The USCCB’s Joan Rosenhauer
will receive the Harry A. Fagan
Roundtable Award February 21In the first expansion of membership in the organization’s 23-year history, the Roundtable Board voted to add the category of Associate Member for directors of justice and peace offices for religious orders. The move came after the association’s pilot program was judged a success. Religious order social action directors have joined in at events like the Social Action Summer Institute and Symposium and the Virtual Roundtable email discussions.

Meeting in Washington, D.C., the Roundtable Board also selected Joan Rosenhauer of the USCCB Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, to receive the 2009 Harry A. Fagan Award for her many contributions to the church’s social action ministry, in particular her efforts staffing Faithful Citizenship and promoting collaboration among education and social action offices.

Looking towards February, the Board also selected a theme for the 2009 Symposium: “Engaging the Faithful on Food Justice.” This symposium will go beyond the policy issues involved in food justice and look at ways diocesan social action directors can frame these issues effectively to animate people in the pews to take action for justice. The program will include a major segment on spirituality and food as well as an exchange of “best practices” in the area of conscience formation on food justice.

Board members also met with the staff of the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development to discuss areas of common interest, including the national roll-out of Faithful Citizenship resources and ways The Roundtable might support the five targeted areas of focus for the USCCB, in particular “the life and dignity of the human person.”
Another meeting with national organization partners, “The Outreachers,” yielded advice from the leadership of the Roundtable Association on coordinating the various poverty campaigns among the national organizations leading these campaigns. Board members counseled stronger links between the campaigns to signal to partners and to the nation that we are one church working together

In other business, Suzanne Belongia was re-elected Vice-Chair (Barbara Budde enters her second year of a two-year term) and the Standards and Expectations Committee received feedback on developing a new evaluation tool for members to use in assessing their offices and planning for the future. The Board also enjoyed dinner at the Georgetown home of Bob and Sarah Nixon, hosted by Agnes Nixon, and a presentation that evening on “Emerging Models of Parish Leadership” from Marti Jewell, director of the Emerging Models of Leadership project.