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Day: November 10, 2007

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Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia

(not) sticking together

From the Albany Times-Union: Lake George workers exploited, state says

Summer employees from overseas were cheated out of rightful wages, investigators determine

LAKE GEORGE — The operators of several restaurants and hotels in this upstate tourist region exploited foreign workers and cheated them of proper wages this past summer, the state Department of Labor said Monday.

Five businesses in Lake George and two hotels in Queensbury stand accused of infractions which include breaking child labor laws, refusing to pay required overtime and deducting rent from wages, said Leo Rosales, the department’s communications director.

The agency has issued more than $120,000 in fines to the establishments for back wages and penalties.

Cited were SJ Garcia’s for $47,766; the Quality Inn and adjoining Econo Lodge in Queensbury for $46,505; Ramada Express for $14,209; and Depe Dene for $3,200.

Taste of Poland has agreed to pay $4,207 and Choice Inn & Suites (formerly Mohawk Motel) has settled for $4,442, Rosales said.

The cases involve dozens of young student workers from Poland, Ukraine, Russia and other countries, who arrived in the U.S. on J1 visas, a cultural exchange program that allows them to work here for a limited time, Rosales said.

Irena Lyahkanova from Russia said she worked like a “slave” at Taste of Poland restaurant for “nothing.” The owners did not pay any of its tipped employees, the 10 to 12 waitresses and bussers through the summer, Lyahkanova said. Many went back to Russia and Poland with no money.

“We were all afraid that we would be deported,” she said. “I am only 19 and (had) no money to go home with.”

Village Mayor Robert Blais reported the alleged violations to the Labor Department recently after several young workers visited the Foreign Student Connection Office in Lake George to complain that employers were withholding wages.

The connection locates employment and housing for hundreds of seasonal workers from overseas each year. The village set up the operation in 2004 due to complaints by visiting workers of pay issues, discrimination and abuse.

…

After Blais contacted the state, labor standards investigators visited the businesses to examine payroll records and interviewed employees about working conditions, Rosales said.

…

The businesses can dispute the citations or pay them, Rosales said. The workers who said they were defrauded will receive the settlement payments, which combine back wages or illegal deductions plus interest.

To help prevent future violations, the department will conduct education programs in Lake George and other resort areas next year and follow up with targeted enforcement sweeps during summer months.

“The department will aggressively enforce the state’s labor laws to protect all workers, particularly the most vulnerable workers,” state Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith said. “It is disappointing to learn that these employers took advantage of several young foreign workers who are far from home and family. They should be treated with dignity and respect and not cheated out of their hard earned money.”

I am continually amazed when I run across people who, in rather quiet discussion, carp on, complaining about this that or another group who all stick together. I’ve run across a large number of Poles who love to go on about one or another group, thinking that that group sticks together so well, so much so that they achieve unprecedented levels of control.

Of course, the reality is quite different. No one is all that loyal anymore, especially to their ethnic or even religious heritage.

Still in all, I find this news quite disturbing. If you are a successful Pole, and you can’t treat other immigrants and guest workers with common decency, well your business will suffer.

I suppose that’s why those who have eaten at Taste of Poland have found the food expensive and less than adequate. The practice of the owner pervades the business.

Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for this and the other businesses. If not, hopefully it will be their death knell. Then others who are smarter about their business practice can step in and do a much better job.

Homilies,

The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

They can no longer die,—¨
for they are like angels;—¨
and they are the children of God—¨
because they are the ones who will rise.

If we had a choice, a choice between denying something and affirming it, which would we take? Which choice is easier?

Now I suppose it comes down to what we are asked to affirm.

If someone asks me about my car or house, my computer or what I had for dinner I can affirm those things. I can categorize and describe them. I can name the color of my car or house. I can describe the make and model of my car, or the architectural style of my house.

As we get further away from the objective reality of things we get a little more uncertain. Were those pierogis I had last night made with sweet or savory cheese? Were they salty? Was the spice in that roast tarragon?

What today’s readings and Gospel describe is the necessity of making an affirmation, an affirmation in something the world deems subjective and quite unreal.

The Maccabees describes the torture and martyrdom of seven brothers and their mother. Each took courage, not because they were all that courageous, but because of their faith in God and their faithfulness to His Laws.

The death of three is described in todays reading, but if you read Chapter 7 you will read of each of their deaths, and their mother’s as well.

The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord.

The book tells us of the mother:

She encouraged each of them in the language of their fathers. Filled with a noble spirit, she fired her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage

Later, when Antiochus urged her to persuade her youngest son to accept riches and power in exchange for breaking God’s Laws she told her son:

—I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being.
Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers.”

The long line of Christian martyrs attests to the fact that affirmation of something the world considers subjective and foolish, silly magic and totems, is something much more. It is an objective reality. It is more than faith or belief, it is real. God is real.

St. Paul encourages the people of Thessalonica in these words:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,—¨
who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement
and good hope through his grace,
encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed
and word.

Important words, and said with absolute objective assurance. He has loved us, given us everlasting encouragement, and good hope through His grace.—¨—¨St. Paul, in the midst of his tormentors says:

But the Lord is faithful;—¨
he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

Brothers and sisters,

God strengthens and guards us against the evil that is doubt in His reality.

Evil is exactly the loss of faith, the loss of hope and courage, in what we know objectively.

God is not a construct built out of myth and happy feelings. He is not some mysterious ghost rising out of ancient mist.

The fact is, and I can affirm, that the reality of God met us face to face. He meets us face to face today.

Jesus Christ who is true God and true man lived among us, taught us, shed His blood for us, died, was buried, and rose again.

He was seen by the guards who had to be bribed to keep quiet, by the women, by the apostles, by five hundred others.

They preached and proclaimed Him. They suffered and died because of Him, they traveled to the four corners of the world with His word, and thanks be to God that the Holy Church, imbued with the Holy Spirit, lives on in this mission.

To this day we baptize all who come, all willing to join in proclaiming the reality of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

We exist here and now to proclaim this objective reality, this objective good.

We fight and struggle against that which does not pass muster as being in keeping with God’s word, and most especially against the evils of death and hopelessness.

Ours is a message of real joy for all the world. Christ has come, alleluia.

The psalmist said it best when he sang:

Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.

My friends,

That is the promise. Death is not the end. When God’s glory appears our joy will be full. We will live forever in heaven with Jesus. We will worship and praise God forever in the company of the angels and the saints.

When the Sadducees came to Jesus they came with certainty. They were certain in their false knowledge.

The Sadducees held that only the first five books of the Old Testament were authoritative. They couldn’t find mention of life after death in these books, therefore they rejected its existence. They couldn’t read it, they couldn’t believe it, they couldn’t affirm it.

They sought to trap Jesus. Jesus simply responds that those first five books include Moses encounter with God in the burning bush.

In the story of the burning bush God tells Moses: —I am the God of Abraham …—. Because God says I am the God of Abraham, rather that I was the God of Abraham, Abraham lives. God is truly —God … of the living.—

After refuting the argument of the Sadducees Jesus gives us this assurance:

those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
can no longer die,—¨
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.

This we know, this we believe, this we proclaim, this we affirm.

Amen.

PNCC, ,

Some recent conversations

Had a few interesting conversations recently with brother clergy.

The main topic was the PNCC – RC dialog and a few of the questions rising out of the recent Motu Proprio and the and the other more recent statements from Rome concerning the Roman Catholic Church’s understanding of itself.

As I pointed out at the time of both, I agree with the Motu Proprio in that it reconnects the Roman Church to its liturgical tradition, the riches the PNCC never lost. I also agree with others who saw the Roman Church’s statement on its self definition as exactly that. The Roman Church, as with the Orthodox, believe that they are the one and only true Church. The Roman Church said so – which is not surprising.

The two interesting things I took away from those conversations were that fellow clergy saw the Motu as a break in the Church’s teaching on the role of the Bishop as the overseer of the liturgical life in his diocese and the fact that this restatement of the Roman Church’s self understanding was difficult for some.

As to the Motu, in an address to the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie of the Institut Catholique de Paris Cardinal Francis Arinze stated:

Obviously ecclesial communion has to mean “communion” with the diocesan bishop and between bishops and the Pope. In the diocese, the bishop is the first steward of the mysteries of Christ. He is the moderator, promoter and guardian of the entire liturgical life of the diocesan Church (cf. “Christus Dominus,” No. 15; Code of Canon Law, Canon 387; “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” No. 19). The bishop directs the administration of the sacraments and especially of the holy Eucharist. When he concelebrates in his cathedral church with his priests, with the assistance of deacons and minor assistants, and with the participation of the holy people of God, “the Church reveals herself most clearly” (“Sacrosanctum Concilium,” No. 41).

The Motu’s delegation of authority of parish priests breaks the bond between the priest and the diocesan bishop, and would seem to negate the role of bishop as “first steward”.

While the Motu has a worthy purpose, this end run may be a vexing problem in Catholic ecumenical circles. It strengthens the role of the Bishop of Rome as the actual bishop of every diocese; the full, immediate, and universal jurisdiction issue.

Prime Bishop Emeritus of the Polish National Catholic Church, the Most Rev. John Swantek wrote extensivly on this issue in the most recent edition of God’s Field (God’s Field, Vol. 85, No. 22, October 30, 2007). Therin he quoted Canon II of the First Council of Constantinople:

Diocesan bishops are not to intrude in churches beyond their own boundaries nor are they to confuse the churches… Unless invited bishops are not to go outside their diocese to perform an ordination or any other ecclesiastical business.

Now, I imagine that an argument could be made stating that diocesan bishops are so out of control, and universally so, that the Bishop of Rome had to act. Yet that begs the question of the Roman Church’s own discipline.

There are all types of approaches that could be used, but what it seems to have come down to is a choice between correcting those who have wandered far afield, or taking direct control from everyone.

An interesting discussion.

As to the Roman Church’s self understanding, what I found most heartening was an affirmation of our own self understanding – that the PNCC fully believes that we have it right.

For someone who has not been a lifelong PNCC member that affirmation of our conviction was something I had longed to hear – and I have. Something that does not negate our brotherhood with all who proclaim the name of Jesus Christ as Lord, and something that does not diminish our commitment to dialog, nor our prayer for unity.

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