who will struggle to participate, either as consumers or as producers, in the global economy.

Having examined the atomistic-mechanistic philosophy guiding globalization, let us now explore the negative repercussions that this materialistic, nihilistic, and utilitarian ideology has had on globalization.

THE

PATH TO DESTRUCTION

ccording to sociologist John Coleman, globalization has several positive and negative effects. Its positive effects include “increased consciousness of being one world,” the fact that information is “more democratically available,” and the increase of attention that human rights issues are receiving worldwide. 22 As for the negative effects of globalization, Coleman lists four, which I expand on:



Insensitivity to Human Suffering. Globalization has caused much political and economic turmoil across the world. Since the atomistic-mechanistic cosmology has led to an overly individualistic and competitive anthropology, many do not concern themselves with the plight of the world’s poor and marginalized. One’s economic gain and comfort takes precedence over the common good. This individualism has roots in Descartes’ realization of “I think, therefore I am,” which leads one to conclude that only one’s existence is real and thus im-

Gibson Winter, Liberating Creation: Foundations of Religious Social Ethics (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 4. 22 John A. Coleman, “Making the Connections: Globalization and Catholic Social Thought,” Globalization and Catholic Social Thought, 13.

On its current mechanistic path, globalization is becoming an inhumane and unsustainable process that will destroy the planet and humans who cannot contribute appropriately to the global economy. David Held and Anthony McGrew argue that globalization should not be read as pre-figuring the emergence of a harmonious world society…in which there is growing convergence of cultures and civilizations… Since a substantial proportion of the world’s population is largely excluded from the benefits of globalization, it

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Ibid., 13. See the recent UNESCO study, Towards Knowledge Societies at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001418/141843e.pdf

23 24

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is a deeply divisive and, consequently, vigorously contested process. The unevenness of globalization ensures that it is far from a universal process experienced uniformly across the entire planet. 25 So the key question is: what can one do to make globalization and this new era of human evolution more humane and sustainable? The answer is quite simple: joining and creating global movements that seek an alternative path. We will now examine one of these in the United States: Pax Romana USA. Its mission, philosophy, and activities counter the social, spiritual, and ecological destruction flowing from the atomistic-mechanistic ideas currently guiding neo-liberal globalization.

P AX RO M AN A IN TH E U S A 26

ax Romana CMICA-USA is part of the worldwide Pax Romana movement of lay Catholic intellectuals, professionals, and university students devoted to finding practical solutions to today’s great spiritual, ecological, and social problems by drawing on Catholic Social Teaching (CST), on the wisdom of all academic disciplines, and on the richness of the human experience. It has long been strong in Europe, and is now growing rapidly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Today worldwide the movement is present in 80 countries and embraces 420,000 members. Initiated in 1887, officially recognized by the Vatican in 1921, and a leading United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO), the movement reportedly received its name “Pax Romana” from Pope Benedict XV. Two later popes served earlier in their careers as Pax Romana chaplains: Pope Paul VI in Italy, and Pope John Paul II in Poland. Following the leadership of such popes, the global Pax Romana movement is committed to forging a new era by guiding globalization on a humane and sustainable path that recognizes the consistent ethic of life by supporting and celebrating human dignity, diversity of all cultures and peoples, co-creative mutuality of men and women, family (the vital cell of society), the sanctity of work, participation in civil society, justice for all, peace, and ecology. In the United States, Pax Romana USA had traditionally remained small, centered especially in lay Catholics related to the United Nations. But in recent years, due to the impact of electronic globalization and the birth of a truly “world church,” several intellectuals, professionals, and students from across the country have expressed a desire to form Pax Romana USA chapters at their universities. In response to this growing interest, an invitation and guide on how to form Pax Romana USA chapters will soon be issued by its president, Joe Holland, through Pax Romana USA’s 25 David Held and Anthony McGrew, Globalization/Anti-Globalization (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 1. 26 This section uses an adopted version of an article by Nicole Roman and César J. Baldelomar, “Making a World of Difference through Catholic Social Teaching,” Florida Catholic, 10 October 2007, A22. Reprinted with permission.

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think-tank, the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, to which we now turn to. 27 Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching To help implement its goal of guiding globalization on a just and sustainable path, in 2003 Pax Romana USA set up the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, located at Florida’s St. Thomas University. 28 The Center’s mission is to promote internationally among intellectuals, professionals, and university students the deep study of CST as a profound ethical wisdom tradition. The Center promotes the study of the tradition’s philosophical-theological grounding, its socio-historical development, its dialogue with all academic disciplines, and its contemporary significance for the new global civilization now emerging. 29

César Baldelomar, Executive Director of the Pax Romana Center, with Bishop Felipe Estévez, Episcopal Adviser for the Center

To counter the destructive energies of the atomisticmechanistic cosmology currently guiding globalization, the Center currently supports the following themes:        

consistent ethic of life, including rejecting the death penalty; global dialogue of civilizations; history of CST; sustainable ecological communities; the Earth Charter; democratic global governance; preferential option for the poor; family as fundamental cell of society;

For more information and for the latest updates on Pax Romana CMICA-USA, visit www.pax-romana-cmica-usa.org 28 For further information on the Pax Romana Center, visit www.paxromana-center-cst.org 29 Ibid. 27

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     

priority of labor; global solidarity; United Nations Global Compact; science, cosmology, and philosophy; prophetic lay leadership; mutuality of theory and practice. 30

The Center welcomes scholars from all disciplines to join in its research projects. T he Ca l l t o Jo in Us For those who share its mission and meet its various levels of criteria, Pax Romana USA welcomes applications for full Membership, for Associate Membership, and for status of Friends. It welcomes intellectuals, professionals, and university students who hunger for continuing spiritual and intellectual development, who share deep spiritual and ethical concerns about the atomistic-mechanistic ideology (at the foundation of the crisis of contemporary society and that is currently guiding globalization), and who seek spiritual and ethical guidance for those concerns from CST. 31 New and old Pax Romana USA members and supporters are always invited to take part in annual Pax Romana international conferences addressing CST. Recent conferences have been held within the US in Miami, New York, and Washington DC, and abroad in Brazil, France, India, Italy, Peru, Poland, and Thailand. Additionally, members and supporters are invited to take part in annual Pax Romana NGO study-tours at United Nations (UN) centers in New York, Paris, Geneva, and Rome, and in dialogue meetings at Vatican offices like the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Further, the Pax Romana Center provides Pax Romana USA members and supporters with books, study-guides, journals, and a yearly magazine, as well as websites, emails, and a blog – all on CST. Central to the Center’s work is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 32 published in 2005 by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The Compendium offers an authoritative overview of CST for the new era of globalization. Topics include the principles of the Church’s social doctrine, human rights, the importance of family, the dignity of human work and rights Books published by the Center on these themes include D. Michael McCarron and Joe Holland, eds, Beyond the Death Penalty: The Development in Catholic Social Teaching (Miami: Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, 2007). Elisabeth Ferrero and Joe Holland, The Earth Charter: A Study Book of Reflection for Action (Miami: Redwoods Press, 2005). Roza Pati and Joe Holland, eds, The New Dialogue of Civilizations: A Contribution from Pax Romana Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA (Miami: Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching, 2005). Joe Holland, Modern Catholic Social Teaching: The Pope Confront the Industrial Age 1740-1958 (New York: Paulist Press, 2004). 31 Taken from a letter by Joe Holland to potential members of Pax Romana CMICA. 32 (Washington, DC: USCCB Publishing, 2005). 30

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of workers, the necessity for all to participate in olitical life, the value of international organizations, the promotion of peace, safeguarding the environment, and how to build a global civilization of love. In several meetings with Pax Romana USA leaders, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, has encouraged the Center to publish an easy-reading study-guide for the Compendium. The study-guide will be available from the Center in late 2009. CONCLUSION: CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT Peter Maurin, co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement, insisted that the first essential step in building a better civilization is “clarification of thought,” in order to understand the deeper reasons for society’s injustice. 33 Only then would one be ready to make an impact. As this essay has proposed, the current path of globalization is not socially just or peacefiul, nor spiritually meaningful, nor ecologically sustainable. The atomistic-mechanistic cosmology guiding globalization fosters fragmentation and intense individualism. But global movements like Pax Romana are committed to halting the current unsustainable path of society and to forging a new civilization based on justice and peace, ecological sustainability, and spirituality. The forging of a new civilization, however, will not occur without first intellectually examining and comprehending the root cause of today’s intertwined social, ecological, and spiritual crises. Contemporary wars, poverty, attack on the elderly and unborn, destruction of the rainforests, pollution, loss of faith, and religious wars are all directly or indirectly linked to the atomistic-mechanistic cosmology that undergirds the present model of globalization. Following Maurin, Pax Romana USA seeks to unveil the erroneous cosmology at the root of modern civilization and to explore the creative cosmology found in alternative postmodern systems of organic thought. Only by viewing all creation as interdependent will globalization become a process of compassion, justice, sustainability, love, and peace. Thus, Pax Romana USA seeks to serve as a hub for the exchange of worldwide perspectives, in hope that this global intellectual and spiritual solidarity will influence the grassroots, university students, families, people in the pews, and individuals to alter the current destructive path of globalization.

Dorothy Day and Francis J. Sicius, Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 97-116.

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PAX ROMANA IN THE POSTMODERN GLOBAL ERA

JOE HOLLAND, PH.D. Pr es id e nt, Pa x R oma na / Ca th o lic M ov e m en t f o r I nt el l ec t ua l & C u lt ur al A ffa ir s US A Pr o fe ss o r of Ph il o so p h y & Re lig i on , S t . Th om as U niv e rs ity , Mia mi Gard e n s, F l or i da Th i s es say i s ad a p te d f r om a p a p e r g iv e n a t th e 2 00 0 P a x Ro ma na IC MI CA W o rl d As s emb ly i n Pa ri s , F ra nc e .

Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace, meeting in the Commission’s offices In Rome with Msgr. James Reinert and Pax Romana Global Leadership Students from St. Thomas University in Florida

IN TRO D UC TI ON

PO ST MO DE RN C UL T UR AL DE B A TE

he fundamental historical context for a reflection on the future of Pax Romana as an international and multicultural Catholic-Christian lay movement is, I propose, the deep cultural shift that we are presently undergoing. It is the shift from a modern print-based culture, centered in the North Atlantic nations, to a fresh postmodern electronicbased culture, now giving birth to a truly global civilization. The new global civilization is called to be ecologically sustainable, economically just, politically democratic, militarily peaceful, and culturally spiritual.

Presently there are four contending strategies promoted by social elites to define the newly emerging postmodern global civilization. Pax Romana as a global network needs to reflect on each of these strategies, as its charts its path into the postmodern future.

I begin this essay by offering a brief interpretation of four contending strategies for the postmodern cultural transition, and then set the postmodern transition within the larger framework of humanity’s cultural evolution. Next I explore some strategic aspects of what this transition means for Pax Romana as a postmodern lay Catholic movement seeking to join with other Christian traditions, and indeed with all other world religions – again, in the search for a spiritual, democratic, just, peaceful and sustainable human future.

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Economic Neoliberalism. First, there is the ideological strategy, pursued by many business elites of the new global stage of capitalism, to create what has been called a global “market culture.” This attempt seeks to reduce all human processes and structures to a modern financial calculus (what Karl Marx called the “commodity fetish.”). While creating invaluable global networks of communication and transportation, this strategy also reveals the objective side of the crisis of modernity by promoting the marginalization of God’s beloved poor, the devastation of God’s beautiful ecosystem, and spiritual despair among many of God’s beloved young people. 1

1 Since this economic strategy has been widely addressed by Pax Romana elsewhere, I will not reference sources to document it.

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

Academic Deconstructionism. Second, there is the academic strategy of some university elites to celebrate diversity and difference but at the same time rejecting the possibility of “meta-narratives.” Beginning originally as a literary movement in Peru in the 1930’s, this strategy has presently expanded across the world into the human sciences and philosophy. It is now best known from its proponents as “postmodernism,” “deconstructionism” or “post-structuralism.” Despite its fruitful celebration of diversity and difference, this strategy unfortunately rejects the possibility of common human meaning and a common human global ethics. As such, it reveals the subjective side of the crisis of modernity by collapsing into ethical relativism and eventually into metaphysical nihilism. 2

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Religious Restorationism. Third, there is the religious strategy of some religious elites to restore traditional spiritual values as a critique of the modern process of secularization. At the extreme, this attempt has been called “fundamentalism,” while in less extreme and more general versions it may be called “restorationism.” Though rightfully pointing to the primacy of spiritual values and their public significance, many sectors of this strategy unfortunately seek to perpetuate the premodern patriarchal worldviews of classical masculine warrior civilizations. 3

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New Scientific Cosmology. Fourth, there is the scientific strategy of some thinkers in the frontiers of Physics and Biology to articulate a post-Newtonian and so postmodern scientific cosmology that is at once holistic, developmental, and mystical. This postmodern cosmology is arising from scientific observation by electronically enhanced instruments. Primal cosmology was rooted in unsophisticated observation by traditional peoples. Classical cosmology was based on systematic observations by aristocratic priestly classes. Modern cosmology was based on systematized observation magnified by lay scientists using optics (the microscope and telescope). Now postmodern cosmology is based on systematized optical observation enhanced by electronics (the electronic microscope and electronic telescope). 4

We find a magisterial overview of the postmodern scientific cosmology, especially for Physics and Biology, in the book by geo-theologian Thomas Berry and astrophysicist Brian Swimme, The Universe Story. Other scientific exponents inOn academic deconstructionism as the subjective side of late modern global capitalism, see the rich study of Fredrick Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1991); by “Postmodernism,” Jameson means deconstructionism. On the origins of deconstructive postmodernism as a poetic movement in Lima, Peru, and on its subsequent evolution and spread, see Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London: New Left Books, 1998). 3 See Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders Of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against The Modern Age (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1995). 4 See the following note. 2

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clude physicist David Bohm, biologist Rubert Sheldrake, and physicist Fritjof Capra, while in the humanistic disciplines important voices include philosopher Charlene Spretnak, theologian Sallie McFague, and historian Carolyn Merchant. 5 Also, the emergence of this new paradigm for science is leading to growing dialogue between religion and science – signaling the end of the modern antagonism between the two. The fourth strategy, that is the new scientific cosmology, needs to become the scientific ground for the new global civilization. In all stages of human evolution, cosmology has always been foundational for human culture and knowledge. For example, the new scientific cosmology requires a radical revision of the underlying atomistic-mechanistic assumptions of modern economic theory. Human economy theory and analysis need to become a subset of ecological theory and analysis. By contrast, in modern economic theory (be it capitalist or socialist), the natural world is seen in alienated form only as an external collection of “resources” for human utilitarian use. In reality, the planetary ecological system precedes and is deeper than the human economic system, and the human economic system can sustainably function only as part of the wider ecosystem. The failure to recognize this truth is now clearly unscientific. 6 In this postmodern cosmology, again a fruit of the globalizing electronic revolution, we are beginning to glimpse for the first time ever the depth and breadth of the evolving human story, of the evolving Earth story, and of the larger cosmic story. We are seeing the human story, and its spiritual meaning, as an integral part of the wider evolutionary story of our garden planet Earth, and of its wider matrix of the entire cosmos. In this postmodern cosmology, the universe is now seen as relationally holistic, artistically creative, and mystically immersed in Mystery. In turn, humanity is perceived in the new cosmology as the reflective consciousness of Earth’s On the new ecological paradigm, see Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (NY: Bell Tower, 1999); Thomas Berry & Brian Swimme, The Universe Story: from the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (San Francisco: Harper-Collins, 1992); and Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (New York: Bantam, 1983, as well as his The Web Of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York: Doubleday, 1996). On the Catholic theological side, see Drew Christiansen, SJ, and Walter Grazer, “And God Saw That It Was Good” – Catholic Theology and The Environment (Washington DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1996). For another Catholic but ecumenically inclusive perspective, see Brennan R. Hill, Christian Faith and The Environment: Making Vital Connections (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1998). For a mainline Protestant perspective, see Larry L. Rasmussen, Earth Community Earth Ethics (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1997). For eco-feminists’ perspectives, see Charlene Spretnak, States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), and Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1993). 6 For a helpful summary of the scientific revision of modern economic theory already underway, see Robert Costanza, et al., An Introduction to Ecological Economics (Boca Raton, Florida: International Society for Ecological Economics, 1997). 5

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own evolution, itself part of the wider evolving cosmic process. The new scientific cosmology has much in common with the ancient spiritual-cultural traditions of the tribal or indigenous peoples of Earth. For example, drawing on the ancient tribal Keltic Christianity of his roots, Sean McDonagh, a leading Irish theologian, has reflected extensively on the new cosmology’s impact on Catholic theology..7 But McDonagh notes that the Keltic path for Christianity, which had some affinity with the new cosmology, was suppressed in the early Middle Ages by the cultural-spiritual dualism of the Latin path. The Irish-American writer, Thomas Cahill, has drawn a compelling picture of the early alternative between the imperial Latin interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus as established by St. Augustine, and the tribal Keltic interpretation proposed by St. Patrick. According to Cahill, the Keltic path of Patrick was centered in a rurally-oriented ecological spirituality, supported strong women, did not over-emphasize sexual sins, and highlighted social justice as foundational (including Ireland’s forbidding slavery in the 5th century – the only country in the world ever to do so before the 19th century). By contrast, the Latin path was urban-focused, initially looked down on rural peoples, carried a misogynist contempt of woman, supported slavery, and emphasized sexual sins over sins against social justice. 8 FO UR ER A S O F HU M A N E VO L U TI ON As I have proposed elsewhere, since its most early reflective emergence from the primate stage, humanity has experienced the maturation of three major cultural eras and is now entering a fourth era. 9 These eras might better be called concentric circles. For just as a living tree does not lose its inner rings when it grows new ones, so new human cultural eras do not eliminate prior ones, but contribute to a richer whole that includes the legacy of the still living past. These four eras of the human journey may be described as:  

Primal: the egalitarian tribal era, grounded in speech and cultivating a sacramental spirituality of immanence Classical: the hierarchical city-state/imperial era, grounded in writing and cultivating a philosophical spirituality of transcendence

For the work of Sean McDonaugh, see his three books: To Care for the Earth: A Call to a New Theology (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear, 1986, 1987); The Greening of the Church (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1990); and PASSION FOR THE EARTH (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994). 8 See Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall Of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (New York: Bantam Doubleday Publishing Group, 1996). 9 On the successive historical-societal roles of speech, hand-writing, mechanical printing, and now electronics, see Joe Holland, The Postmodern Electronic-Ecological Era: Religious Myth, Sexual Symbol, and Technological Design (Washington DC: The Warwick Institute, 1992).

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Modern: the mechanistic nation-state/imperial era, grounded in printing and cultivating a psychological spirituality of interiority Postmodern: the postmodern-global era, grounded in electronics and cultivating a spirituality of co-creativity

Within these four eras, the long primal era may be described as the communal women’s revolution. It laid the abiding and indispensable organic foundations for human culture, using biodegradable materials. Similarly the shorter classical and modern eras, based on advances in metallurgy, represented two sequential waves seen first in the hierarchicalaristocratic and later in the mechanistic-bourgeois men’s revolution, with both using non-biodegradable stone, metal, and later plastic materials. They awakened humanity to its awesome but also potentially destructive technological power. The postmodern transition with its new scientific cosmology presents Pax Romana with broad strategic challenges, including three that I would like to emphasize here, though these are by no means the only ones. 

The Spirituality of Co-Creativity. First, the new scientific cosmology offers us, for the first time ever, the possibility of fully celebrating humanity’s co-creativity within itself, with the Earth of which we are a part, and with the Divine Mystery whose creative presence is found dynamically in and through all that is.

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The Partnership of Women & Men. Second, within the wider postmodern cosmological story, the human journey may be seen as now offering, again for the first time ever, a cultural-spiritual ground for promoting across the new global civilization an authentic and cocreative partnership of women and men – synthesizing the primal, classical, and modern legacies, and reflecting the vision of Genesis that women and men are both made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

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The Planetary Regeneration of Life. Third, as the postmodern transition causes the collapse of the old concept of a Eurocentric Christian Civilization (including its later Euro-American form), the postmodern cosmology gives us the guiding vision for pointing the new global civilization toward a multicultural coalition of world religions in service of the planetary regeneration of the creative communion of life across its ecological, societal, and spiritual integrity. Let us reflect a bit more on each of these three challenges.

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PO ST MO DE RN S PI RI TU A L I T Y OF CO- CR E A TI VI T Y For Pax Romana, the first strategic postmodern challenge proposes a fundamental shift in its grounding spirituality. Spirituality stands, of course, at the core and root of the life of the movement.

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The old lay “Catholic Action” movements, within which Pax Romana was born, were based on both the classical spirituality of hierarchical transcendence and the modern spirituality of psychological interiority, in turn linked to an attempt to create a modern bourgeois form of classical European Christian Civilization. 10 The “temporal” sphere of the “apostolate,” to which lay “Catholic Action” was to be directed, was not seen in itself as a source of spiritual energy, but only as a secular object to which “spiritual” energy could be extrinsically applied. The classical Greek and Romana hierarchical idea of a dualistically ordered cosmology (a higher eternal-spiritual sphere and a lower temporalsecular sphere) grounded the theologically diminished understanding of the laity, and the modern Western mechanistic idea of a dualism of body and soul (articulated by Descartes with ancient roots in Pythagoras and Plato) grounded the psychological spirituality of interiority. Now, however, with the emergence of a new postmodern cosmological paradigm, Christian spirituality begins to see the lay experience and the entire cosmos as holistic, developmental, and mystical, that is, across space and time as sacramentally participating in God’s creative presence, though also in need of healing from the wounds of human sin. Further, God’s own creativity is not seen as shared only with the human sphere, but also with all of cosmic creation. Thus both the wider natural world and the human family within it are, at different levels, co-creators with the Creator in the ongoing evolutionary process of the Universe. Since the rise of the Pauline churches, there had been a developing identification of Christianity with Europe. Europe in turn became the seat of what was formerly known as “Christian Civilization,” first from the time of Constantine in the Eastern Byzantine form of the classical Roman Empire, and later from the time of Charlemagne in the Western alliance of the Latin papacy with Franco-Germanic power. Both of these forms were centered in patriarchal aristocratic warrior cultures. Indeed militarist dimensions were central to European “Christendom,” both in the earlier defense against attacks from Islam and in the later offense of the Crusades, as well in the early modern racist mercantile colonial invasion of the Americas and in later modern racist industrial colonial invasion of Africa and Asia. But while the aristocratic construct of a European Christian Civilization preserved and even extended its external borders by political-military means, the rise of the modern bourgeois era paradoxically undermined it internally by spiritual-cultural means. A series of bourgeois European revolutions – the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the philosophical Enlightenment, and finally the combined assault of the modernizing democratic and industrial revolutions – spelled the doom of the classical Catholic aristocratic rule on which European Christian Civilization had been based. The loss of the Papal States at the close of the 19th century, during the papacy of Pius IX, was the final step in the defeat of the European Catholic Aristocratic Ancien Regime. In response, Catholic leadership from Leo XIII through to Pius XII, following what Michael Schuck has called “the Leonine stage” of Catholic social teaching, pursued the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful strategy of attempting to create a bourgeois form of Eurocentric Christian Civilization. Jacques Maritain described this project as a “Neo-Christendom.” In the middle years of the 20th century, however, this modernizing attempt to create a reformed bourgeois model of European Christian Civilization collapsed in traumatic failure. (On the Leonine stage of Catholic social teaching, see Michael J. Schuck, The Social Teachings of the Papal Encyclicals, 1740-1989 [Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991]).

This means that the fundamental human tasks of work, family, and citizenship are not simply areas of ethical responsibility, but more profoundly constitute sacred experiences of mystical cocreative communion with the Creator’s own creativity. Further, Christians in their mystical communion with the Creator’s own creativity need to follow a prophetic path – in their roles for work, family, and citizenship – by seeking to heal the wounds of sin that scar and block humanity’s ecological, social, and spiritual co-creativity. As this postmodern spirituality unfolds in a single worldlyspiritual whole, the classical dualistic-hierarchical concept of a metaphysical separation between sacred and secular spheres, or alternately between spiritual and temporal orders, breaks down. There is no longer a valid cosmological distinction neither between spiritual and temporal, nor between sacred and secular. There is only one creation, participating in creative Divine energy, though wounded by sin and crying out for healing. Also, in the context of this new scientific cosmology, the community of Jesus’ disciples begins to recover its lay character as found in the original Jesus movement prior to dualistic cultural overlays from classical Greek and Roman civilization. 11 Facing this first postmodern global challenge and seeking to serve the sacred lay experience of work, family, and citizenship, Pax Romana is well positioned to embrace this postmodern scientific cosmology with its underlying spirituality of co-creativity, and under its inspiration to flourish as a multicultural and global lay Catholic movement. P AR TN ER SH IP OF W OME N & M EN

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The second strategic postmodern global challenge that Pax Romana faces is supporting and celebrating the co-creative mutuality of women and men. Humanity, in its earliest expression of reflexive consciousness, first passed through tens of thousands of years of primal experience, in which women laid the egalitarianorganic foundations for human culture in matrifocal societies. Next, following waves of metallurgical revolutions, certain sectors of male humanity, particularly in colder or harsher bioregions, developed over perhaps five thousand years an opposing patriarchal-warrior model of society. As noted, this masculine revolution occurred in two stages, first For example, it is now clear from research in the sociology of religion, that Christian streams clinging to classical and modern forms of clericalism increasingly fail at evangelization. By contrast, those streams that understand ordained leadership in lay form increasingly succeed at evangelization. (See Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism [University of California Press, 1999]). For example, in the case of Brazil, though Catholic evangelization has been present for half a millennium, and Pentecostal evangelization has been present for scarcely half a century, there are now in Brazil twice as many Pentecostal ministers as Catholic priests. Further, while nearly all the Brazilian ministers are native Brazilians, approximately half of Brazil’s Catholic priests are still foreigners. See Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: The Rise Of Pentecostal Spirituality And The Reshaping Of Religion In The Twenty-First Century [Perseus Publishing, 1995]). 11

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a long aristocratic-hierarchical wave, and more recently a shorter bourgeois-mechanistic wave. For Eurocentric civilization, the aristocratic-hierarchical wave broke down in the nineteenth century, while the bourgeois-mechanistic wave is only now facing breakdown in the twenty-first century. With this postmodern turn, women and men have, for the first time ever, the possibility of developing a true partnership of co-creative mutuality. This means that the three sacred areas of human co-creativity, namely family, work, and citizenship, are called to become spheres of increasingly balanced and co-creative feminine-masculine partnership. For Christians, the deepest theological grounding of this partnership, as the philosopher Hegel appreciated, is the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. For in one metaphorical interpretation, with the Holy Spirit seen as feminine, 12 the Trinity may be described in sexually symbolic terms as the fertile embrace – the eternal co-creative sexual communion of the feminine and masculine faces of the Divine Mystery, eternally birthing new life. The creative dialectic of the Trinity is then echoed, as Hegel celebrated, across the creativity of all creation. This metaphorical interpretation of the Trinity recovers, I propose, the deep meaning of Genesis 1:28, “In God’s own image they were made; male and female they were made.” In this metaphor, the Holy Spirit represents, of course, the feminine image of God. Facing this second postmodern global challenge and seeking to serve a postmodern expression of Christian energy, Pax Romana is called to witness this feminine-masculine partnership within its own ranks, and to assist its members, and indeed all humanity, to discover and celebrate this cocreative mutuality as the heart of human co-creativity. A PO ST MO DE RN C UL TU RE O F L I FE As modern Western culture entered into profound ecological, societal, and spiritual crises, which are now infecting the entire planet, the late Pope John Paul II proclaimed that we are threatened with a culture of death. The alternative, he proposed, is a culture of life, served by the Gospel of life. 13 The culture of death is the very opposite of a culture of life. Applying the perspective to society at large, we may say that it represents the expansion of deadly addictive processes to institutions and professions in their late modern form. For example, increasingly today so many universities across the globe seek only to train future professionals to “succeed” in the culture of death. Similarly, as the ecological, societal, and spiritual crises intensify on a global scale, large

sectors of the professions, in massive acts of ever-deepening denial, become enablers of the threatening processes of ecological, societal, and spiritual breakdown. This is the negative face of the end of the modern cultural era. But there is also a positive face where fresh postmodern hope appears. Within the professions themselves, and with the training programs which prepare candidates for them, new experiments are underway that represent fertile seeds for the new global civilization. In the area of human work, I think, for example, of solar energy in engineering, of restorative justice in law, of complementary medicine in health care, of micro-finance in banking, and of ecological technologies and micro-enterprises in business. The same struggle against the culture of death by the culture of life goes on in the related spheres of family life and citizenship. On one side, young couples, increasingly pressured by crushing demands from hyper-masculine institutions following the neo-liberal ideology, find their parenting undermined and even their marriages threatened. So too there arise within political circles new “family-oriented” movements of xenophobia, racism, and scapegoating. But the opposite is also true. On the other side, young couples across the planet are developing new and more supportive patterns for parenting and marriage, sometimes at great financial sacrifice, yet with priceless emotional and spiritual rewards in their relationships. So too young societal leaders across the planet are exploring creative alternatives to the late modern drift into ecological, societal, and spiritual breakdown. They do this by forming new solidarities to resist all assaults on human dignity and solidarity, including attacks on the unborn, the elderly, and the handicapped, as well as the attacks on workers, attacks based on sexism, racism, and classism, and attacks of ecological devastation. These visionary young societal leaders also seek to create new models of spiritually, socially and ecologically sustainable communities. Facing this third postmodern global challenge and seeking to resist the culture of death and to serve the culture of life, Pax Romana is called to highlight and network among its members creative and healing experiments in work, family, and citizenship, and to place these at the service of the new global civilization. CO N CL U S IO N To conclude, I propose that Pax Romana is called to pursue its prophetic exploration and service of a culture of life for the new postmodern global civilization in several ways. 

See Donald L. Gelpi, S.J., The Divine Mother: A Trinitarian Image of God (New York: University of America Press, 1984). 13 John Paul II, EVANGELIUM VITAE, English edition (Washington DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1995). 12

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Intellectuals & Professionals. First, we need to better link our networks of Catholic professionals with Catholic intellectuals in universities across the world, and especially with Catholic universities. While the constituency of Pax Romana is predominately that of lay Catholic

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professionals, its mission has always been profoundly intellectual. So the need for closer links with intellectual debates going on in universities. But, as noted, in making this linkage Pax Romana needs to challenge the nonprophetic orientation of so many universities which seek only to serve the neoliberal global economy as it increasingly undermines bioregional ecology, denies the human dignity of unborn children and the marginalized poor, and leaves many young people only with spiritual emptiness. 

Small Faith Communities. Second, we need to network small faith communities where, in prayer, study, and faith-sharing, professionals and their families can find support as postmodern disciples of Jesus for the prophetic lay mission in the sacred spheres of work, family, and citizenship. But here we need to be on guard against the pervasive late modern temptation to create pseudospiritual enclaves which seek only false psychological consolation and flee from transformative responsibility to nature and history.

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Four Generations. Third, we need a closer prophetic dialogue among the four generations of Pax Romana, namely elders, professionals in mid-life, young professionals, and university students. This dialogue needs to flourish in an equal balance of women and men, across all global cultures, and in communion with all other churches and other world religions.

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Africa as the Center. Fourth, we need to celebrate humanity’s common African roots, with its non-dualistic familial and ecological spirituality of life. Today many

young people across the planet are drawn to holistic musical forms with ancient African roots (e.g., the many descendents of jazz and rock & roll). Similarly young people across the planet are drawn to the Pentecostal and charismatic forms of Christianity, which also have ancient roots in African spiritual styles. 

Electronic Communications. Lastly, central to accomplishing our goals is giving the highest priority to electronic communications. (In that regard, we do no service to the poor by not working to make electronic communications, powered by renewable energy systems, available to the most remote villages.) For hundreds of years after Guttenberg, the premodern aristocratic Catholic popes tried to resist the modern print revolution, with disastrous consequences for European Catholicism. Let us not repeat this same strategic mistake on a global scale for the postmodern electronic revolution.

In sum, a new global civilization is now being born, at once electronic and ecological, seeking ecological sustainability, social justice, participatory democracy, true partnership of women and men – all grounded on a postmodern scientific cosmology of mystical evolutionary holism and served by Christianity through a mystical-prophetic lay spirituality. The Holy Spirit has raised up our movement of Pax Romana as a creative transnational spiritual movement within Catholic Christianity. As we form a new global solidarity, let us listen carefully and prayerfully to the Holy Spirit as she leads us into the service of a culture of life for this new global civilization.

CO NG R A T UL A TIO N S TO T WO DI ST I N G U IS HED BO A RD M EM B E RS

AMBASSADOR OSCAR DE ROJAS, a long-standing member of the Board of Directors of Pax Romana/Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA, has recently been elected to serve as President of the Board of Directors of the International Catholic Organizations Information Center at the United Nations in New York. Ambassador De Rojas is Executive Director of the Office of Financing for Development within the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. He was formerly a member of the diplomatic service of Venezuela. Congratulations Ambassador de Rojas! PROFESSOR MARK J. WOLFF, JD, LLM, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the International Catholic Organizations Information Center at the United Nations. Prof. Wolff, Professor of Law at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Florida, serves as Professor Wolff and Ambassador de Rojas Vice-President of the Board of Directors of Pax Romana/Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA, as International Vice-President for North America of Pax Romana/International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, and as Main Pax Romana Representative to the United Nations in New York. Congratulations Professor Wolff!

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PAX ROMANA GLOBAL LEADERSHIP LAW-STUDENT INTERNSHIP AT THE UNITED NATIONS

M AR K J. WO L F F, J D, L L M Professor of Law, St. Thomas University School of Law, Archdiocese of Miami, Main Pax Romana Representative to the United Nations in New York, Vice-President for North America, and Pax Romana/International Catholic Movement for Intellectual & Cultural Affairs. This article is excerpted and adapted from a longer report by Prof. Wolff

Prof. Wolff with 2008 Law-Student Interns at a breakfast-briefing before going to the UN. Left To Right: Karline Altemar, Veronica Flores, Prof. Mark Wolff, Patricia George, Shani Mckenzie, and Rochelle Nuñez

ax Romana Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs USA (CMICA-USA), in partnership with Saint Thomas University School of Law in the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, has established the now four-year old and still growing Pax Romana Global Leadership Law Student Internship Program at the United Nations in New York. The purpose of this program, along with a related undergraduate program at St. Thomas University, is to form a fresh international generation of young transformative lay leaders committed to the prophetic vision of Catholic Social Teaching for the loving care of all creation and for a humanistic global civilization of love, life, and solidarity. Founded in the spring of 2005 and still led by Professor Mark J. Wolff, Pax Romana’s Main Permanent Representative to the UN, the program grants from six to twelve academic law-school credits and requires a full semester’s residence in New York City. Interns are full-time representatives to the United Nations in New York and are credentialed by Pax Romana or by a UN office, a member mission,

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or another UN-affiliated NGO (non-governmental organization) or IGO (intergovernmental organization). In order to be selected for the program, students are required to take a law-school jurisprudence seminar entitled, “United Nations Global Governance, Global Ethics and Catholic Social Teachings.” Encompassing an overview of Catholic Social Teachings, the class is team-taught by Professor Joe Holland, Professor Josef Klee, and Professor Mark J. Wolff. Since the first day of the program, the interns have been busy assisting many UN delegations, committees, and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Interns have served with the Permanent Observer Mission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to the United Nations (“IUCN”), the Permanent Observer Mission of the Asia-African Legal Consultative Organization to the United Nations (“AALCO”), the Permanent Observer Mission of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Permanent Mission of South Africa, and the Permanent Mission of Trinidad and Tobago.

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The fundamental and overriding consideration for the internship is Catholic Social Doctrine in relation to major global issues addressed by the UN. The overarching general priorities of the internship program are: 1) Women in Society; 2) Combating Poverty; and 3) Protection of the Environment. More specific thematic priorities include: 1) the Economic and Social Advancement of Women; 2) Sustainable Development, with a special focus on Financing for Development; 3) Human Rights Law; 4) HIV/AIDS; and 5) Environment – giving special attention to the Security Council’s unprecedented involvement.

Internship Program, students believe they can make a difference in the world.

The United Nations is the “hub” of international events. As important events occur, Professor Mark Wolff, Dr. Joe Holland, and Dr. Josef Klee may require an intern to research and write on a certain topic. These assignments usually involve investigative journalism, legal research, and analytical analysis. Interns have submitted many written and oral statements on Pax Romana’s behalf, as well on behalf of intergovernmental organizations and states missions. These speeches have been given in General Assembly committees and within the General Assembly itself. Additionally, these interns have given input into the writing of UN resolutions, as many have participated in the informal consultations where the language of resolutions are debated before they are brought for a vote before the General Assembly or relevant committee. Students participating in the Internship find themselves exposed to new ideas and avenues of thought. In the words of former Pax Romana intern Hannah Bible: Regardless of books read and places traveled, I could never have learned as much as I did about the world and, most importantly, people as I did during my time at the United Nations. It opened my eyes to the existence of so many more problems, hurts, and conflicts that women and men are going through, about which I previously never knew. But most importantly I learned the vast array of solutions available to the problems. I found a new fervor in life attempting to find the one that best serves God and man simultaneously within an international political forum. Dominic Romano, another former Pax Romana Intern who speaks five languages, expressed similar enthusiasm: It is a transforming experience. I have traveled a lot before I began this program. I thought I was worldly and open-minded. But this experience has broadened my horizons in a way that was previously unimaginable to me. I will never be the same person. I am forever changed by the opportunity afforded me by St. Thomas University School of Law, Pax Romana, and Professor Wolff. It has been a real honor to witness the incredible work being done at the UN, to meet people who have committed their lives to the less fortunate, and to be exposed to global perspectives on current events and issues. After completing the STULS/Pax Romana United Nations

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Attorney Helen Stampalia Bennett at The United Nations while serving as a Pax Romana UN Law-Student Intern

Yet another former Pax Romana intern, Helen Stampalia Bennett, has lived out her words as she now runs her own immigration law firm benchmarking her fees to that of Catholic Legal Services of the Archdiocese of Miami in order to provide assistance to all clients regardless of financial resources or ability to pay. In Attorney Bennett’s words: This experience has taught me a lot about global issues, international cooperation, and diversity. But most importantly, it has taught me that even one person can make a difference in this world. Lastly, an intern wishing to remain anonymous has declared: Every intern is grateful to Pax Romana for the opportunity afforded to us. We can tell the individuals so deeply involved in the program like Professor Wolff, Dr. Holland, and Dr. Klee that we are forever indebted for our time at the U.N. but we rarely get the opportunity to show our gratitude to the organization itself. So if ever given the chance, I would like to say to Pax Romana: ‘Thank you for showing an undeserved Christ-like trust in me and allowing me to represent your organization and its ideals. I am forever grateful. The Pax Romana United Nations Internship Program, conducted in partnership with St. Thomas University School of Law, is the only academic program that provides the opportunity for United States law students to be credentialed to the United Nations. In addition, it is the only United Nations clinical program approved by the American Bar Association for law-school credit. Further, the program is the only one striving to implement Catholic Social Doctrine into students’ clinical academic curriculum. There is no doubt that the program has been, and will continue to be, an extraordinary success.

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SISTER PAT KELLY CONTEMPLATIVE WITHOUT BORDERS

REV. STEPHEN JUDD, M.M. Until Recently Director of the Maryknoll Theological School & Language School in Cochabamba, Bolivia And now Director of the Christopher Movement in Latin America, as well as Chaplain of Pax Romana/Cmica-usa

nyone who had even a fleeting acquaintance with Carmelite Sister Pat Kelly (1937-2007) of Reno, Nevada came away with a profound sense of being transported to a sacred time and place above and beyond the ordinary. Her unique gift to the human family and the wide circle of her friends she guided and mentored, found in few individuals other than mystics, was to achieve an unmistakable and enduring identification with people across all cultures, social classes and physical distances to become the catalyst of unity in the celebration of diversity. Pat’s embrace of the human family knew no borders, limits or conditions in stretching herself out to and for “others” no matter how difficult the situation. You always knew that she understood any predicament, never too large or insignificant, in a way reminiscent of the wisdom of her great spiritual mentor, Thomas Merton. Boundary was not a word that entered into her vocabulary or conditioned the parameters of her expansive spiritual geography. One did not have to make a personal appeal on behalf of a person in need to establish communication with her other than a short silent prayer uttered in a moment of urgency. Simply asking Pat to connect someone with our loving God served to create a bond that would last a lifetime. This did not mean that she was some kind of spiritual lucky charm. Far from it! In a quiet understanding compassionate way Pat could connect people with the divine presence immediately despite her seemingly introverted personality. I once spoke with her about how Carmelite Saint and Holocaust victim Edith Stein wrote her doctoral dissertation on the philosophical roots of the virtue of “empathy.” We marveled that the full manuscript of that classic work is barely known or exists in its entirety. Yet, Pat’s life was a living classic text on the daily practice of empathy on a global scale. It was as if Edith Stein left the manuscript unknown for others like Pat to put it into practice.

It is no accident that upon profession as a Carmelite Sister Pat took the religious name of the Most Holy Trinity. Her life was a mirror of the relational interconnected elements of God’s creating power, the Son’s liberating and reconciling mission and the inspiration of the Spirit to imagination, freedom and healing.

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Rev. Stephen Judd National Chaplain of Pax Romana Cmica-usa

In this and numerous other ways Pat raised the Carmelite charism to new heights, to a higher plane above and beyond what is popularly stereotyped as part of a closed and sheltered past evoked when fears of modernity creep in or as an escape from the messiness of the world outside. Once again, Pat could navigate through many different worlds and worldviews without leaving the monastery. Moreover, Pat brought the monastery into the world to be a prophetic voice to speak truth to power. The date of her death on October 7th was symbolically bracketed by the two great Carmelite Feasts, that of Therese of Lisieux, the “Little Flower”, on October 1st and Teresa of Avila on the 15th. It goes without saying that Pat epitomized the wisdom, common sense, joy and practicality of both of these doctors of the Church and healers of the wounds of the human family. Following in the footsteps of Therese,

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Pat offered up her own trials and sufferings for missionaries and the people we serve. Like Therese, whose letters to a generation of nineteenth century French missionaries brought hope and encouragement, Pat parlayed the wonders of the Internet to offer a similar kind of encouragement to us. We cannot help but wonder that she calculated, planned and arranged this uncanny circumstance to be met and joined with her two Sisters in heaven. Can we not imagine Pat’s close friend from her first days in Carmel, Celeste Fadden, waiting there, brush and easel in hand to paint the scene against the backdrop of Nevada’s Mount Rose and Pyramid Lake? Another happy coincidence is that on the day of her farewell from this suffering and wounded but hopeful planet Earth, October 12th we rejoiced in the announcement of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore. Here in this country of Bolivia with the largest percentage of indigenous people in the Americas, representatives led by another Nobel Laureate Guatemalan Rigoberto Menchu gathered to celebrate the memory and cause of the indigenous peoples of the Americas for recognition of their rights to land, dignity and a holistic inclusive worldview. In multiple ways Pat was gifted with the contemplative’s “sixth sense” in being able to anticipate and intuit the movement of the Spirit to bring about good in the world, to make those improbable connections and bridges to compassionate action in many different venues, locally and globally. You might even say that she mastered the art of spiritual “multi-tasking” long before the practice became commonplace in our hectic 24/7 madcap schedules putting us on a collision course with reality. Whether it was a prayerful presence with our brother Maryknoller Roy Bourgeois in his quest to close the infamous School of the Americas or praying for a brilliant young Peruvian man, Victor Maqque, to be admitted to the doctoral program at Notre Dame, no request was too unimportant for Pat. All of this could be accomplished on her way to the Nevada State Prison in Ely to visit a man on Death Row, to stand in silent vigil in protest against the invasion of Iraq or to perform a good deed for an anonymous person in need of a listening ear.

shouldn’t surprise us that reputable organizations and humanitarian groups patterned on Doctors without Borders capture the imagination of young people who look for authentic expressions of service, empathy and spirituality. On a striking variation on the analogy, Pat set the pace by carving out a niche for being a Contemplative without Borders, a visionary and foot soldier in the struggle to make possible what we call the “globalization of solidarity.” Here in Latin America and elsewhere we increasingly envision the future of religious commitment and a life of discipleship as a merger of the “prophetic and mystical” vocations of all baptized Christians. These very days here in this city of Cochabamba wracked by the past and the present reality of racism, inequality and poverty, 5,000 young people from all over the country, Latin America and other parts of the world have gathered to make the prophetic and the mystical essential components of a process leading to reconciliation. This initiative of the ecumenical Taizé movement, namely to connect people searching for solutions based on active nonviolence, is one that carries out the inspiration and spirit of a petite Carmelite nun who faithfully lived out her vocational journey between two unlikely places called Morristown, New Jersey and Reno, Nevada, hardly “destination sites” on the tourist maps. The latter, a desert place known as the “world’s biggest little city,” once a Mecca for gamblers and for those wanting a quick divorce and a new start in life but living in the shadow of the more glamorous Las Vegas, is where her contemplative discipleship in mission blossomed and flourished. Now we rejoice in the boundless hope and the assurance that Pat Kelly, in the immortal words of Therese, “will spend her heaven doing good on earth.

In the midst of a very busy day she made contact with friends in Elko to secure housing for another young Peruvian man, Dante Bolaños, new to the place and starting out as an environmental mining engineer. No cause was a waste of time or irritation and in her final days Pat brought into focus her partnership with a whole host of the Communion of Saints, living and dead. While these days it is in vogue to exalt the passing fame of celebrities from the superficial world of sports, political life or movies and just as gleefully to rejoice in their collapse, people look to other forms of altruistic heroism. It

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Sketch of Sister Pat Kelly by Joe Aspel, SM

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BOOK REVIEWS

P E T E R

M A U R I N

APOSTLE TO THE WORLD By: Dorothy Day and Francis J. Sicius Orbis. 192pp $20 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-57075-550-7 Reviewed by: César J. Baldelomar, Executive Director of the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching

beliefs.

Throughout Scripture we find a stark contrast between false and authentic prophets. False prophets usually have a large following, belong to a kingly court (and thus live in relative comfort), and do not critique social norms. Authentic prophets, on the other hand, seem often to be misunderstood, live in poverty, constantly espouse a counter-cultural message, and are ostracized or killed for their

Jesus Christ, even to non-Christians, is an example of an authentic prophet. He was born and raised a peasant, proclaimed a religious dissident message, advocated a social program of helping the materially impoverished, constantly moved around Galilee (which was quite uncomfortable), and died for his teachings. Many would argue that even today we still do not fully comprehend or appreciate Jesus’ teachings. Similarly, in more contemporary times, many among the Catholic community in the United States are oblivious to an important individual who resembled Jesus of Nazareth in many ways. For starters, this man was born and raised a peasant in a small village. We also possess very scant information of his “lost years.” But most important was that this Christ-like man embraced poverty, touched countless lives, was misunderstood by those around him, and envisioned a new society of love and justice – all indications of an authentic prophet and apostle. This French peasant named Peter Maurin (1877-1949) sought to inspire others to build a new society within the shell of the old by proclaiming teachings aimed at clarifying one’s thought and of returning to the land or nature.

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Yet, as Paul Magno has expressed, “…Maurin is an important, but highly under-appreciated voice from our past and for our future.” Indeed, while many today will probably not recognize the name Peter Maurin, they will perhaps be familiar with Maurin’s disciple and the movement she inspired. Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a socialist turned Catholic and co-founder with Maurin of the Catholic Worker Movement, was once hailed by Commonweal magazine “as the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism.” But Maurin, the true intellectual and spiritual impetus behind Day and the famous Catholic Worker Movement, is unfortunately seen as a mere footnote in American Catholic history. Thankfully, a book co-authored by Dorothy Day (she left a very incomplete manuscript) and Francis J. Sicius titled Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World brings Maurin and his legacy out of obscurity. With careful editorial work and additional research by Sicius, Day’s sketchy account of her mentor becomes a brilliant coherent account that sheds light on this French peasant who lived according to Jesus’ own life. The book contains a preface and introduction and is divided into ten chapters. The preface reveals that Day struggled to bridge her passion for spirituality and social justice, as well as experienced difficulties finding ways to live out her new Catholic faith (xvi). In the introduction, we learn that Day finally overcame her chasm by meeting Maurin and learning from his humanistic philosophy, which was influenced by thinkers like Prince Kropotkin, Jacques Maritain, Léon Bloy, Nicolas Berdyaev, and Karl Adam. But impressing Day most about Maurin was that he embodied the very ideas he espoused. Sicius mentions that Maurin “had taken his theories of voluntary poverty and of Christian love and put them into practice” (xxi). Maurin dignified the poor of early twentieth century New York, and an inspired Day followed suit. The book’s ten chapters – with titles such as “The French Peasant,” “A Fateful Meeting,” “The Catholic Worker Begins,” “Clarification of Thought,” “The Green Revolution,” and “A Good Man” – offer a lively glimpse of Maurin and reveal Day’s profound appreciation for his intellectual and spiritual teachings and the movement they inspired. In what follows, I offer a summary of what I perceive to be the book’s three most vital chapters – thereby offering in the process a sketch of Maurin’s Christ-like qualities and the significance of his message for today’s socially, spiritually, and ecologically devastated world. In Chapter One, titled “The French Peasant,” we learn that Peter Maurin was born Pierre Joseph Oreistide Maurin on

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May 9, 1877 in the small French town of Outlet, which was characterized by the communal nature of its citizenry (9). We also learn that Maurin, while a teenaged member of the Christian Brothers, was influenced by Catholic social teaching and social movements that were spreading throughout France at the turn of the century. With the closing of several religious schools in France due to growing anti-religious sentiment among French secularists, Maurin left the Christian Brothers and became a member of Le Sillion, which as Jim Forest mentions, was “a Catholic lay movement which advocated Christian democracy and supported cooperatives and unions.” He eventually left the movement because of its overly political orientation and in 1909 immigrated to the Canadian frontier. His two years in Canada were marked by hardships, near starvation, and exploitation at the hands of large farms and railroad companies. In this first chapter, we learn of the origins of Maurin’s later focus on community, spirituality, social issues, and justice for all. Chapter Three, titled “A Fateful Meeting,” tells about Maurin’s first encounter with Day in December of 1932 in New York and the impact he and his social teachings had on her thereafter. Day mentions that Maurin “felt the tremendous importance of this life, that he made one feel the magnificent significance of our work, our daily lives, the material of God’s universe and what we did with it, how we used it” (48). And, interestingly, she notes that though Maurin was concerned with this world, he showed little interest in making money and owning clothes or other material possessions. In fact, he often turned down funded speaking engagements at universities and seminaries in order to proclaim his message to people on the streets for free. Day says that he saw all humans – regardless of race, religion, or socio-economic status – as co-creators with the Divine. She then states that Maurin was “a wondering apostle, a lay apostle, a leader…one of the saints of our day” (49). Chapter Eight, titled “The Green Revolution,” is particularity relevant in these contemporary times of ecological disaster. Sicius mentions that Day fails to discuss “Maurin’s ‘Green Revolution,’ which lay at the core of his thought” (123). He continues on to aptly state that “Maurin’s philosophic scope went well beyond shelters, soup kitchens, and a newspaper” (123). Maurin’s vision included the land and farming communes as integral to economic, spiritual, and intellectual growth. He saw the farming commune idea as an alternative to the ills of modern industrial society, which he “believed…had become a death cult, ushering in a new dark age” (130). Excessive individualism, consumerism, exploitation of workers, abuse of those unable to contribute to the economy, and blatant disregard for the natural world – which is valued only for its resources – marked and continues to mark the character of modern industrial society.

one’s life. He also mentioned that a true nature-based economy fostered no unemployment, since everyone could contribute by planting, collecting, distributing, etc. In other words, the farm promotes a communal spirit, where all are responsible for all – as was the case in Maurin’s native town of Outlet. Further, he advocated that these farming communes should become “Agronomic Universities … where workers and scholars would come together to work out in a practical way an ethical economic system based on respect for the land” (133). Only in an environment of solidarity and love, believed Maurin, would a new ecologically sustainable and spiritually meaningful society be forged in the shell of the old decaying civilization that was based on exploitation of both humans and the natural world. The Catholic Worker movement did acquire a farm in Pennsylvania in 1936, but it did not attract the same attention as did the Catholic Worker soup kitchens or houses of hospitality in New York City. Though the Catholic Worker newspaper praised “The Green Revolution” idea of the communes, those inside and outside of the Catholic Worker Movement, including Day, ultimately disregarded it as another of Maurin’s eccentricities (124). As Sicius mentions, Those who joined the Catholic Worker (for the most part urban Catholics with urban concerns) saw the farm as a diversion, a retreat, a place to escape the monotony of the soup kitchen, and for all the romanticizing of life on the land, few adapted to this life and fewer still really understood this aspect of Maurin’s thought (136). Peter Maurin died on Sunday, May 15, 1949 and was buried in St. John’s Cemetery in Queens, New York. Yet his message of love, community, spirituality, intellectual vision and creativity, simplicity, and ecological sustainability did not die with him. This Christ-like man, as Sicius concludes, reminded us that true community…lies beyond temporal measurement. His Green Revolution…called people to be at peace with each other and the earth, to take no more than was needed, to share, to love, and to seek harmony with earth and humanity that comes from envisioning the infinite (178). May Maurin and his message, brought out from the shadows by this excellent book, not be forgotten by today’s Catholics, young and old, whose responsibility it is to make our world more humane and sustainable for future generations.

As a remedy, Maurin proposed that society needed to recover respect for the natural world, to see it as integral in

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C O M P A S S F O R U N C H A R T E D L I V E S

More recently, the nineties brought the excesses of Wall Street, and with 9-11 (2001) Americans became more conscious of other cultures, religions, ideals and the implications of globalization.

A MODEL FOR VALUES EDUCATION

Recently, as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, China, despite its dismal record on human rights, hosted the Summer Olympic Games on a world-wide stage. The price of gasoline is unaffordable for millions of us and we had a presidential campaign of historic proportions with Senators McCain and Obama.

By: Donald J. Kirby Syracuse University Press. 248pp $22.95 (paperback) ISBN: 978-08156-3153-8 Reviewed by: Jim Donovan President & CEO, Donovan Management Inc. Is the sole purpose of higher education to impart knowledge in various disciplines or to do that and provide a framework that allows students to discuss, discern and discover what they value in their personal and professional life? How is it that a Jesuit Priest, Father Donald J. Kirby of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, wrote: Compass for Uncharted Lives, A Model for Values Education, for such a wide audience in such a clear, concise and convincing style? Kirby, Professor of Religious Studies and Le Moyne’s former Director of the Center for the Advancement of Values Education (CAVE), had a personal discovery in 1969 as a second-year master of divinity Jesuit theologian at Woodstock College in Manhattan. He was living in an apartment with other Jesuits. It was early in the morning and he was struck by the rush of traffic outside his window as commuters were dashing to train stations and taxi stands to get to work. He thought to himself, “What is the connection between the lives of these people and what I am doing in theology and my sophisticated education in the humanities?” Like a song you can’t get out of your head, he repeatedly heard the question, “How are the secular and sacred related?” Then the seventies arrived – Watergate, impeachment hearings, foreign policy failures, high gas prices, inflation, and President Carter turning down the thermostat in the White House. During this decade Catholic higher education and all private higher education, according to Kirby, worked to establish their academic credentials so they could compete for the best students and faculty. “These institutions hired PhD’s from top institutions, some of whom knew little or nothing about the Catholic faith or Catholic intellectual tradition.” As a result, it became increasingly difficult to discuss the moral and religious dimensions of issues, even at Catholic institutions, says Kirby.

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Over these volatile decades Kirby and his colleagues involved in the values program at Le Moyne College realized “that an increasing number of students were prepared to tackle technical tasks, but not prepared to meet the moral and spiritual challenges of their professional and personal lives.” In short, the values program needed to be a “journey of discovery” if these students (future leaders) are to make a difference in a world that places little or no value on human life, the starving, victims of HIV/AIDS and those suffering from human rights abuse, and from lack of breathable air and drinkable water. Kirby first addressed the subject of values education in Ambitious Dreams, the Values Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, a collection of essays edited by Kirby. The nationally and internationally acclaimed anthology outlines the ideas and models of values education embraced by the faculty and students in the late eighties and early nineties. In contrast, Kirby’s new book, Compass for Uncharted Lives: A Model for Values Education, has a single voice - his. More importantly, it differs from the first book in style, structure, content and purpose. Kirby has been involved in all aspects of the ongoing research, refinement, and testing of values education. In Compass for Uncharted Lives, Kirby not only fine-tunes the values program, he also makes the case that if higher education today is not nurturing and training people to ask, “What ought I do”, there won’t be a need for a compass for young people to navigate. Young lives will drift in the narcissistic waters of me, me and me! Kirby firmly believes institutions of higher education can change that. Teachers, professors and administrators can all play a role in enhancing values and spiritual sensitivity in students and their understanding and commitment to actions that are ethical. He presents an all inclusive model with listening sessions, discussion, and a selection of topics to be discussed throughout the academic year in all disciplines of study from the arts to zoology. This can be done by following the voluntary and collaborative model developed by Kirby when he was the director of the Center for the Advancement of Values Education (CAVE) at Le Moyne College. The three pillars of this model are:

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  

Working Group on Values Values Institute Academic Forum

period gave him ample time to read these works. It was this recuperative time in his uncharted life that his compass pointed to the “value” of a life of self-denial and the emulation of heroic deeds. The rest is history.

The respective objective of each group is to:   

Identify what is missing in the classroom in terms of values education Convene and engage the academic community Make connections beyond the classroom

Kirby discusses in great detail the components of each pillar. More importantly, he provides step-by-step instructions for planning and implementing a values program for various types of institutions with special emphasis on business, medical, and law schools – the last stop in education for the future leaders of these sectors of society. What a remarkable accomplishment and publication Kirby has provided for those interested in proven methods of values education for higher education today. The challenges I see for the implementation of these methods and model are three-fold. 

First, it will take a passionate educator to volunteer to lead this effort at his/her institution. An already overworked faculty member won’t be the first to raise his/her hand.

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Second, a how-to workbook manual is needed for the volunteer leader that outlines, with charts and graphs, the steps that must be taken to implement the values program from start to finish.

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Third, funding is scarce right now for many colleges and universities due to cuts in government spending and increased competition for philanthropic grants.

Hopefully, grant making foundations will help those institutions who want to begin a values program by providing a seed grant like the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities did for the Le Moyne program years ago. Speaking of philanthropy, Kirby did not mention the philanthropic sector as another forum where the values programs could apply. I believe it can and should be implemented there. After all, philanthropy is voluntary action directed for the common good of society. It’s no secret that the leaders of major grant making foundations give out billions of dollars each year to nonprofit groups that strive to help people, pets and the planet. In doing so they make value judgments each time they consider the pool of applicants. In closing, I return to my opening Jesuit theme. Remember a young soldier, Ignatius of Loyola? He was badly wounded by a cannon ball in 1521 in the siege of the Pamplona Fortress. During his long recovery he didn’t have any secular publications to read to pass the time, but only sacred books on the Fathers of the Church and Saints. His long recovery

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Imagine how much can be accomplished if this new age Jesuit’s model for values education is adopted by colleges, universities, institutes and professional associations at home and abroad. We can only hope that, like Ignatius of Loyola, the compass will point the uncharted lives of this generation in the direction of doing the most good for the secular and the sacred. E T H I C S F O R T H E N E W M I L L E N N I U M By: Dalai Lama Riverhead Trade. 256pp $15 (paperback) ISBN: 9781573228831 Reviewed by: Ernesto Fernández Global Leadership Student at St. Thomas University of Miami Gardens, Florida Tenzin Gytaso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, has formed and cultivated a standing as a moral and ethical leader occupying a prominent place in the world of philosophical and religious discourse. In 1999, his book Ethics for the New Millennium, consisting of sixteen chapters and a short preface, was released and received with much anticipation. But now, one catastrophic terrorist attack, the war in Iraq, and nearly a decade later, this concise model for a postmodern and humanitarian world ethics carries a renewed significance and – most unfortunately – an all new urgency. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, relating his experiences as a political exile and refugee, immediately concedes that though the adversity which he and thousands of other Tibetans faced were insurmountable, their suffering was and remains the same as that faced daily by people of freedom and prosperity all over the world; though the trials are different, every person engages in the same struggle against economic hardship and simple ignorance for peace and happiness. Moreover, drawing the conclusion that much of this suffering can be deterred through a reorientation of

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thoughts and emotions and a reordering of one’s behavior to be in line with a “positive ethical conduct,” he sets out to clearly define this conduct in a manner which is clear and accessible in spite of religious and cultural denomination. The Dalai Lama argues that religion, though once effective, has lost its place as a unifying moral force in most, if not all, modernized societies. Into this vacuum steps science which, though it possesses infinite value and potential, has begun to be seen as a religion in itself. Technology’s power to provide immediate gratification at an exponentially more rapid pace has distracted the modern human from the internal world of intellectual and emotional needs in favor of the external world of sensual pleasures and desires. Prayer and spiritual pursuits, the fruits of which are subtle, nuanced, and slow to reveal themselves, have been abandoned and inner fulfillment along with them. Currently, he suggests, “Third World” citizens struggle with waterborne illness stemming from lack of technology but enjoy internal harmony from traditional values, while comfortable, well-fed urbanites suffer “stress-related diseases” in communities with an evergrowing number of crimes and suicide. A balance between the two, he argues, is the call of the future, with technology informing, supporting, and providing healthy minds and bodies for a new ethics which affirm the dignity and happiness of the human person and places them in the forefront of all human pursuits. This cannot, however, be achieved by the materialistic political and economic revolutions of the past, but by a spiritual revolution. This spiritual revolution, internal in nature, is in essence an ethical revolution, for it requires neither religion nor belief, but only for one to be a good person. Indeed, His Holiness postulates that most of the unhappiness caused to ourselves and to others is not the result of malice but of ignorance of the endless complexities of the world we live in. The Dalai Lama provides one example in which he describes how modern technology permits growing autonomy of the individual as inadvertently leading to misperceptions about the importance of others’ needs to our own happiness. But in defining ourselves, we become immediately aware of our relationships to those outside of ourselves, and as such the interests of others converge with our own self-interests. Exactly how to secure the equilibrium of reason and compassion, science and ethics, is the bulk of this text. With meticulous diligence, attention to detail and a respect for the nuances of each issue (and there are many), the Dalai Lama lays out a remarkable proposal for what is at least a thesis for the new, world ethics. His writing is clear and accessible while consistently relating abstract principles to every day events – often with humorous and humanizing stories from his own experience, which reminds the reader, as he would want, that the author – with all his fame, influence, and admiration – is ultimately “just a simple Buddhist monk.”

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I N E V E R S T O P P E D B E L I E V I N G THE LIFE OF WALTER HUBBARD By: Roger Yockey Xlibris Press. 158pp $17.84 (paperback) ISBN: 1-4257-6877-6 Reviewed by: César J. Baldelomar, Executive Director of the Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching Roger Yockey’s marvelous book, I Never Stopped Believing: The Life of Walter Hubbard, tells the heroic story of a great and inspirational Black Catholic lay leader who died May 2007. The book’s cover describes its content as “The story of a Black Catholic who went from boyhood in New Orleans to a young soldier on the battlefields of World War II, and finally to Seattle to become a courageous union leader, a prominent civil-rights leader, a pioneer lay leader in the Black Catholic Movement, and a distinguished public official.” The book, which includes a Preface and an Introduction, is divided into four parts with nineteen chapters. In the Introduction, the author, a retired journalist and union leader as well as a lay Franciscan, states that the book’s main purpose is to trace “Walter Hubbard’s quest for social and economic justice in church and society.” Part One, “New Orleans to World War II to Seattle,” narrates Hubbard’s boyhood years in New Orleans, his tour of duty in the US Army (from basic training in Fort Lewis, Washington, to fighting across Europe in an all-Black battalion), Hubbard’s return to New Orleans for his marriage to Francis Washington, as well as his organizing Mardi Gras Carnivals, and his move to Seattle where he encountered housing discrimination, worked in the garment industry, and became a union member. Part Two, titled “Labor, Civil Rights, and Public Service,” highlights Hubbard’s anti-racist triumph when he was elected as Seattle President of the United Garment Workers Union Local 17, his visionary work with education and youth mentoring as Executive Director of Community Action Remedial Instruction, Tutoring Assistance, and Service

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(CARITAS), his courageous leadership in the Seattle civil rights movement, his subsequent three decades as a Washington State public official, his visionary leadership in Seattle community development, and finally his chairing of the Institute for Public Service Training for African-American Men and Women.

challenging and defeating this new and perhaps even more dangerous stage of racism.

Part Three, “Civil Rights Leader in the Catholic Church,” represents the book’s core and contains seven chapters showing Hubbard’s tireless progression from local to national to international lay Black Catholic leadership (including combating segregation in Seattle Catholic schools and parishes), his tenure as President of the Seattle Black Catholic Lay Caucus, his leadership in the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice (NCCIJ), and most importantly his thirty-seven-year leadership with the National Office for Black Catholics (NOBC) as both President and Executive Director – with the latter a post he held until his death in 2007. Part Three also recounts Hubbard’s international civil-rights leadership in Northern Ireland, Belgium, and Panama. Part Four, “Looking Back on it All,” contains two deeply personal chapters. In the first, the author recounts Hubbard’s mixed memories of the NOBC’s involvement with the Black Catholic bishops of the United States. In the second, the author gathers moving final reflections from the Hubbard family, particularly from his daughter Colette. Overall, the book’s style makes Hubbard personally present and speaking to the reader through the text. The historic pictures gathered in a centerfold section (a pleasant surprise) are a testament to Hubbard’s accomplishments. A great homage to a great man, this book truly accomplishes what the author intended, namely to remember and celebrate the life and achievements of a heroic figure who “never stopped believing in himself and [most importantly] in fair treatment for everyone.” Though appearing at the start of the volume, the book’s Preface, written by Joe Holland, President of Pax Romana CMICA and Professor of Philosophy and Religion at St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida, raises what is really a concluding question, namely: Who are the young African-American Catholic lay leaders who will take up the legacy of Walter Hubbard and other similar AfricanAmerican lay Catholic leaders of his generation, and bring that legacy to its new and future stage? According to Holland, we now find ourselves afflicted by a third wave of racism, expressed this time as the marginalization of a poor and permanent underclass. The first wave of racism, Holland says, took the form of enslavement, while the second wave took the form of discrimination. Holland believes that the life-example of Walter Hubbard, whom he sees as a prophetic saint, can inspire a new generation of young African-American Catholic lay leaders to guide us in

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Our Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching announces for a limited time FREE DOWNLOADING of a pre-publication electronic edition of its new book on humanity's common African roots and the ethical wisdom of the ancient African tradition. The book is issued as a resource for the newly emerging global civilization on the occasion of the inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States.

To download a free PDF copy this book, visit us:

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PAX RO M AN A CEN TER FOR INTE RN AT ION AL ST U DY O F C ATHOLI C SOC IAL TE AC HING

Forming lay leadership for the holistic promotion of life, family, justice, peace, and ecology in the new global ecological era

he Pax Romana Center for International Study of Catholic Social Teaching is a project of Pax Romana/Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (CMICA) USA. The Center’s mission is to promote the international study of Catholic Social (CST) in its historical development and contemporary significance, especially in relation to the Catholic laity’s spiritualprophetic vocation in family, work, and citizenship. In service of its mission, the Center pursues the study of CST’s historical development, philosophical-theological grounding, social-scientific implications, and transformative challenges to society at every level from human life in the womb to the solidarity of the entire human family in its full range of ecological, societal, and spiritual experience. For this study, the Center organizes research projects, convenes conferences and publishes books and other intellectual resources. Working in a spirit of ecological, humanistic, interfaith, and ecumenical dialogue, the Center emphasizes the following themes.  Postmodern Culture of Life. 1 While supporting the many wonderful gifts of modern culture, the Center rejects as intellectually bankrupt modern mechanisticemotive philosophies and ideologies in both their rationalist and utilitarian variants. Its sees these philosophies and ideologies as increasingly supporting an ecological, biological, sociological, and psychological “culture of death.” As an alternative vision, the Center explores the postmodern philosophical cosmology arising from new insights within the contemporary natural sciences. This cosmological vision is at once holistic, developmental, and mystical, its core theme is a humanistic and spiritual ecological consciousness, and it is called to support a comprehensive “culture of life.”  Regenerative Global Civilization. The Center supports the birth of a fresh global multicultural civilization seeking ecological, societal, and spiritual regeneration. The promotion of a new global civilization that is truly human, ecological, and spiritual stands at the heart of contemporary CST.

1 Note that “postmodern” here does not refer to the relativistic and sometimes nihilistic cultural philosophies known as “postmodernism.”

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 Sustainable & Flourishing Ecosystem. Following CST, the Center maintains that guidance of the global economy by erroneous modern philosophies and ideologies is threatening the ecological sustainability of the planetary biosphere, the life and health of the poor, and the spiritual consciousness of all humanity, and that this negative reality constitutes one of the deepest threats before us. Hence the need to create an economy that supports human ecology and the ecology of the entire biosphere.  Democratic Institutions of Global Governance. Following CST, the Center supports the defense, expansion, and reform of the United Nations Organization and its specialized agencies on behalf of democratic global governance for the ecological, social, and spiritual communion of the entire human family. It emphases the importance of UNESCO as a center for a dialogue of civilizations on behalf of a global culture of peace and solidarity.  Preferential Option for the Poor. Following CST, the Center sees modern philosophies and ideologies as not truly serving the poor, and at the same time it sees the poor as God’s specially chosen ones and as the touchstones for authentic human community and solidarity in the new global civilization.  Consistent Ethic of Life. Following CST, the Center is guided by the “consistent ethic of life” which seeks to defend human life at all stages and in all situations, particularly for the unborn, the poor, the handicapped, and the elderly. Further, as part of its commitment to the consistent ethic of life, the Center opposes the death penalty.  Transformative Lay Leadership. Following CST, the Center places special emphasis on serving the lay leadership of women and men across the world who are prophetically witnessing to CST in family, work, and citizenship.  Mutuality of Theory & Practice. Through the study of CST, the Center promotes a humble and interdisciplinary intellectual service of prophetic and regenerative movements across the entire human family. It does so in warm fidelity to the Holy See and to the bishops of the world.

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PAX RO M AN A CEN TER FOR INTE RN AT ION AL ST U DY O F C ATHOLI C SOC IAL TE AC HING

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