[Excerpts]

Francis calls for nothing less than a Copernican revolution in our understanding and practice of politics, one in which ordinary people are not a hard-to-reach “periphery” but the center around which the rest of the firmament revolves....

In Let Us Dream, Francis urges the church to be more receptive to such popular alliances—accompanying them both practically and spiritually, without seeking to dominate. He identifies “labor” and “lodgings” as two of the key issues for grass-roots action. The success of the IAF’s Living Wage campaigns, and its renewal of whole neighborhoods in New York and Baltimore through the Nehemiah Housing program, demonstrates the power of institution-based organizing. If parishes and dioceses heed the pope’s call to engage with new vigor in this work, it can play a significant role in the civic renewal that is so urgently needed.

Community organizing has two crucial features that ensure the poorest citizens have agency. First, it is institution-based. Across almost a century of community organizing, both religious and secular organizers have found religious congregations to be the most resilient and powerful institutions on which to build what veteran organizer Ernesto Cortés Jr. calls “a graduate school to teach people how to participate in politics and shape their communities’ futures.”

As Mr. Cortés explained in an interview with Rev. Ritchie: “Citizens are formed through the process of organizing. It requires institutions which can incubate this process by passing on the habits, practices, and norms necessary for humans with different opinions and temperaments to flourish together: to compromise, to talk to and not just about one another, to act in the light of one another’s views and needs and not just unilaterally or selfishly.”

Second, community organizing is inclusive.  Click below for the rest of the article.

[Photo Credit: Paul Haring/CNS]

Pope Francis has Criticized Both the Left and the Right’s Politics. Community Organizing Offers a Third Way, America, The Jesuit Review [pdf]

Almost ten years ago, Project QUEST agreed to participate in a randomized control trial in which half of a pool of 400+ qualified and equally motivated applicants were picked by a computer to participate in Project QUEST. The other half were turned away. They pursued other options.

After three years, Project QUEST graduates already earned more than those who were turned away. By Year 6, the difference in earnings not only persisted, but increased to over $5,000 per year.

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Looking for a way to create a "tighter fit between the life of faith and public life," the Very Reverend W. Mark Richardson of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley turned to the Industrial Areas Foundation to help train its seminarians.

Says Rev. Susanna Singer, "Bishops were saying increasingly that community organizing is a good thing." The creation faith, she argues, is about God's vision of flourishing for humanity and the cosmos. "It means that the body of Christ, which is us now, has got to get out there now and be involved in the communities in which we live because that's where God's dream is going to come true."

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In a New Yorker piece by Samuel Freedman, Industrial Areas Foundation co-chair Ernesto Cortes and Sr. Christine Stephens reflect on the life and spirit of Edward Chambers, the long-time executive director of the IAF that led it to to become the premier community organizing network in the US and around the world.

"Ed believed in the mission of the church, and I don't just mean the Roman Catholic Church," Sister Christine Stephens, a member of Chambers's leadership team in the I.A.F., said. "That mission involved dealing with people who are on the margins, people who don't have power."

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Hundreds of One LA-IAF leaders convened at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima with candidates for Los �ngeles County Supervisor District 3, Sheila Kuehl and Bobby Shriver. Leaders leveraged commitments from both to:

• Increase funding for My Health LA if the current funding stream falls short of covering all those eligible;

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Industrial Areas Foundation Co-Director Ernesto Cortes, Jr. articulates and models the fundamentals of relational meetings, the core practice of broad based organizing.

This video, designed to showcase the craft of experienced organizer practitioners, was shot during a 3-Day IAF Training in Las Vegas, Nevada. Click on photo at right, or click here, to view clip.

"A prime example of how the Sisters of Divine Providence practice ... is through the decades of dedication, hard work and efforts put forth by Sisters Christine Stephens and Pearl Ceasar. For over 30 years, these women of faith have worked diligently.... Their work and that of others from the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) has created a domino effect nation-wide that has trained thousands of ordinary citizens to be leaders and organize to be heard and bring about change. Hundreds of communities have become stronger, more viable and visible. IAF is a national network of organizers acknowledged by the Catholic Bishops to train and engage citizens within not only Catholic parishes and surrounding communities but from congregations of many faith traditions, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Unitarian."

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Bishop Gerald F. "Kicanas joined nearly 100 members of churches of different denominations from the area who gathered ... to organize a campaign in favor of not only a new immigration law but also efforts of Gov. Jan Brewer to expand the state's health program for the poor: the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)....

Kicanas' appeal came as he spoke to members of Yuma County Interfaith, a faith-based group whose leaders and members represent a variety of religious denominations in the area."

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"If Oak Creek doesn't remain affordable housing, will have to move in with her mother in Bastrop. Principal Robertson says continuity is key for low-income families.

'Constant change is not a friend for Title One families,' Robertson says. 'Nor is it for students to jump from school to school. That upheaval — some of our most successful families will be thrown into I don't know what kind of abyss.'

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"Three-hundred Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley and Dewey-Humboldt residents told Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett that Arizona must start adequately funding education during a meeting Tuesday at Abia Judd Elementary School in Prescott.

'Over the last five years, cuts in funding have been imposed by the state in addition to the cuts from declining enrollments,' said Wendy Madsen, a parent of a student at Taylor Hicks Elementary School in Prescott. 'Our districts together have been forced to cut over $25 million.'"

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