Thank God and John Kass - G-Men Meet Leo Men

John Kass again reports on the great young men of Leo High School.  Today, John presents the story of the visit of Jeremy Clark, Darryl Johnson and Mike Braxton to FBI Headquarters in Chicago.


At the start of the CPS Teacher Strike, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune paid a visit to Leo High School and talked to the great young men who work to become contributing people who will make a difference in Chicago's inner city.

Leo High School is a Catholic college preparatory high school, founded in 1926 at the orders of Cardinal George Mundelein to serve poor kids from neighborhoods south of the stockyards.  Leo has never been what some might call an elite secondary school and God willing never will be.  Some people term a school, that in reality is an exclusive school - where tuition and tests make it impossible for blue collar sons to find a seat in the classroom.  Leo is elite - it is blessed by God.

In the late 1960's, I heard street talk that Leo High School was on its last legs.  In the 1970's, when I began teaching high school, folks in the know  placed no chips on the Black and Orange ( Leo's Colors).  In the late 1980's, when I was teaching at La Lumiere School, alma mater of Justice of the United States John Roberts, word was out that Irish Christian Brothers were planning to leave Leo. In the 1990's Cardinal Bernardine ended all Archdiocesan financial support to Leo and the Irish Christian Brothers ended their sixty year presence at Leo, with exception of the heroic Brothers Rupert Finch and Steve O'Keefe.  Bob Foster became the first lay Principal in the school's history and the smart set gave fierce Foster  six months to one year until the Lion's roar would end.  The Lion roared louder behind the leadership and stewardship of the Leo Alumni. The Old Lion leaped into the New Millenium clawing and biting.  When President and CEO Bob Foster retired, everyone with half a brain sang the same old song.  Only a Father Pfleger could save Leo.  Wrong again.

Irish Christian Brothers, Cardinals, Educators, Business Wheels, and mythological heroes like Bob Foster and Mike Holmes,or quietly fierce leaders like Pete Doyle and Dan McGrath are merely human beings. Catholic schools are God centered.  God Provides.

Leo High School faces tough times financially and it always has. Enrollment goes up and down, because inner city families are challenged to pay what they honestly are able to do.  Support from Alumni and friends is always limited - there is only so much money. We would love to have piles of gold and swag to provide more for our wonderful, funny, challenging and sweet young gents, but we thank God for reach day, each gift and each opportunity to do more.

Life is prose and not poetry.  It is quotidian, messy, unsettling, costly and challenging - it is supposed to be. God provides the gestures from good souls like John Kass.

There is always God.  I do not believe that John Kass came to Leo merely to do a solid for old an pal, or get a great story. I believe that God's hand gave Kass's shoulder a shove. The same hand that wakes me up and sends me Leo High School, guides my hands on the wheel of the Canaryville van, keeps my tired old lamps focused on the proper Dan Ryan lanes and back to 79th & Sangamon with the Young Lions.

Thankl God it is not just up to me.

Leo Driver Diaries - Canaryville to Leo High School

August 16, 2012  "Canaryville is a predominantly Irish American neighborhood, with borders from 40th to 49th streets between Union Pacific railroad ..."

Canaryville (St. Gabriel's Parish)  gave Leo High School hundreds of great men - Bro Farrell, Fr. Bill McFarlan, Dean Fuller, A Score of Brackin Boys,  Hugs Hughes, Square Lanham, John Caponera, Gabe Caponera, Lt. John Lehner, CFD and now Canaryville is back.

I get to Leo High School before 5AM, after picking up a box of 50 glazed Munchkins and a 20 oz. coffee.  The donut holes are for the gents that I will pick up and the coffee is mine.  At Leo High School, at 79th & Sangamon Street in the heart of Gresham,  I answer e-mails and do prospect research  beyond the Leo Alumni who give lavishly to their Alma Mater.  President Dan McGrath and I are widening the shores of the giving pond and reaching out to private and corporate sponsors.  These generous individuals, foundations and corporations provide much needed revenue to off-set tuition costs and also sponsor projects for capital improvement.

The biggest need in the last several years has been tuition assistance which, due to the lousy economy, cancerous unemployment and rising water, lighting, gas, insurance and up-keep expenses, eats into operating expenses.  You can set tuition, but families can only pay what they are able to pay. The balance is made up in fund-raising.  Increasing enrollment has helped some.

Last year, Leo welcome the first white student in decades to this Catholic college prep school for young men.  The previous year, the first Hispanic graduate in decades was our Gates Millenium Scholar, Eder Cruz; his success changed this school's demographic from 100% African American to Leo Diverse!

Five more Hispanic gents enrolled as did one young man from St. Gabe's parish in Canaryville.   Ten more white ethnc ( Catholics) enrolled, entered the summer school program and the 2013 Freshman Class.  More Carnaryvillians are expected in the next few weeks. Two others, who intended to begin high school here opted to attend De LaSalle Insitute in their own backyard.

These ten gents are tough.  Their parents work hard.  Canaryville is reputed to be one of the toughest neighborhoods in America - always has been.  It is to Chicago as Hell's Kitchen is to NYC.   My Mom's family were Canaryville tribesmen.  Her Dad had been a Ragen Colt, as well as a Lather.  Her uncle was a Ragen Colt as well as a Viatorian priest.  They were called Earl and Headsy - the Donahue boys. How one became Earl, when baptized a Francis is one of those Canaryville mysteries.  Tough is determined not so much by how much one can dish out, but by how much one can take.

Canaryville folks can take plenty. The myth goes something like this -



I drive one of the school vans to pick up Leo Students from Bronzeville and then Canaryville.  The van is Ford 15 passenger that also serves the athletic teams in the afternoons. To say the least, this conveyances gets a daily work-out that would exhaust Gale Sayers.

Here was yesterday's route:

6:40 - Depart Leo heading east on 79th Street to the Dan Ryan - construction crews are laying out barrier cones and barricades; gang trucks and back-hoes signal crowded and slow return trip. N.B. Classes begin at 7:45 AM.  Think, Hickey.
6:45 - Northbound on the Dan Ryan at State - remain in Local lanes - so good, so far.

6: 50 Exit at 35th Street and head east to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive; take a left into the lot of BP Gas station. Wait. Big Daylon . . .freshman 14 years old and sports a XXXXXL  Leo Polo shirt -6'3" and all of 350+ lbs.  and the kid can move. Daylon smiles gets to work on the Munchkin box.

7:00 - 7:14 AM Now, head out to Canaryville - 35th Street East to Wentworth frontage over by Sox Park  Head south to 43rd Street; go left to 
558 West 43rd Street - Pizza Nova - Pick up Two

7:15 Head East to 35th & Emerald take a left south to Graham Elementary parking lot - there they are!

A Collection of Youthful Hope and Determination.

" How come no Chocalate Milk, Mr. Hickey?"

When you guys all make Honor Roll on October, then we'll negotiate the breakfast menu.  Eat what's there.

" Thanks! No Powder! Awesome! AJ give over!  BK you got five! So? Can we stop at Subway?  The air's too cold. You listen to Old Man music. . . .," Remembering the street work, I exit at 75th grooveup to 76th head east and pass the big dark brown apartment building at 76th Union where I was born and continue to Morgan

7:35 AM - Leo Parking Lot and the tribe alights!

Is this a great life, or what?

Dan McGrath's " Leo: This How We Roll."

This Is How Leo High School Rolls

by Dan McGrath Jun 8, 2012

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Every parent knows the agony and ecstasy of watching a child perform.

Whether it’s a concert, a school play, or an athletic competition, it’s always fun, in that it evokes a real sense of pride in what little Millie or Billy has learned to do.

It’s also torture because you want your child to perform well—perfectly, if possible—for the child’s sake, of course. And it’s totally out of your hands.

My kids are well beyond their child-star years, but I have great memories of the hundreds of events I sat through…well, most of them.

Enthusiastic but staunchly objective: That was how I rolled. I was there to lend support to all the kids, not just my own, and wouldn’t think of criticizing an opposing player or belaboring an official or lobbying a coach for more playing time. No, sir.

Well, there was this one ref who somehow missed it when that beefy girl from Burbank blatantly went over my daughter’s back going for a rebound and a put-back basket at St. Francis one evening. What game was he watching?

And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an umpire squeeze a pitcher any worse than my son got it from that nearsighted dweeb at Dooley Field one Saturday morning.

Hawk, I hear you.

But I’m over it now.

Or at least I thought I was until a recent Saturday when I found myself at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston for the Illinois High School Association state track finals. The state championship in Class 1-A would be decided in the final event of the two-day meet: the 4-by-400-meter relay. Newton High, from the tiny, Central Illinois town of Newton, needed to finish fourth or better to claim its first state title.

Newton’s anchor-leg runner was a gritty young man who had helped his team accumulate its 30 points by competing in three events in two days of blistering heat. Newton’s relay team was in third place as he took the baton from the No. 3 runner, and if he could hold that position for his grueling lap around the track, the Eagles would be state champions.

I was hoping he’d take a wrong turn. Or worse, fall. I was ashamed of myself for thinking that, and I tried to suppress the smile that came to my face and grew wider as each of three runners passed the game-but-spent Newton youngster, relegating the Eagles to sixth place in the event and a runner-up finish in the meet, with 34 points.

The Lions from Chicago’s Leo High School were first-place finishers, with 35 points, and state champions for the second year in a row.

I couldn’t have been happier if those were my own kids out there running for Leo. And, in a sense, they were. I went to Leo, more than a few years ago, and I work there now, as the school president, a surprising destination for me after a long career in journalism. I think of Leo’s students as “my kids,” and I’m proud to.

(Video by Cresencia Felty)

Leo is a small, all-boys, inner-city school of about 150 students in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood on the South Side. We’re a Catholic school, so we have to charge tuition, and we serve some of the most disadvantaged areas of the city. Nearly all of our kids receive financial aid, most of it provided by a predominantly white, unfailingly generous alumni network.

Our kids are polite, friendly, motivated and well-behaved. They understand that someone is making a sacrifice for them to be at Leo—their parents, their grandparents, a guardian or an alum—so they work hard in school and they try to do the right things as people.

Being around “my kids” every day, I pick up on their likes and dislikes, on what’s important to them—for many, sports is the currency of the culture. I realized this shortly after I was introduced at my very first assembly. A well-meaning but windy speech was drifting right over their heads, going nowhere and drawing yawns until the vice-principal who had introduced me bailed me out.

“Before Mr. McGrath came to Leo,” he told the students, “he was a sportswriter.”

Well, it wasn’t like Derrick Rose had walked through the door, but it gave me a smidgen of credibility in the kids’ world. Sure enough, a little guy seated near the front immediately jumped to his feet. “Kobe or LeBron?” he demanded, and a lively discussion followed.

Darnell, the little guy, is now part of a group that comes by my office every Monday morning to recap the weekend in sports. They want me to know what they know.

We’re an academic school first and foremost, and we’re proud of our scholastic achievements. The week before the state track meet we graduated 100 percent of our seniors, for the third year in a row. (ESPN’s Stephen Bardo, co-captain of the 1989 “Flyin’ Illini”, did a terrific job as our commencement speaker). Each graduate has been accepted to at least one college, and they have earned more than $700,000 in scholarship assistance.

But sports is important at Leo. We believe that the hard work, dedication, and commitment necessary for success on the playing field will help a youngster get ahead in life.

The track team embodies that lesson. We don’t have anything resembling a track, indoor or out, on our 87-year-old, one-building campus; the kids get ready for the season by running the halls and stairways. The marble floors are murder on the shins, too, but I’ve yet to hear anyone complain. It’s a point of pride among our kids that our meager facilities don’t hold them back when they compete against more affluent opponents.

A big hurdle: track practice is relegated to school hallways at Leo High.

We had an all-school assembly to honor the track team a few days after the state meet, and the pride in the room was palpable when the captains walked in carrying the state championship trophy. It was our seventh one for track and field. The team has also received seven IHSA academic citations for carrying a GPA above 3.0

Senior Keith Harris Jr., a track co-captain, is an All-State running back who has a football scholarship to Northern Illinois University. He’s also the Class of 2012 valedictorian, a sharp, talented, dedicated young man. One of our best.

Winning state was especially meaningful for Keith because he was injured and missed last year’s meet. He scored points in each of his three events this season, so he’s leaving Leo a state champion, and when he addressed the assembly he thanked his coaches and teammates for making that possible.

“I love you guys,” he said.

That’s how we roll.

*     *     *     *     *

DAN McGRATH is the former sports editor of the Chicago Tribune and the current president of Leo High School.

STORY ART: Main image made in-house with photo courtesy Dan McGrath.

This entry was posted in Prep and tagged chicago, ESPN, IHSA, Illinois High School Association,Keith Harris Jr., Leo High School, leo high track, Newton High, Northern Illinois University, Stephen Bardo, track and field. Bookmark the permalink.




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"Analyze This! " - God Responds to Latest Scientific Study: People of Faith Don't Think

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.

I was awakened again, thanks be to God. Said my prayers, fed the cat, and got to it.  Read the Tribune and the posted article and asked God what he thought of it. Here HE is!


God ( aka - Supreme Being, Dominus, Lord of Hosts, Yaweh, Allah, Prime Mover, Triun God, Original Gangstah! & etc. )

Hickey, do you know what time it is ?  Oh, ME!  You got Company? Sorry about the get-up,folks,  this goof wakes before I intended man to rise.  Hickey, you are really lucky I turned-in early, or you'd really be up $hit-creek for fair, Paddy Me Boy!  As it is you just added a few semesters to your stay in Purgatory. Take a walk or something - I sure Hell don't need you staring over my shoulders. Now, Blow!

Hi, everybody!  Again, sorry about my state of dress; I'm God for Crissakes, not Adolph Menjou.  He really is an inconsiderate pain in the ass, but he means well, I know. . . .before we get to the meat of the matter, let me first congratulate all the Leo Alumni who will be celebrating their commitment to Leo High School ( 1928-2012 Anno Mine) at the Lexington House in Hickory Hills tonight.  The doors will open at 5:30 P.M. and cocktails will be served between 6:30 - 7:30 Post Meridian central Standard Time.  If any of you guys are thirsty, just wait; there will be plenty of time to toss back a few and remember DUI laws are enforced.  I created the each human body differently - age, weight, gender, food intake prior to consumption of one ounce of alcohol must be considered.  For some of you gents who slept through Brother Finch's chemistry and physics class, which I dou . . .am certain never happened, remember an ounce of booze is an ounce of booze - beer, wine, or loudmouth.  Have fun but if you plan to whack down an inappropriate amount of cold ones, have a sober driver.  Remember to eat.

Leo Men!  You are my sons in whom I am very well pleased!

The weather is going to be a bit odd - Hey, you live in Chicago! 

That's about it.

Now, a group of smart kids used grant money to justify the current war on Faith.  This is a political gimmick that Bismark used in the 19th Century in order to consolidate the 101 German States and principalities under Prussian control.  Kant and Hegel were and still are used to make a case against me.  Knock yourselves out, Lads.

This current study is meant to Balkans folks.  If you believe in Me, all to the good.  If you choose to not believe in Me . . .see you in a few years; right Mr. Hitchens?  Any way. 

This new study, which is really as old as human arrogance, holds that Doubters are smarter than Believers. They use math and science to prove this using a series of John Dewey's tests and measurements.  These are the same class of  talented youngsters who measure and calibrated the wheels on the very expensive Bombardier Rail Car Wheels that the City of City bought like a pig in a poke last November.

Measure twice; cut once works only if the carpenter has learned which end of the rule which - remember that scene in This is Spinal Tap?  That was great!  The Stonehenge scene.  Where the stage manager wrote down inches ("s) instead of feet (')? Here, Watch This!

Spinal Tap - Stonehenge - The most popular videos are here

You guys kill me . . . and then I Resurrect!
Anyway, ever since Moses took his sandals off when I lit that bush on fire ( Charleton Heston!  Take a bow, Son!) you need proofs. Thomas the Apostle, that was a close one for you, Kiddo. No matter what I say, do, or demonstrate there will always be doubt - supposed to be.  I don't want you clowns stumbling around in the dark, or depending upon your trust of Kellogg's that there is exactly 16 ounces of corn-flakes in the box, or worse allowing science alone to be your guide - looks at how much weight Al Gore put on since he obsessed with glaciers and penguins.  That and his pretty wife gave him the gate.

I am perfect. Sorry, the job's taken.  Everything else is limited ( you can only drink so many beers, guys), fallible, disappointing, and in exact.  The earth is nice and round.  Water freezes at a some point, given certain circumstances, and it boils at some point, again given certain circumstances.  The NBA does not draft Pygmies - is that certainty, or what if Shorty Mnumbaka has a hang time measured in 0.58 minutes X Two and standard English yard ( 3') s times Seven?   Shorty will go into his freshman year at Brother Aman Prep School in Gungu, Uganda just a bit north central of Lake Albert.  Don't believe me?  Got Proof? just kidding.

Look, you have computers and they are all coded using 0s and 1s. You have DNA coded A, T,G, C with three billion of these letters in every human cell - math is limits.

I have been talking to you all for millions of years; some choose to believe on a few thousand of years, Whats a few numbers off between friends?  I AM. . . .don't just take my  Word for it. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."

Here's the deal. No matter how many numbers, proofs, or tests, you all have Free Will.  No Charge! 
One caveat - There really is only One test, all the rest are Old Styles and Slim Jims, really.  It is Pass/Fail and really can not study for it - call it The Final.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-sci-religion-analytical-thinking-20120427,0,7996681.story

http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

Manya Brachear! Meet Father Robert Sirico - Catholic and Compassionate

I read quite a bit. No brag, just fact. In a family of skilled tradesmen, I remain the bookish goof. While my brother and scores of cousins can unclip a tape measure and artfully root out any problem in seconds with an application of muscle, toggle-bolts, sheet metal cutters, dry wall knives, plumber's dope and table saws, I remain a victim. I need to call a Tradesman.

I read Shakespeare, Virgil, Kant, Dante, Petrarch, Cicero, St. Augustine, Tommy Aquinas, Spinoza, Bellow, Tolstoy and Issac Bashevas Singer. I read while John, Mike, Red Pat, Brian, Barbara, Sheila, Kevin, Glen and Larry schooled themselves in HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, electrical math and fundamental chemistry to become engineers, carpenters, electricians, and pipe-fitters.

Readers often became priests. I went to priest school in high school. I translated Latin into English and developed rudimentary communications skills, but also learned that I was no where near cut-out for celibacy and by senior year exploded onto the co-educational Catholic social scene with some modest success.

Law? Perhaps. Teaching even better. I became a high school English teacher. It was a profession back then. I could read voraciously without being impugned as a loafing dope with his schnozzola glued to a page.

This morning I sweetened my sarcasm tooth with a gooey piece from the always daffy-taffy of Manya Brachear - the Chicago Tribune's Seeker. This kid is a champ and never a disappointment. Manya Branchear takes the road-less-travelled by anyone with a lick of common sense or shred of public understanding. Manya champions the goofball Sinsinawa Dominican - a catalog of goofs those babes be - nun who escorts kids to their appointed abortions at Planned Parenthood. That is like oozing with goodwill for that thoughtful religious seeker, Jihad Jane, who found Islam and decided to murder the Danish cartoonist. "Gee, she thinks outside of box!"

So does Manya - with great regularity.

Today Manya touts a Social Justice panel to be brought on the stage at North Park University. The panel is a Progressive parade of Lakota shamans, prayer-catcher shakers, Gender shrills, Race parsers and the lead- off Korean preacher. A Rainbow of Diversity! Edgy! Check out the line-up and the topics! Meet the Magnificent Social Seven! Hey, God love them all! I am sure that each and every pillar of Progressive Thought getting a paycheck from North Park is worth every dime.

1. Richard Twiss is a member of the Sicangu Lakota/Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. He is Co Founder, with his wife Katherine, and President of Wiconi International. Richard is committed to seeing Native people emerge as a dynamic voice for justice, reconciliation and healing around the world in the spirit of Jesus. He and Katherine have been married since 1976 and have raised four respectful sons and live in Vancouver, Washington.

Richard Twiss will be speaking on “Dancing Our Prayers” at a North Park Theological Seminary student chapel and dinner at 5:00 pm in Olsson Lounge. He will also be part of a panel discussion on Saturday’s Justice Training Workshops.
2.Andrea Smith teaches at Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside. She is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances and is editor of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. She is co-founder of the Boarding School Healing Project and is US Coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.

Andrea Smith will be presenting on the non-profit industrial complex on Wednesday, April 14th at 7:00PM in Hamming Hall.

3.Peter Goodwin Heltzel is Associate Professor of Theology, New York Theological Seminary, and an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics (Yale University Press, 2009). Peter Heltzel received his B.A. from Wheaton College, his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Boston University.

Peter Heltzel will be presenting on Jesus, Justice and Race on Thursday, April 15 at 9:00 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

4. Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. Mimi is a founding member of the Evangelicals and Gender Study Group at the Evangelical Theological Society, and she served as the convener of the Issue Group 24 for the 2004 Lausanne III Committee for World Evangelization. She has written numerous articles and has contributed to eight books, most recently as an editor and a contributing author of Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Serving Together in the Church. Mimi is also an adjunct assistant professor at Bethel University and an adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Dale, live in a mixed-income, inner-city housing development committed to creating greater financial stability in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Haddad will be presenting on Justice and Gender on Thursday, April 15 at 10:45 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

5. Terry LeBlanc is Mi’kmaq /Acadian, from Listuguj First Nation and Campbellton, NB, Canada. He and his wife Bev are in their 38th year of marriage. They have three adult children engaged in various areas of indigenous mission in Canada, the USA and the Philippines. He is the founding Chairman and current CEO of NAIITS (North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) and My People International, a capacity-building and training ministry with Indigenous peoples. In his role with these two organizations, Terry speaks often on the development of cultural bridges between Aboriginal people and the majority cultures in North America and elsewhere in the world. Terry also teaches as a sessional lecturer in Intercultural Studies and Theology at several colleges, seminaries and universities and, for a number of years has been a guest lecturer/speaker at educational institutions across Canada and the United States. He is currently serving as adjunct faculty in Theology and Intercultural Studies for two seminaries. He is a PhD Candidate in Intercultural Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky.

6.Lisa Sharon Harper is a Speaker / Activist / Author / Playwright / Poet. She is the author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat (The New Press) and is the Co-founder and Executive Director of NY Faith & Justice. NY Faith & Justice is at the hub of a new ecumenical movement in New York City to address issues of environmental injustice and violence in black and brown communities. Ms. Harper earned her master’s degree in Human Rights, with a concentration in Religion & the Media, from Columbia University in New York City. Ms. Harper is a graduate of the USC School of Theatre’s MFA Playwriting class of 1995. Her thesis play, An’ Push da Wind Down explores Ms. Harper’s own Cherokee/Chickasaw and African-American heritage. She is a featured op-ed writer for the God’s Politics blog and BeliefNet’s Progressive Revival blog.

Lisa will be responding at the Campus Justice Lecture on Thursday, April 15 with Terry LeBlanc on the topic of Environmental Justice at 7:00 pm in Hamming Hall. She will also present on the topic of Mobilizing for Environmental Justice at the Saturday Training Session.

7. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism and the author of The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (IVPress, 2009). Soong-Chan previously served as founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban, post-modern generation church in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA. Soong-Chan currently serves on the boards of Sojourners, the Christian Community Development Association and the Catalyst Leadership Center. Soong-Chan presents content on the topics of racial reconciliation, social justice, and urban ministry at his blog.

4days4justice at North Park University is an attempt to hear from previously marginalized voices in both American society and the evangelical community.

We will have the chance to hear Native American Christians address the issue of environmental justice. (I still haven’t figured out how we ever had any serious dialogue about the environment without considering the perspective of the Native American community).

We will be involved in round table discussions (in a fishbowl style) on the topic of social justice with evangelicals from various ethnic communities. And we will offer workshops (particularly geared towards local churches) on various social justice topics during a one day training session on Saturday.

Will we answer all the questions about the role of evangelicals in the public realm.? No, but I hope that at least we’re asking the right questions.

Oooo! Ooooo! Me! Manya!
Are you soft? Christ on a Crutch! Let's look at the syllabus for the panelists and the panelists themselves Not a Moody Billy Sunday in that cavalcade of Evangelical Stars! No Babbit's in Manya's Bonnet.
No, Sir!
Gender Issues? Check!
Race Issues? Oh, Hell Yes!
Dancing to Justice? On the money! We got Acadians, Aboriginal concerns! No substance.

Social Justice begins and ends with the operation of human heart - it is charity and not policy.

Social Justice is very good. Societal manipulation is very, very bad and tends to run-in-place as opposed to move people forward.

I work social justice everyday. No brag; just fact. Dr. Jack O'Keefe ( City Colleges ret.) and Denny Conway ( CPS ret.) teach as volunteers in the kill-zone of Gresham every day, Manya. Read the Chicago Murder Boxscores.

I have a backlog of Campaign Leo and 21st Century enveleopes that I need to add to the EXCELL spread sheets - amounting to more than $ 30,000 from $50,100, 200,500, 1,000 gifts by men with White Guy Zipcodes - 60643, 60655, 60638, 60453, 60462 & etc.

That's social justice, Kiddo. No Prayer Catchers, just envelopes with dough. No strings, no plaques, no articles, no Love Offerings expected. Gifts of human heart given freely.

The Panel at North Park will be swell: Lakota incantations and prayers out of the William Least-Heat Moon catalog. When the Beaver returns to Chicago River - Once Debra Shore and the Gay Lesbian Transgender Bi-Sexual Water Reclamation District reverses the flow of the River -Only Then - will my heart soar light Hawk and wing with the Great Spirit!

Manya, if you expect to to get to the nub of social justice, read Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute. Thus!

The problem here is the slick move from personal ethics to public policy. What is required of us as individuals may or may not translate into a civic policy priority. In the case of the welfare state, it is possible to argue that it does great good (though I would dispute that). Whether it does or does not, however, a government program effects nothing toward fulfilling the Gospel requirement that we give of our own time and income toward assisting the poor.

The reason has to do with matters of the human heart. If we are required to do anything by law, and thereby forced by public authority to undertake some action, we comply because we must. That we go along with the demand is no great credit to our sense of humanitarianism or charity. The impulse here is essentially one of fear: we know that if we fail to give, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the state.

Remember that the government has no money, no resources, of its own. Everything it has it must take from the private sector, which is the engine of wealth creation. If we can imagine a world in which there is no private sector at all, we can know with certainty that it would be a world of bare subsistence at best: universal impoverishment.

Wealthy societies today can afford to create large welfare states while avoiding that fate. But let us never forget the funds that make it possible do not appear as if by magic. They are taken from others without their active consent except in the most abstract sense that people might vote for them.

I cannot see how this method of redistributing wealth has anything to do with the Gospel. Jesus never called on public authority to enact welfare programs. He never demanded that his followers form a political movement to tax and spend. Nor did he say that the property of the rich must always be forcibly expropriated. He called for a change in the human heart, not a change in legislation. There is a massive difference.

You see, Manya. When a job needs to get done, I am the sic-and-fetch guy - "Paddy, go out to the truck and bring in the black box with the green handle. Don't worry about what's in it we trained with the tools and you might have read about them in Dickens - they are called adaptable bits. Black box -green handle. Don't get lost"

Father Sirico is the tradesman as far as Social Justice goes. We live social justice because we go to the right tradesman. Look for the Union Label, Manya.

http://www.northpark.edu/4days4justice