“The Politics of Hope: Robert Kennedy and
David Schultz
April 13, 2008
I. Introduction
A. In today’s Gospel Jesus describes himself as a gate.
1. But what does it mean to be a gate?
a. Of course it is an entrance, an exit, or a door from and to somewhere.
2. Jesus saw himself as a gate for humanity, as a path to heaven and salvation were one to follow Him and accept His message.
B. But the role of gates in our lives is a powerful metaphor and can serve multiple meanings.
1. I want to suggest that Jesus alone is not a gate, but that all of us can be gates in the sense that we can lead ourselves and others towards a path for social justice.
2. In addition, I wish to suggest that gates are not just people or things, but times, and that 2008 is a gate, potentially taking us from one era and set of circumstances to an other.
3. Finally, gates can be chosen and selected. The metaphor of the gate is one where we can choose a direction for how we wish to live, who we are, what we believe in, and what we desire to works towards.
C. In my life I h ave seen many gates or opportunities, and I wish to reflect upon a few of them this day.
II. Two
Gates in Time: 1968 and 2008
A. April,1968 was a time much like April, 2008.
B. A year of gloom but also hope.
C. A year full of fear but also of promise.
D. A year rift with challenges but also opportunities.
E. The dark side of April, 1968.
1. An unpopular war and unpopular president
2. Civil unrest
3. Increasingly anxiety about the economy, the future, and who we were as a nation
4. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
F. But April, 1968 also had a bright side.
1. While unpopular because of
2. The civil rights movement successfully forged a coalition that brought us the landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation.
3. Three years earlier Pope Paul VI launched Vatican II and embarked upon taking the Catholic Church into a new ground that would return it, in my opinion, to its real roots and message.
4. A presidential campaign featured
candidates such as Eugene McCarthy but more importantly Robert Kennedy who
promised to take
III. The
Gates of a Child
A. As a 10 year old in 1968, I watched all of this with amazement.
B. Many of the events I did not understand then and it is only on that their impact upon me has become clear.
C. It would have been easy to look at 1968—not just what was happening in April but the whole year—and walk away depressed and demoralized about the future.
D. But from 1968 I took away a message about hope, change, and how both in our private lives and in our public actions we must forever seek change and to reach out and help others less fortunate.
E. Of all the events that I most remember, two stand out. I want to discuss how
1.
2. Robert Kennedy impact my life and how they still offer guidance for us in 2008.
IV. The
Gates of My Family
A. I grew up in a working class Catholic family in NY
1. Father never went to high school and worked as a laborer for the state and as an orderly in a nursing home
2. Mother first to graduate high school
3. Grandfather, on lighter note, had been in Vaudeville with Jimmy Durante
B. My Senators
1. Jacob Javits (GOP)
2. Bobby Kennedy (DEM)
3. Both more progressive than anyone in Congress today
C. Like many friends and kids in my neighborhood, attended both public school and religious instructions.
V. The
Gate of
A. What did it mean to be Catholic?
1. Nuns and priests told us to be Catholic meant to live our values
a. Catholicism was not like wearing your best jacket. It was not something you put on for Sunday service and then took off when you left, only to wear again the following Sunday.
2. We discussed Vatican II and the commitment to opening the Church to the poor.
a. Roots of the Church and Jesus were transformative.
(1) Help the poor not simply by feeding but empowering
b. Roots were in Sermon on the Mount
(1) Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.”
c. We discussed Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity
3. Bobby Kennedy and Inspiration of what it meant to be Catholic
a. Speech at Bedford-Sty
b. Press Gang Luncheon speech on “New Politics.”
(1) Transformative faith committed to social justice merged with a belief in political action.
B. Nuns and priests urged us to accept a calling to action
1. Church responds in the
a. Catholic Bishops and the Campaign for Human Development
2. This is what Catholicism and the Church meant to me.
VI. The
Gateway to Adulthood: What I Carried
Forth?
A. The messages of my nuns and priests reinforced and deepened over time
B.
1. One professor who left the seminary
a. Read
b. That even in darkest days one can turn towards the family a local community to make it better.
C. Left graduate school
1. City politics as director of code enforcement
a. Shelters for the poor and homeless
2. Community Action agency serving low and moderate income worker
a. Paid with funds Dorothy Day Fund from NYC Archdioceses Campaign for Human Development Fund
D. Back to School
1.
a. Professor who was a student of Reinhold Neibuhr
(1) Political theology class
(2) Examined on theology
2. Read Elaine Pagels ) Harvard theologian
a. Early Church history as a revolutionary movement for change and to help the oppressed
3. Read Liberation theology
a. Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.”
VII. A
Gateway for Life: What I learned?
A. Nuns and priests were correct
B. Importance of fighting for social justice
C. Speaking out
D. Living ones values
1. Values of justice, toleration, liberation
E. Most importantly:
1. Commitment to hope, belief in change, and taking advantage of opportunities.
VIII. Conclusion:
People, Places, and Times as Gates
A. 1968 a defining year in my life that I see as relevant to the opportunities of 2008.
1. For others a different year or time may define how they see 2008.
2. However if in 1968 could see the twin messages of Bobby Kennedy and Vatican II offering a path for political and personal change, we should draw upon their words and see 2008 as offering similar possibilities.
B. This
year can be an important gate for