Diocese of Rockville Centre takes smaller role in social justice causes, advocates say

The Catholic Church on Long Island once was a recognized leader in social justice work, running scores of advocacy groups at the parish level that dealt with everything from nuclear weapons to the wars in Central America and local housing for poor people.

At one point, the Diocese of Rockville Centre even backed a controversial proposal to create a Farmingville hiring site for immigrant day laborers without documentation.

Those days are now over, according to advocates who say the diocese has pulled back on following Catholic social justice teachings, despite Pope Francis making social justice a hallmark of his papacy on issues including immigration and income inequality.

"They mention his name in every Mass because they have to pray for him, but it’s like he’s not there," said Richard Koubek, a former director of the diocese's Public Policy Education Network. On Francis’ priorities, Koubek said, "They are silent."

Leaders of the diocese said the church on Long Island is still doing substantial social justice work, while also addressing the critical issue of abortion and the pro-life movement. But advocates say social justice issues have taken a back seat, possibly due to a change in leadership or because the clergy sex abuse scandal has hobbled the diocese.

The apparent decline of social justice work in the diocese, according to advocates, mirrors what is happening in other parts of the United States. They contend that much of the church is focused on other matters, mainly abortion and gender-related issues.

"The pope is very much about social justice. It’s the Catholic bishops that aren’t," said Sandy Thomas, a parishioner at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, who long has been involved in social justice work.

Connie Loos, who led one of the diocese’s main social justice initiatives, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, said that for many American bishops, "Abortion is the biggest issue, and really I think the church cares more about that than anything else."

Pope Francis' priority shift came early

Six months into his papacy, in September 2013, Francis sent shock waves through the church when he stated it had become "obsessed" with the issues of abortion, gay marriage and contraception. He said the church needed to focus more on serving the poor and marginalized.

Rockville Centre officials contend the church is doing some of that work. Bishop John Barres, head of the diocese, "works very closely with Catholic Charities, an essential part of the Church’s ministry throughout Long Island that serves the poor, migrants, and many other communities in need," said the Rev. Eric Fasano, a spokesman for the diocese.

He added that "each parish has its own profile of engagement with social outreach and social justice. Parish outreach services are still heavily engaged and much needed these days." Catholic Health, the diocese’s network of hospitals and clinics, "serves Christ’s mandate to care for the sick, especially those in need," Fasano added, and "does tremendous outreach work."

The Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst at Religion News Service, an independent news agency, said there is a fundamental difference between "charity" work such as feeding the hungry, and social justice work, which seeks to change the structures and laws that leave people hungry or poor.

"Everybody can feel good about handing out food to families and stuff like that, but when you’re funding organizations that picket the mayor’s office or agitate and work with other people for fair housing or whatever it is, changing laws, and lobbying people to enforce the laws that there are, then people get upset and they start complaining and they start calling them Marxists and things like that," Reese said. 

How much support social justice work gets "can vary by the bishop," he said. Nationwide, generally "their priority for the past 20 years or more has been abortion. A lot of them have been focusing on that as their justice issue and not on some of the other justice issues."

He noted that one of Barack Obama’s first jobs after graduating from Columbia University was as a community organizer in mainly poor Catholic parishes in Chicago, where he helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program and a tenants' rights organization.

Koubek said that "there is no question the charity work of the Diocese of Rockville Centre is outstanding in directly serving the needs of the poor. What has stopped is the advocacy against the injustices that cause those needs."

Pope Francis himself spotlighted one of the icons of the Catholic social justice movement, Dorothy Day, when he addressed the U.S. Congress in 2015. Day in 1933 cofounded the Catholic Worker movement, which established houses in New York City and elsewhere that offered impoverished people food, shelter and clothing. Day, who lived in one of the houses on the Lower East Side, also fought against economic inequality, war and nuclear arms, among other issues. She was arrested several times for civil disobedience.

"Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith and the example of the saints," Francis told Congress.

A different picture under Bishop McGann

Advocates contend that social justice work flourished in the Diocese of Rockville Centre under Bishop John McGann from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Known for taking strong stands on social issues, McGann called for an end to U.S. military aid to El Salvador in the 1980s and criticized U.S. support for the "Contras" fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

At one point, he urged parishioners to offer sanctuary to Salvadoran refugees fleeing "death squads" in their homeland even though they were here without legal papers.

McGann, a product of the 1960s Vatican II reforms, brought in laypeople to help lead the fight. He created a diocesan-wide Justice and Peace Commission that worked on issues such as military spending, nuclear weapons proliferation, the wars in Central America, and homelessness and hunger on Long Island.

Margaret Melkonian, a Uniondale resident, was on the commission from 1986 to 2001. The commission oversaw scores of similar groups in local parishes, where parishioners would circulate petitions, speak at Masses, hold educational seminars and meet with politicians to push their causes. "There was a very strong presence for peace and justice in the parishes," Melkonian said.

Today, the diocesan commission no longer exists, she said. And most of the parish groups have vanished. For the most part, "We don’t hear or see those voices now," Melkonian said. 

Jim Morgo, a Catholic from Bayport and a Suffolk County legislator in the 1980s, also took on the Central America issue. A diocesan priest once gave him the idea of giving immigrants without documentation access to county health clinics without fear of getting deported, he said. Morgo sponsored a bill on it. Three Catholic priests spoke at public hearings in support. Catholic Charities also backed the move.

Those days seem long over, Morgo said. "I don’t see the Roman Catholic clergy as activists as they once were."

By the 1990s, McGann had the diocese set up a public policy education network, which helped create groups in scores of parishes that focused on local and state issues such as affordable housing, hunger, living wages and immigration. Koubek headed the network from 1996 to 2008, when it was shut down.

"Today there is almost none of that taking place" in the diocese, he said. "We were respected all over the country" in Catholic circles. "All of that was taken apart."

As recently as 2001, the Diocese of Rockville Centre endorsed a hiring site for day laborers in Farmingville, which had become a national flashpoint in the debate over immigration, Koubek said. Catholic Charities was ready to help fund and run the site, he said. The proposal was passed by the Suffolk County Legislature but vetoed by then-Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney.

Some parishes imbued with social justice activism had major impacts on their communities, advocates said. In Wyandanch, the Catholic Church helped found a library, an ambulance company, a day care center, affordable housing and a shelter for homeless people, Thomas said. One of the main priests behind the efforts, the late Rev. Andrew Connolly, met Day as a teenager and remained a lifelong friend.

His work in Wyandanch went beyond the local community: He used to bring parishioners to protests against the Shoreham nuclear power plant, Thomas said. He later worked for 17 years in the diocese’s mission in the Dominican Republic, where the church built schools, latrines and water systems. "That was Catholic social teaching at its best," Thomas said.

There are various theories as to why social justice work has diminished in the diocese, besides changes in leadership. Rick Hinshaw, a former editor of The Long Island Catholic, the official diocesan newspaper, said part of the reason dates to the clergy sex abuse scandal that broke in the early 2000s.

"I think part of what you are seeing now is such a scale back on everything because of the financial downturn given the scandal," with decreased donations and eventually — in 2020 — bankruptcy, Hinshaw said.

The church’s position as a moral voice also has suffered, he said. "A major part of the fallout from the scandal was that the church is not really listened to much anymore on public policy issues. It’s a different time and the church’s voice is much more muted now," Hinshaw said.

The church’s decreased activism extends not just to progressive issues but to more conservative ones such as the pro-life movement, he said.

In the 1970s and 80s "Long Island was the epicenter of the pro-life movement here in New York State and then after Roe v. Wade really one of the national epicenters of pro-life advocacy," Hinshaw said. "I don’t see that anymore either."

"I have no doubt that Bishop Barres is a strong pro-life supporter, but you are just not seeing any kind of resources being put into that anymore I don’t think," he said.

Fasano, the diocesan spokesman, said the diocese is doing what it can, in a range of areas. There is "a growing appreciation for the fact that issues surrounding the sanctity of human life, religious liberty, Catholic anthropology, and our ability to live in accordance with those truths are very much matters of social justice," he said.

He added that the New York State Catholic Conference and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — two umbrella groups for bishops — do significant public policy education and advocacy work about which the diocese keeps parishes informed.

Catholic social justice work has not entirely disappeared on Long Island, advocates said. Some orders of nuns including the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood are addressing global issues such as the environment, food sustainability and immigration.

A Long Island chapter of Pax Christi, a Catholic peace organization, still advocates for world peace, nuclear disarmament and other issues, though membership is down and efforts to get the diocese more involved have failed, said one of its leaders, Ed Kubik.

Pax Christi has asked the diocese to revive its Justice and Peace Commission, and to hold an annual "Peace Mass" at St. Agnes Cathedral. The diocese never responded, Kubik said.

Fasano said he had no information on the request.