Social action program outlined to fight injustice

The Catholic Church's Bicentennial Program to combat social injustice "must involve the full community of the Church if it is to succeed," John Cardinal Dearden said last night. The Archbishop of Detroit outlined a two part social action program of the Catholic bishops of America in his address to the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry <CCUM) conference. ''Basically, our plan for the American Church has two dimensions," the Cardinal said. "We can speak of a listeninglearning phase and a reflectionresponse phase." Deardon explained the listeninglearning phase, implemented through national hearings and parish discussions, as an attempt to discover how the Church lives with the people and how adequately it fulfills its pastoral mission. This phase also hopes to examine the experiences of Catholics in their communities and find out what hopes Catholics have for the Church in the future. "Briefly put," Dearden stated, "the listening -learning phase is a data gathering process. If done well, it should provide a sampling of what our people are thinking and what they are experiencing each day."