By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
This is the keynote talk given by Archbishop Thomas Wenski during the Feb. 4-6, 2025. DART Clergy Conference held in Orlando. DART (Direct Action and Research Training Center), which receives funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, is an organization that helps faith-based communities organize to pursue justice and social change at the grass roots level. The CCHD supports DART, whose affiliates organizations in the Archdiocese of Miami are PACT (People Acting for Community Together) in Miami-Dade and the Broward-based BOLD Justice (Broward Organized Leaders Doing Justice).
Thank you for having me today. I am, of course, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Miami where we have 109 parishes with an estimated 1.3 million parishioners. (About half of them attend Mass on Sundays.) The archdiocese also operates a large school system with 49 elementary schools, 10 high schools and a university. Our Catholic Health Services operates 2 rehabilitation hospitals, 2 assisted living facilities, 3 nursing homes, hospice, and home health care. It oversees 19 senior housing projects serving 2,300 people. Our Catholic Charities runs Head Start day care centers, food pantries, counseling, senior day care, meals for seniors in several parishes, and housing assistance to people in crisis. We also have pregnancy assistance centers. Our Catholic Legal Services with some 39 lawyers sees between 2,000 and 3,000 people a month to help with their immigration issues. We have men and women engaged in prison ministries and many clergy serve as chaplains to fire fighters and police officers. And, of course, we have had a long and fruitful relationship with DART organizations, PACT in Miami and Bold Justice in Broward County.
When I was still a seminary student more than 50 years ago, I read a book on Pastoral Counseling by Howard Clinebell, he was a Methodist minister who died in 2005. In his book, he presented a parable that I wish to share with you as I begin my talk.
It’s a parable about a certain lifesaving station. Here goes.
On a dangerous seacoast, where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. With no thought for themselves, they went out day and night, tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, and it became quite famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give their time, money and efforts for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So, they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put nicer furniture in the enlarged building. Soon, the lifesaving station was decorated beautifully and furnished exquisitely. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members and they used it as a sort of club. As time passed, fewer and fewer members were interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions and they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.
The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decor and there was even a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drown people. They were dirty and sick. Some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So, the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of a shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities and viewed them as unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a “lifesaving” station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. So they did.
As the years went by, the new station gradually experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
We are in the life saving business, or at least we are supposed to be. People are drowning - and we have to rescue them.
Isn’t this what Jesus was about when he began his public ministry in Galilee? He begins with this passage from Isaiah, as we read in the Gospel according to St. Luke:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’.
We have here, I would dare say is the Job Description of Jesus, as Messiah, as the Christ. And, for us who are christened, it is our job description as well – what we aspire to do, not only as individuals but as members of the Body of Christ, the Church.
After Jesus cited this Isaiah passage, he sat down and told his listeners. “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Is this scripture fulfilled today in our hearing? Because our congregations are involved in the issues that touch on the life and dignity of the human person? Are our congregations, lifesaving stations, or are we, pastors, just “clubhouse managers”.
Christian spirituality – Judeo-Christian spirituality - must be more than an exercise of navel gazing (or what Pope Francis would call "being self-referential.")
Too often, the adjective “parochial” – even when used in reference to a parish – means narrow-minded: concerned only with narrow local concerns without any regard for more general or wider issues. But if our job description is the same as Jesus, we are called to the margins: to encounter Christ in the heart of the world and in the poor.
Now some might object: Shouldn't we be more concerned about getting to heaven than fixing the earth? But fixing the earth is not opposed to our transcendent destiny. It assumes it. For this earth is our highway to heaven and our journey along this highway is our one-time chance to get to heaven. And if we're going to get to heaven and to help others to get there – then we have to be concerned about the condition of the highway – or those dangerous shoals which our people have to navigate. If we were to believe like an atheist that this life is all there is, is life is not a highway but merely a dead-end alley, then we don't have to care about the condition of the road.
But if this is a highway to heaven, then we have to make sure that we take care of the potholes, those obstacles that could have us or others to crash or break down along the way. So why should anyone question why we are advocating for civil citations instead of arrest records for young kids who do “stupid things”, as young people are sometimes do? Talk about a roadblock or a pothole on the highway of life, a kid who is arrested in a classroom by a policeman for something that a detention slip could have handled carries that arrest with him the rest of his life: it’ll keep out of the military, it will deny him a scholarship or a job. How is that record going to help him get to heaven?
The Church’s commitment to “justice ministries” do not divert her and her members from the pursuit of heaven. Rather, by addressing the obstacles, the roadblocks, the potholes, those shipwrecks, that may frustrate people’s pursuit of their transcendent vocation along that highway, the consequences of both personal and structural sin, the Church wishes to assist all those that travel it to reach heaven. In this way, our engagement in the world and for the world and never against the world does not contradict the Church's spiritual mission but complement it – or as I said – it assumes it.
That’s why, as Catholics, we speak out in defense of the rights and dignity of human life from the moment of conception till natural death, we promote traditional marriage between a man and a woman for the sake of children. Seeking to recognize Christ in least of our brethren, we feed the hungry, cloth the naked, instruct the ignorant, welcome the migrant, we visit the prisoner (and advocate for the end of capital punishment). We do so amid what the Pope has called a “throwaway” culture and at a time when we see a growing “globalization of indifference.”
We are called to the margins: to go forth encountering Christ in the heart of the world and in the poor. And to do so, we face strong opposing headwinds in our culture. Even some who walk with us in faith can misunderstand us – and sometimes claim to be “heartbroken” by our positions.
I recognize that there are other traditions in this room and do not presume to speak for them. I want to take a moment to describe how our work in justice ministry relates to Catholic social teaching.
We hold that man is a creature made in the image and likeness of God; the only creature God made for himself so that he might share with Him eternal life. That we are created more than just to die is the root of our hope. We believe that man is open to infinity, that his life and his dignity transcend this life. We believe that man matters. What we call Catholic Social Teaching was developed through the teachings of our Popes since Leo XIII in the 1880s. The entire body of Catholic Social Teaching, with its foundations in Sacred Scripture but also accessible to human reason, is a reasoned dialog on why this is so. (Also, in Catholic thought, the idea of Natural Law is important. Natural Law asserts that there are things that we cannot not know. For they are written on the human heart. For example, we cannot know that murder is wrong.) Now these teachings sometimes appear to be quite complex, and the arguments very difficult. (I know that some have suggested that reading through a papal encyclical can be a good cure for insomnia.) However, I suggest that all the Church’s social doctrine can be summarized in one simple phrase: No man is a problem. No man is a problem. Any anthropology that would reduce the human person to being just a problem is simply a defective, an erroneous anthropology, unworthy of man created in the image and likeness of God.
When we allow ourselves to think of a human being as a mere problem, we offend his or her dignity. And when we see another human being as a problem, we often give ourselves permission to look for solutions. The tragic history of the 20th century shows that thinking like this even leads to – final solutions.
These teachings usually presented through papal letters, called encyclicals, can be quite heavy reading with complex arguments that while certainly rooted in our theology is accessible to human reasoning. But, if you suffer from insomnia, I recommend trying to read one of these encyclicals before bedtime.
But let me give you a one sentence resume of Catholic Social Teaching: “No man is a problem.” We must resist any anthropology that reduces that creature made in the image and like of God to being just a problem.
Going back to the Isaiah passage – in which we find Jesus’ and our job descriptions, and that “no man is a problem”, Catholic Social Teachings are built around the following principals: Preferential Option for the Poor; Subsidiarity; Solidarity and the Common Good. And these principles, I suggest, are at the heart of this text from Luke. And these principles guide our engagement with Justice Ministry.
Luke 4:16-21 leads with the idea that Jesus has been called to bring good news to the poor, to the captives, to the blind, and to the oppressed. As Pope St. John Paul II said in speaking of Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man: “How can we exclude anyone from our care? Rather we must recognize Christ in the poorest and the most marginalized, those whom the Eucharist, which is communion in the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, commits us to serve. As the parable of the rich man, who will remain forever without a name, and the poor man called Lazarus clearly shows, ‘in the stark contrast between the insensitive rich man and the poor in need of everything, God is on the latter’s side.’ We too must be on this same side.”
We live in a world of increasing inequality. Young people know this - young people in many countries, including our own, have a hard time finding jobs in order to build a future, to form a family.
Pope Francis reminds us that we have to struggle against what he calls a "globalization of indifference." We also have to be on guard against that tendency – something we see today in the debate about migration – to blame the victim.
God takes the side of the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and as St. John Paul II reminds us, so must we. In doing so, though, we must navigate between two extremes - for the commandment to love our neighbor should always mean to love in truth. Our love of neighbors must reflect the truth of the human person. Otherwise, our charity risks becoming distorted into mere sentimentality or, to the other extreme, a false compassion. We work for justice, for equality but at the same time we must oppose those policies born of a defective anthropology, false understanding of the human person such as abortion, euthanasia and so-called same-sex marriages, gender ideologies, etc.
Solidarity with the world of pain is not expressed in lofty propositions but to concrete people in whom we are to see the Jesus Christ, who as true man and true God, shows us the divine face of man and the human face of God.
In Justice Ministry, the preferential option for the poor has us asking ourselves how is this particular situation affecting the poor and the marginalized.
For example, all of us are being affected by climate change. We know from our own experience that the impacts are falling hardest on those who are at the margins. Flooding is usually worse in poor neighborhoods. The tree canopy that reduces heat and decreases run is less vibrant in our poorest neighborhoods.
The DART affiliate in Miami-Dade County got the county to launch tree planting projects in low-income neighborhoods.
I know that many of you are spearheading housing campaigns to support the development of housing for the lowest income households. While housing is a problem for many families at many income levels, the work of DART affiliates to get hundreds of millions of dollars focused on developing housing for families making less than $50,000 a year is remarkable.
Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority; that is, decisions should be made by those closest to the people affected by those decisions.
The call by Jesus to “release the captives” is linked with the call to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” There were many in first-century Judea and Galilee who were in prison because of debt, often a small debt. Using the power of the state to extract payment is a violation of the principle of subsidiarity. Suspending a driver’s licenses because of not paying a parking ticket or some other fine is “criminalizing poverty”. And we’ve seen how arresting children and youth for minor offenses and a tough on crime approach to truancy or temper tantrums often makes the problem worse. Sure, we do not condone misbehavior in schools but arresting children for those events is the wrong solution and a clear violation of subsidiarity.
We can all take some just pride in the fact that our efforts have resulted in diverting more than 60,000 juveniles in Florida from the Criminal Justice system by getting State and Local officials to expand the use of civil citations.
Solidarity is a firm, persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, not merely "vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of others". Flowing from faith, it is fundamental to the Christian view of social and political organization. Each person is connected to (and dependent on) all humanity, collectively and individually.
When Jesus goes to the synagogue and quotes from Isaiah, he is putting the marginalized front and center for the community. He reminds people that we are all in this together. The Roman Empire had a strategy of dividing people into different camps, and pitting people against the poor. Sounds like politics today, doesn’t it?
In Justice Ministry we must recognize that we really are all in this work together. Now the reality is that many of the problems with which we wrestle in our communities are shared realities. Climate change affects us all. Few families are untouched by escalating housing costs. Accessing healthcare is a serious hurdle for more and more people. And it is also true that these problems are worse for the poor.
So, when your organization gathers 1,000 or 2,000 people of different faiths and traditions for your annual Nehemiah Actions, you are promoting the common good. When even a small group of people are affected by these serious community problems, all of us are affected.
Again, to cite my hero and fellow Pole, John Paul II, “In the stark contrast between the insensitive rich man and the poor in need of everything, God is on the latter’s side’. We too must be on this same side.”
Too often the poor go unseen, unnoticed – as Lazarus was unseen and unnoticed. There is a worldliness that hardens our hearts, that anesthetizes the soul. If we cannot feel with our hearts, we will not see with our eyes. And people will continue to drown on a treacherous seacoast dotted with “lifesaving stations” that have been clubhouses for the complacent and comfortable.
Let me end by telling you another story. This is a true story about a famous mayor of New York. You might have heard of him – there’s an airport named after him.
He would often serve as a judge at the night court – and one night during the depths of the Great Depression, he presided over the court in one of the poorest precincts of the city. A poor old lady was brought before the court charged with stealing a loaf of bread. “Did you steal the bread,” he asked her. She admitted she had but explained that she lived with her daughter and her two grandkids, her son-in-law had deserted the family, and they had no money and nothing to eat. The mayor looked at the shopkeeper and asked him, given the circumstances, did he really want to press charges. The shopkeeper said that he felt sorry for her but it’s a bad neighborhood and the woman needed to be punished to set an example for everyone.
LaGuardia was in a dilemma — the law was the law but to punish this old woman would be a miscarriage of justice.
What would you do? The penalty was $10 or 10 days in jail. What did LaGuardia do? He took ten dollars out of his wallet and gave it to a bailiff to pay the fine.
Then he looked out at the crowded courtroom and fined everyone there 50 cents for living in a city where a grandmother has to steal a loaf of bread to feed her grandchildren. He directed the bailiff to collect the fines and hand the money to the defendant. The total collected came to $47.50 including the 50 cents willingly paid by the shopkeeper.
Let Justice roll!
