February 26th 2006 Presentation: Brian Rusche

"Social Justice in the '06 Legislative Session"
Brian Rusche
Sunday, February 26th 2006

In my office I have a framed poster of an Ansel Adams photograph. You would probably recognize it; it’s one of the famous photos from Yosemite National Park—a view of Half Dome mountain and a waterfall in the distance. I had it in my college dorm. I’ve had it in every cubicle and office I’ve ever worked in. To be honest it’s been around so long, I’ve stopped looking at it. Last week a friend of mine who had never been to my office stopped by to say hi and remarked how beautiful the photo is and how amazing the light and composition is.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind you why you loved something in the first place.

And so as an elder in the Presbyterian Church I’ve come to visit this Catholic parish and perhaps I’ll remind you of something so wonderful and so familiar to you. And I’m talking about Catholic Social teaching.

My job as director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, is to lobby for social justice at the State Capitol. JRLC fashions a legislative agenda that the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the MN Co Ch, the JCRC and the ICM can agree upon and move forward. For 35 years JRLC has:

Opposed the death penalty
Supported a decent minimum wage
Demanded affordable housing
Passed sensible gun laws
Insisted on a real safety net
Helped create MNCare
Passed important hate crime legislation
Gave critical support to the passage of MN Human Rights Act include rights for gay and lesbian people

We have worked for the basic needs of our neighbors but most especially the poor, marginalized and forgotten, the powerless.

If I could sum up the theology and political philosophy that guides our work as an interfaith organization—it comes right out of Catholic Social Teaching

Human dignity: we are all made in God’s image
We are to show a preferential option for the poor
God calls us to family, community, and political participation
Every person has both rights and responsibilities
Role of Government. The state should serve a positive moral function
the economy should serve people; not the other way around
We need to protect the integrity of creation, the environment

Now that’s a lot of paraphrasing and it’s incomplete but from where I sit, Catholic Social teaching is a huge gift to the world and we who sit at the JRLC table from the Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim communities are blessed every day by this systematic effort of Catholic thinkers and teachers who put in digestible form a set of principles to guide our social life. In an interfaith context we use different language but I can tell you Catholic social teaching is our starting point and it resonates in a powerful way with the other faith traditions.

You know since my friend visited my office and said those nice things, I’ve started looking at my Ansel Adams photograph again. And now, once again, it shimmers.

I have several good friends that worship at this parish. And I know how many of you struggle with certain elements of the Catholic church’s teaching. What a beautiful thing it is to struggle; to have differences and disappointments and sometimes pain, but to know that there is a spirit that transcends the authority and the legalisms that is just too precious to break bonds with.

My own Presbyterian congregation stands in dissent with our national church. It’s a good place to be. We will never act to sever the bonds but we will express our best understanding of the gospel and be the people where that spirit takes us.

In the gospel reading today we learn something about following the spirit. Mark’s gospel asks the simple question why don’t the disciples fast? Why don’t they follow the letter of the law?

Because they are in the presence of Jesus, they are at a spiritual wedding dance with the Christ, in the real life human presence of God, so fasting is unnecessary. Fasting is clearly not the holy thing. The holy thing is the spirit of Christ’s presence in your life; in the life of this parish.

Having said that the letter of the law matters a lot. Especially in the civic realm where JRLC tries to influence the laws that govern our daily lives. Each of the traditions inside JRLC believes that God calls each of us to political participation and to bring our love of neighbor to the public debate, as active citizens. Our job is to infuse the law with the spirit of neighborly love.

The 06 legislative session starts this Wed. though committees have already been meeting at a pretty fast pace. JRLC will emphasize five things this year:

Housing: We will push for $43 million in the bonding bill to stay on track with the State’s Plan to End Long-Term Homelessness by 2010.
Immigration: It was unfortunate the way the Governor stigmatized undocumented people by tying their presense in our community with crime and social costs. The fact is that desperately poor people from Mexico enter our country because our labor market demands their labor and there is virtually no legal way to enter the US. They are on the whole lovely people, working hard, paying taxes and supporting their families. We will oppose, as a matter of public safety, efforts to mandate that local police be used to enforce immigration law. The local police need the cooperation of all residents and all residents need to feel the police will respond to their calls for safety.
Child Care: We will fight for any available surplus funds to be directed toward child care assistance for lower-income families.
Heating Assistance: The 30% increase in heating fuel is wreaking havoc on many family budgets and we should set up an emergency fund to supplement the federal heating assistance program.
Health Care: We need to take significant steps toward universal health care coverage for all our residents. Moving forward on the Children’s Health Security Act and repairing cuts to Minnesota Care make sense this year.

We have a lot of momentum. The faith community stopped the Minnesota Care cuts last session and raised the minimum wage when nobody thought that was possible. In this war weary world, where so much conflict is drawn along religious lines, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims sit at a table here in Minnesota and work on a common agenda. We will be gathering on the second day of the session, Thurs, March 2 for JRLC Day on the Hill. I hope to see you there; if not, you can be there by proxy by writing, calling, supporting JRLC.

We are called to political participation and to bring a spirit of neighborly love to this work of social justice. Thank you St. Joan’s for supporting our work and having me here this morning.

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