Justice Action
Updated on: February 26th, 2010
Sowers. All parishioners are encouraged to join Sowers. There is no fee at the parish level. Members of Sowers receive action alerts from the Office of Social Justice (click on Action Alerts), the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the National Catholic Social Justice Network and our Sowers Leadership Team. Members also receive information on Sowers Forums held at the parish and other Sowers Assemblies held throughout the Archdiocese.
You can join at the Archdiocesan level for $25 per year. At this level you will receive “Seeds of Justice” and invitations to training and advocacy activities of the Office of Social Justice.
Sowers Leadership Team is the parish leadership team for advocacy. It’s mission is “to learn about Catholic Social teachings and traditions, to educate the parish on Catholic social teachings and social justice issues from a Catholic point of view, to establish social justice and legislative priorities, to address those priorities through advocacy and action, to recruit members of the parish to serve as key advocates and as members of action teams to address issues of importance to the parish, and host forums that provide information and dialogue on key social justice issues.” The Sowers Leadership Team meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month from 7-9 pm.
Parish Action Teams are committees organized by the Sowers Leadership Team to address priority social justice issues that five or more parishioners are willing to work on. There are also action teams organized by the Office of Social Justice that meet on an Archdiocesan Level. The Parish Action Teams are:
- Environmental Action Team which addresses care for God’s creation, including global warming, simple living and environmental stewardship. They also are sponsoring an education program on global warming, JustMatters. They meet on the second Tuesday of each month, 6:30 to 9 pm. Marge Knowlton is the Chair. Her phone number is: 439-7124.
- Respect Life Action Team that addresses Catholic teachings on respect for life. This team organizes “Respect Life Month and Sunday,” sponsors our October Respect Life project (e.g. Baby bottle campaign for our LifeCare Center), recruits volunteers to work at our LifeCare Center, develops and implements a legislative program to promote respect life, and educates the parish on full continuum of life issues, from conception to natural death. They also sell Mother’s Day corsages to support their activities. It meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.
- Action Teams of the Office of Social Justice are:
Health Care (Gary Gullikson is our representative)
Global Warming (Bruce Labno is our representative)
Housing (Sally Krupich is our representative)
Immigration
Key Advocates. Key advocates are appointed by the Sowers Leadership Development Team to monitor, advise and educate the Sowers Leadership Team on a particular faith-based social justice issue. We have key advocates for the following areas:
Children (ICan) …Sue Dwuznick
Hunger (http://www.bread.org/) …Karen Fitzpatrick
Peace and Nonviolence (http://www.ecapc.org) …Greg Hagen
Sustainable Agriculture (http://www.landstewardshipproject.org) …Barb Prokop
Globalization (http://www.americas.org) …Carl Scheider
Justice Links:
Office of Social Justice, http://www.osjspm.org
National Catholic Social Justice Network, http://www.networklobby.org/
Minnesota Catholic Conference, http://www.mncc.org
Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, http://www.jrlc.org
National Catholic Rural Life Conference, http://www.ncrlc.com/
Education for Justice, http://www.educationforjustice.org
US Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org