A Manifesto of Praise (an exerpt from the coming issue of the zine)
So this is the tenth issue of our zine. Originally when this project was started I intended it to be a way for me to become more engaged in the life of the Vancouver Catholic Worker community at a time when the house was too full to take new staff or guests. This paper has since expanded in its scope. It is firstly the paper of the Vancouver Worker but it is also becoming somewhat more international, with regular contributors in places like Palestine/Israel, Texas, and Australia--to name a few.
It was in response to the first piece by Steven Woods titled “I’ll Not Go Quietly” that we received out first really critical response from a reader. Frank Atwood, a death row inmate in Arizona wrote “In some ways I’d prefer a more Christian focussed format, more like the Ro. 13 Jesus Radical articles rather than rants on establishment.”
Since this was the first really critical reader response we’d ever received it was worth examining and it is why Karl and I thought it would be a good time to create a manifesto. To look back over what we’ve done so far and take from those first months and bring forward the lessons we continue to learn in a re-dedicated and more focussed form so that we can continue do this work as best we can and so you reading this might have a better understanding of what--with God’s help--we are trying to accomplish.
-Chris Rooney
The Aims and Means of The Christian Radical
As a paper of – and in the tradition of – the Catholic Worker movement, we are dedicated through this publication to the works of mercy: to write in such a way that we are both performing them and, through our content, exhorting our readers to do the same. We intend to provoke thought and dialogue between all people, especially on the controversial issues of the day in both Church and Society. We aim to do this by publishing both dissenting voices and well-reasoned, thought-provoking arguments for the teachings of Christ and His Churches and Saints.
We are Inter-denominational in our approach, and while the title of this zine is The Christian Radical, it is the hope of these editors that people of other faiths and denominations feel encouraged to contribute and feel welcome to participate equally in the life of our paper.
We are anarchist in that we try and stay true to Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s ideal of “having no party line” and hopefully in our critique of what St. Paul termed the powers and principalities of this world. We are decentralised and non-hierarchical in our philosophy and the organisation of our work. There are no offices, no bosses, and no formal or centralized distribution. Anyone who likes can contribute by printing this zine or re-printing our back issues with our thanks and gratitude. We accept no money and request no monetary donations. Material support comes from our comrades who chose to print us or be printed in us; the only people who make money from The Christian Radical are the copy shops where it gets printed.
To maintain our free ethic even further we offer an online edition that is available as an Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) file to anyone who would like to receive it. The online edition gets mailed out each month to our subscribers and contributors. Both the online and the print friendly versions can be requested by writing a request to the.christian.radical @ gmail . com
We are pacifist in that we endeavour through this paper to openly and consistently speak against violence in all it’s many forms and – whenever possible – to offer practical alternatives and positive witness to Peace and Justice already at work in the world. To this end we are for the compassionate personalism of Christ, who in his ministry on earth and also in his death and resurrection continues to reach out to both the victims and the perpetrators of violence through peace and self-emptying, unconditional love. We are by no means even close to achieving these things but they are our stated goals and it’s our hope that no matter how often or how dramatically we fail in our attempts we will be able to admit and confess our faults to you – our readers – and persevere in our shared struggle towards the Kingdom.
As written above we try to place the corporal and spiritual works of mercy at the heart of our zine, they are as follows:
The corporal works of mercy:
Feeding the hungry,
Giving drink to the thirsty,
Clothing the naked,
Offering hospitality to the homeless,
Caring for the sick,
Visiting the imprisoned,
And burying the dead.
The spiritual works of mercy:
Admonishing the sinner,
Instructing the ignorant,
Counselling the doubtful,
Comforting the sorrowful,
Bearing wrongs patiently,
Forgiving all injuries,
And praying for the living and the dead.
Sometimes our content can be confrontational, unorthodox or anti-establishment in its tone or message. It is the hope of these editors that--with the Grace of God--we can follow the example of Jesus Christ who was never afraid to hang with sinners, overturn the tables of the money-changers or to call acts of injustice by their proper names.
It was in response to the first piece by Steven Woods titled “I’ll Not Go Quietly” that we received out first really critical response from a reader. Frank Atwood, a death row inmate in Arizona wrote “In some ways I’d prefer a more Christian focussed format, more like the Ro. 13 Jesus Radical articles rather than rants on establishment.”
Since this was the first really critical reader response we’d ever received it was worth examining and it is why Karl and I thought it would be a good time to create a manifesto. To look back over what we’ve done so far and take from those first months and bring forward the lessons we continue to learn in a re-dedicated and more focussed form so that we can continue do this work as best we can and so you reading this might have a better understanding of what--with God’s help--we are trying to accomplish.
-Chris Rooney
The Aims and Means of The Christian Radical
As a paper of – and in the tradition of – the Catholic Worker movement, we are dedicated through this publication to the works of mercy: to write in such a way that we are both performing them and, through our content, exhorting our readers to do the same. We intend to provoke thought and dialogue between all people, especially on the controversial issues of the day in both Church and Society. We aim to do this by publishing both dissenting voices and well-reasoned, thought-provoking arguments for the teachings of Christ and His Churches and Saints.
We are Inter-denominational in our approach, and while the title of this zine is The Christian Radical, it is the hope of these editors that people of other faiths and denominations feel encouraged to contribute and feel welcome to participate equally in the life of our paper.
We are anarchist in that we try and stay true to Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s ideal of “having no party line” and hopefully in our critique of what St. Paul termed the powers and principalities of this world. We are decentralised and non-hierarchical in our philosophy and the organisation of our work. There are no offices, no bosses, and no formal or centralized distribution. Anyone who likes can contribute by printing this zine or re-printing our back issues with our thanks and gratitude. We accept no money and request no monetary donations. Material support comes from our comrades who chose to print us or be printed in us; the only people who make money from The Christian Radical are the copy shops where it gets printed.
To maintain our free ethic even further we offer an online edition that is available as an Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) file to anyone who would like to receive it. The online edition gets mailed out each month to our subscribers and contributors. Both the online and the print friendly versions can be requested by writing a request to the.christian.radical @ gmail . com
We are pacifist in that we endeavour through this paper to openly and consistently speak against violence in all it’s many forms and – whenever possible – to offer practical alternatives and positive witness to Peace and Justice already at work in the world. To this end we are for the compassionate personalism of Christ, who in his ministry on earth and also in his death and resurrection continues to reach out to both the victims and the perpetrators of violence through peace and self-emptying, unconditional love. We are by no means even close to achieving these things but they are our stated goals and it’s our hope that no matter how often or how dramatically we fail in our attempts we will be able to admit and confess our faults to you – our readers – and persevere in our shared struggle towards the Kingdom.
As written above we try to place the corporal and spiritual works of mercy at the heart of our zine, they are as follows:
The corporal works of mercy:
Feeding the hungry,
Giving drink to the thirsty,
Clothing the naked,
Offering hospitality to the homeless,
Caring for the sick,
Visiting the imprisoned,
And burying the dead.
The spiritual works of mercy:
Admonishing the sinner,
Instructing the ignorant,
Counselling the doubtful,
Comforting the sorrowful,
Bearing wrongs patiently,
Forgiving all injuries,
And praying for the living and the dead.
Sometimes our content can be confrontational, unorthodox or anti-establishment in its tone or message. It is the hope of these editors that--with the Grace of God--we can follow the example of Jesus Christ who was never afraid to hang with sinners, overturn the tables of the money-changers or to call acts of injustice by their proper names.
posted by The Editors at 9:52 PM
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