William Sloan Coffin, a Yale chaplain and Presbyterian minister, once said, “You can reject the bread but you can’t deny you’re hungry.” That appetite is the reason I sit in a pew at St. Olaf with some regularity, surrounded by familiar strangers reciting rote responsorials to priest-prompted liturgatives. As Franz Wright posited for those of us in the Great Unworthy, “Proved faithless—still I wait.”
As I sat there the other day, hedging bets for my grandchildren and friends in need, I picked up a bulletin. Normally a browse-through, chock full of lowest-common-denominator biblical lessons, church-social items and postage stamp ads—this one was different. An excerpt from a 1991 pastoral letter from Archbishop John Roach, titled “Reviving the Common Good,” distracted me from the “and also with you’s.”
It’s a rare moment when someone articulates one of those smoky, big-thinks so perfectly and succinctly. Roach’s six key points included:
1. Human Dignity
2. The Call to a Common Good
3. Rights & Responsibilities of Each Person
4. The Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers
5. The Obligation to the Poor and Vulnerable
6. Solidarity
Pure poetry, friends. If any politician had spouted even one of these in the election and meant it, I’d have knocked people over to cast my vote.
No bleeding heart mush, this is less about enabling and dependency and more about accountability and responsibility, a mission statement for people’s rights better said than anything I’ve seen under glass in Washington.
It seems such a long while since America’s mission has been clear. There have been issues in the past that have served to unite, but we seem not to have many these days. At least none apparent to this wandering eye. This is a mission statement we could all sink our teeth into.
If interested, click here for the entire document.
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