Standing Up for the Dignity of Hotel Workers: The Indianapolis Hyatt, NCYC, and a Youth Ministry Session
Posted: February 21, 2011 | Author: Gen | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Catechesis, Catholic Church, Catholic Social Teaching, Community Organizing, NCYC, Youth Ministry | 6 Comments »In November of 2009 I went to my first ever National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC). I trekked with a group of high schoolers from Newark, Del., to Kansas City. There were over than 20,000 teenagers there, more than could fit in the snazzy, new Sprint Center.
The conference combines engaging speakers, Masses, and concerts in the large group of 20,000ish, with the chance to breakout for smaller workshops, concerts, adoration, confession, comedy shows, exhibitors’ stations, etc. The breakout sessions cover a wide spectrum of topics: peer pressure, sexuality, social justice, how to pray, and so on. There are concurrent formation sessions for youth ministers.
The high schoolers loved the weekend. Everyone left the experience “on fire” with their Catholic faith. They went home wishing that their experience of church and youth group in Delaware was as vibrant as it was in Kansas City.
Because NCYC is such a huge event, the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministers (NFCYM, the sponsoring organization) books blocks of hotels for youth groups over a year in advance.
This year, NCYC is hosted by the Diocese of Indianapolis. The Hyatt in Indianapolis is one of the hotels with rooms reserved for NCYC participants. It makes sense that the Hyatt was chosen; it’s a nice hotel in close proximity to the event, and NCYC needs all the rooms they can get.
No doubt NFCYM didn’t realize when making arrangements with the Hyatt that the hotel fails to uphold Catholic teaching about the dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Archbishop Buechlein of Indianapolis wrote a clear letter to the General Manager of Hyatt Regency Indianapolis about how the treatment of Hyatt employees violates Church Teaching.
His basic argument is that the respect for the dignity of the human person animates the Church’s teaching on the rights to a just wage, to a healthy working environment, and to form unions, and that the way the Hyatt treats its workers violates those principles.
The Catholic Organizing Committee in Indianapolis has begun petitioning NFCYM and particular dioceses who are attending NCYC to stay someplace other than the Hyatt.
NFCYM might not want touch this thing with a 10-foot pole. It’s messy and political and could blow up. But as the event draws nearer, NFCYM is sure to hear, if it hasn’t already, that the Catholic faith stands up to this kind of injustice, and that it’s morally wrong to stay at the Hyatt.
It seems to me that this is not only a justice issue— it’s also a ministry issue. If we fail to say something to the youth who attend this conference, then I think we’ve not only committed an injustice, but we’ve failed at good ministry and catechesis.
Choosing not to stay at the Hyatt and doing ministry around why our Catholic faith informs that decision is an essential teachable moment. Youth ministers taking teenagers to the conference can teach them about the Church’s beliefs about the dignity of work and workers. Here’s a sketch of a youth ministry session that a youth minister could use to catechize around the decision not to stay at the Hyatt in Indianapolis.
I work in young adult ministry out of Camden, NJ. I hear repeated complaints about how the Catholic Church is out of touch with daily life. This is an opportunity to put faith in dialogue with life and discuss what the Church teaches about decisions that affect the daily lives of many.
A youth minister that decides to stay in the Hyatt during NCYC is taking a big risk. Young people (like all people) seek authenticity. I hear time after time from peers and teenagers that they want nothing to do with Catholics because they preach one thing and do another.
Imagine the teenager who stays at Hyatt with their youth group and then hears that the Catholic Church says it’s unacceptable to treat workers the way that Hyatt workers are being treated. What’s the message to this young person? That we don’t take our faith seriously and aren’t really committed to what we say we’re about?
I think we also have to give teenagers more credit. Teenagers at the conference will be commissioned by NCYC speakers to take live out their faith in all arenas and to care for the most vulnerable in society. If we believe that the teenagers will listen to this call, then we should be ready for those teenagers who are staying at the Hyatt to ask their youth ministers what they’re doing there.
MLK Day of Community Organizing
Posted: January 24, 2011 | Author: Gen | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Camden, Catholic Social Teaching, Community Organizing, MLK Day | 1 Comment »My work in young adult ministry in Camden, NJ got me involved in a day of learning about community organizing on MLK Day. This is the reflection I wrote after the experience.
January 17, 2011
Today I helped coordinate a day of community organizing sponsored by Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) that celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by learning about community organizing.
The Franciscan priest who hosted the event at his parish said to me this morning that he was appalled when he read all over the news that MLK day is being known as a day of community service. “We’re brainwashing our children,” he said, “by teaching them to associate MLK with service.” Service is a gospel mandate and a blessing to a community, but it’s not what MLK was about.
I hadn’t ever really thought about MLK as an organizer– even though that’s exactly what he was. Maybe it’s because until I started working in Camden, NJ, last August, “community organizing” was abstract and politically charged. It was something Barack Obama has on his resume and Glenn Beck warns against. I didn’t get its relationship to church.
But today I had the chance to hear people cry out about the injustices they face and their desire to join with others, in faith, to take action together. The connection between church and community organizing was made real for me.
Multiple news stations joined us at 1:30pm to get a statement from the people about the severe police and fire department layoffs in Camden to take effect tomorrow. A Baptist minister, Episcopalian priest, and two Roman Catholic residents of Camden and members of CCOP, spoke about how they feel like second class citizens, that they don’t have an equal right to public safety, and that they’re living in fear. They called on public officials to take action.
And then, together on the church steps, we sang, “we shall overcome.” We didn’t sing it in memory of MLK and the civil rights movement. We invoked his presence as we sang about the current inequalities that face Camden residents. It felt like the anamnesis of the liturgy, where we more than remember the words offered by Christ at the Last Supper. I cried as people from diverse communities and faith perspectives sang with hope, that the Lord will see us through, and we shall overcome.
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