2013 annual gathering: workshop#12a - weaving catholic identity into the life of an agency

8/14/2019 2013 Annual Gathering: Workshop#12A - Weaving Catholic Identity into the Life of an Agency

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CCUSA Annual Gathering 201315th September

Klaus BaumannCaritas Science and Christian Social WorkFaculty of Theology

Internal Senior Research Fellow at Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)

Weaving Catholic Identity into the Life of

an Agency: Learning from International

and Domestic Perspective


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Identity issues of Catholic Charities

Context of polemics or of quality management (or

both)?

Who talks badly about others, is a murderer; he is

hypocritical and does not have the courage to see

his own faults. (Pope Francis, 13-09-2013).

What is the question?

Why is it important?

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Overview

1. A Systems Perspective of the

Magisterium on Catholic Identity

2. Systemic Differentiations

3. Elements of Organisational Identity

4. Remembering the Mission of the Churchand of Her Caritas Organisations



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1. A systems perspective on Caritas as

organisational principle of Church identity

it became necessary to stress that the totally personal act of agape can never

remain as something isolated, but must instead become also an essential

act of the Church as community: meaning that it also requires an

institutional form which is expressed in the communal working of the

Church. (Benedict XVI, 23rd January 2006)

Love is therefore the service that the Church carries out in order to attend

constantly to man's sufferings and his needs, including material needs. /

As a community, the Church must practise love. Love thus needs to be

organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community. (DCE 19/ 20)

the difficult search for ways of putting this fundamental ecclesial

principleinto practice (DCE 21, emphasis added) this is what our

workshop is about!



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Caritas in systemic perspective as explained in

Caritas in Veritate 2:

Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine.Every responsibility

and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity

which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law

(cf. Mt 22:36- 40).

It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with

neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships(with friends,

with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-

relationships(social, economic and political ones).

For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything

because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my firstEncyclical Letter, "God is love" (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin

in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it.

Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope.

(Emphases added)


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It interacts with other organisational principles:

Unity of martyrialeitourgiadiakonia (DCE 25a)

The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold

responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-

martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and

exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia).

These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.

For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which

could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature,

an indispensable expression of her very being.

Consequence: intrinsic Catholic identity of organized caritas!


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2. Systemic differentiations and applications

1. System and environments

Catholic Charities organisation and her environments:

2. System, subsystems, supra-system

Catholic Charities organisation as systemas subsystem

as suprasystem

3. micro-level, meso-level, macro-level

4. the focus is onpatternsof behavior and interactions in

relational systems and institutions (overt and hidden rules and

expectable reactions)



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3. Elements of Organisational Identity

3.1 Analogous use of Eriksonsdefinition of ego-

identity

3.2 Organisational identity

3.3 How can caritas become an interpretive and

operative function in the Church and Her organized

caritas?



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Erik H. Erikson: Identity and the Life-Cycle, NY:

Norton 1980, 22.

The conscious feeling of having apersonal identityis based on

two simultaneous observations: the immediate perception of

ones selfsameness and continuity in time; and the

simultaneous perception that others recognize ones sameness

and continuity. []

Ego identity then, in its subjective aspect, is the awareness of the

fact that there is a selfsameness and continuity to the egos

synthesizing methods and that these methods are effective in

safeguarding the sameness and continuity of ones meaning for

others.

Are there analogous synthesizing methods of organisations?



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Organisational identity

is the result of the interplay of many participants.

consists of self-descriptions which direct the self-observations, with an

integrative and an operative function for the organisation

Integrativein helping to interpret the realities

Operativein premises and regulations for taking decisions

Are self-descriptions really integrative and operative within and for the

organisation?

Self-descriptions can be split off, or unconnected with, the operative level

and be used perferrably for the communication with the

environment: Corporate identity as part of marketingand impression

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Charitysunrecognized systemic/ organizational

dimension (Civ 2. 4)

In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic

fieldsthe contexts, in other words, that are mostexposed to this dangerit [caritas]is easily

dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving

direction to moral responsibility.

that is, it is denied an interpretive and operativefunction

it is excluded from public strategic plannings and

relevance (cf. Civ 4)


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Caritas with interpretive and operative functions

- In the interaction between system and environments (n.b.: not

only as corporate identity!)

- Within and and between different system levels, within the

system and its subsystems

- Which patterns of behavior and expectable reactions ought to

be established and deployed in correspondence to caritas-

mission andvision?

- Crucial role of leadership

- Objectives which operationalize caritas: gratuitousness, mercy

and communion; justice; human dignity from start to end of life;

preferential option for the weak, poor, and suffering; wholistic

care; solidarity and subsidiarity; sustainability;


Cf M l l B ld i A f P f E ll


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Cf. Malcolm Baldrige Areas of Performance Excellenceto

align the organisation with its objectives of caritas? (cf. Catholic

Identity Matrix [CIM] of Ascension Health)

1. Leadership

2. Strategic Planning

3. Customer Focus

4. Measurement,Analysis, and

Knowledge

Management

5. Workforce Focus

6. Operations Focus

7. Results

Operationalizations of caritasin the

Churchsmission:

1. Gratuitousness, mercy and communion

2. Justice

3. Human dignity from start to end of life

4. Preferential option for the weak, poor, and

suffering

5. Wholistic care

6. Solidarity and subsidiarity

7. Sustainability

8.



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Paul VI: Evangelii nuntiandi (1975)

Dynamics and program of (new?!) evangelization:

(1) Witness of life which bears

(2) Witness of the word; both seek to obtain

(3) The assent of the heart (which remains

Godswork)

(4) Leading to enter the community of the

faithful and to

(5) Onesown participation in the mission for

the Kingdom of God


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Caritas and (new) evangelization (DCE 31c)

Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is

nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practised as a way

of achieving other ends.

But this does not mean that charitable activity must somehow leave God and

Christ aside. For it is always concerned with the whole man. Often the

deepest cause of suffering is the very absence of God.

Those who practise charity in the Church's name will never seek to impose the

Church's faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is

the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are

driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and

when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that

God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8) and that God's presence is felt at the very time

when the only thing we do is to love.


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Caritas and (new) evangelization (DCE 31c)

He knowsto return to the questions raised earlierthat disdain for love

is disdain for God and man alike; it is an attempt to do without God.

Consequently, the best defence of God and man consists precisely in

love. It is the responsibility of the Church's charitable organizations to

reinforce this awareness in their members, so that by their activity

as well as their words, their silence, their examplethey may be

credible witnesses to Christ.

Cf. Intima ecclesiae natura (11.11.2012) Art. 7. - 1. The agencies

referred to in Article 1 1 are required to select their personnel from

among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic

identity of these works.

2013 annual gathering: workshop#12a - weaving catholic identity into the life of an agency

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