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The FAN
meeting held in Washington DC on March 6-7 was a good effort for the
twenty action Commissioners and Staff who attended from the six
regions from around the US (bios are available at
http://www.franciscanaction.org/FAN_Staff.html).
The SFO was well represented with Ken Beattie, Tom Bello, Patti
DeWitt, Dan Mulholland, Jan Parker, and Stephanie Sormane all
present.
The meeting
had good input and prayfully discussed How Do We Do Change with our
450 represented ministries in the USA Franciscan Family. This
starts from our experience as Franciscans to then perform social
analysis (political, economic, sociological, and cultural) examined
in light of our Faith and values to see what God invites us to do to
make some dedicated actions for change in our society. This may be
to raise our Franciscan voice when bills in Congress reach some
critical points, where they may be dropped because of lack of
perceived support. With a Franciscan voice in Washington DC we may
be able to positively change some legislation to reflect the common
good.
We had
discussions on how a Bill becomes Law and the process where 30,00
bills introduced may only result in 300 bills becoming Law. Ken
Preston-Pile, from Pace e Bene discussed how to approach advocacy
from a non-violent, Franciscan perspective, and used Franciscan Sr.
Rosemary Lynch, who is almost 90, as an example. Sr. Rosemary says
Advocacy starts with Spiritual Groundedness, and building
connections with your legislator, connecting to their goodness. A
start is to express gratitude for bills they have supported, and
appeal to them on new issues from a position of values and faith.
She always approaches this from a win-win approach for what can be
done rather than from being reproachful for what hasn't been done.
Sr. Rosemary points out that you may not get through the first time,
but you will have established a relationship that opens the door the
next time on the next issue. Relationships are always more
important than issues when trying to advocate.
Here's some
pictures from the FAN meeting where you may see a couple of familiar
faces:
http://www.dannymai.org/FAN_Meeting_March_2008/
We adjourned
the meeting to visit the new Fan Office, and have a blessing
ceremony, followed in proper Franciscan fashion by a dinner. The
next day we finished up discussions on how to expand the FAN
membership and what things can be done to the website to support
these efforts. It will be possible for members in different regions
to join FAN using the website fairly soon after things settle down
from the FAN Kick Off. We finished up by noon after a Mass and
adjourned to travel to the Ecumenical Advocacy Days hotel in
Alexandria VA.
The FAN Kick
Off was the next evening after a 6 pm Mass. You may have seen the
FAN press release already. Here's the pictures I took from the FAN
Kick Off, which weren't too many as I was too busy talking with old
friends. It was good to see Marie Dennis, sfo (from Maryknoll and
co-director of Pax Christi USA) and Franciscan Sr. Marie Lucy there,
as well as one of my favorite Jesuits, Jim Hug,SJ (from the Center
of Concern). Ann Corro, sfo and Karen Connair, sfo (from St Margaret
of Cortona SFO Region) and Ken Butigen and Ken Preston-Pile (from
Pace e Bene) were there also, as were many FAN Commissioners and
guests to witness the Kickoff.
Fr. Hug, SJ
told me afterwards that he didn't realize that the Franciscans were
so High Church (referring to the formality of the Kick Off). I told
him we can be when we need to be.
http://dannymai.org/FAN_Kickoff/
Fan is off to
a good start. |
