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It will be work for all people of good will to make sure that the lessons learned from Jack Mundey's life of action are propagated through our communities
By Joshua Lourensz | Australia
In thinking through how social services can contribute to what society or the economy needs in light of the ramifications of COVID-19, Catholicism and communism are not two traditions that probably come to the mind for most.
But for the kind of thinking that governance and leaders require to make good decisions in and beyond a time of crisis, there are people and concepts from each tradition that we can learn from.
There is a contemporary synergy that has come to the fore in the past week between Catholicism and Communism, which is both challenging and invigorating — and we all should be paying attention.
On May 10th, Jack Mundey died, and obituaries and articles on his work, thoughts and achievements have been spread across the political and ideological media landscape.
Self-described as someone who 'joined the Communist Party in the 1950s and remained a member until it went out of operation in 1991', a unionist and according to Meredith Burgmann '…an environmentalist before that term was even used', he spoke eloquently, and put his life and actions in and on the line, linking the workers movement with the protection of public urban green spaces.
He brought idealised concepts, written about by others, into concrete reality.
In 2011, at the 40th anniversary of the first of the Sydney 'green bans', he reminisced about what made them significant; 'They weren't about workers looking out for their own hip pocket, but for society in general.
Yes, it's our job to build, but we wanted to determine which buildings we built — we were concerned about the end results of our labor.'
Jack Mundey was talking about how things were interconnected, that there was a common good, that the environment was central to this common good, and that workers have power when they work together. He lived out that the health of our working conditions and the environment go hand in hand.
This week, 16th – 24th May has been claimed as Laudato Si' week, a marker of five years since Pope Francis' landmark encyclical 'addressed to all people of good will'.
Across its 180 or so pages it sets out the intimate connection between humans and their environment.
Touching on labour, technology, consumption, politics, costs and power while seamlessly integrating the works of Popes across the ages, Laudato Si' argues that the cry of the earth, and the cry of the poor, are one.
There is intimate, inseparable connection between a society that is good for people and a society that is good for the environment.
It is more than just an abstract or material interconnection for Pope Francis, it is relational and therefore fundamentally spiritual. Integral ecology is the concept developed to bring all of this together.
In the light of the current COVID-19 crisis, thus far articulated and informed through a public health lens, how do integral ecology, workers' rights and social services knit together?
This crisis, like none before, has and will continue to hit both the supply and demand sides of our economic system. We stand to see unemployment in the lowest income brackets at rates unprecedented in history.
The COVID-19 crisis has compounded other crises already inherent and acutely experienced by Australian society.
These are crises of our environment — bushfires, floods, drought, and crises of working conditions and policies — a terribly low safety-net welfare payment, a large subsection of the workforce that is precariously held in subcontracted work arrangements and labour hire, a shortage of affordable homes.
Australia continues to require an adept and skilled social services sector that can support people.
Even with distinct limits due to funding and an increasingly competitive and 'impact'-driven management model embraced by much of government and philanthropy, social services have put up a valiant struggle to maintain focus on the person through it all.
Now at this crucial juncture of compounded crises, social services need to fully embrace a mode of operating that treats the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor as one.
Here within Catholic social services in Victoria Jack Mundey's thinking has already had influence.
Bronwyn Lay posits that the current CEO of Jesuit Social Services, Julie Edwards 'was inspired to introduce ecology into a traditionally social justice focused organisation seven years before Pope Francis' environmental encyclical Laudato Si' was released'.
This is but one contemporary example of a Catholic social services agency drawing on its tradition and 'personal' understanding of what it is to be human in a Created world, and attempting to incorporate this relation to its model of service delivery.
It makes sense to dialectically organise our social services organisations to be in right relation with the environment that forms the platform for all human relationships that they stand to work with and within.
It will be work for all people of good will to make sure that the lessons learned from Jack Mundey's life of action are propagated through our communities and institutions during this time of crises.
This Laudato Si'week is a great time to visit, or revisit, Pope Francis' work.
If listened to by our Government, social services, businesses and those who work within them, Laudato Si' will allow humans to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis connected and connecting, transformed even — perhaps in ways enough to transform society itself.
Josh Lourensz is Executive Director of CSSV, the peak body for Catholic social services in Victoria. He was profoundly influenced by attending a 'Living Laudato Si' workshop last year in Bukidnon, put on by the Jesuit Conference of the Asia Pacific. He is a member of the Australian Services Union.
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