Interview with Extraordinary Pastor, Father John Grace
Left to right: Mitchelle Justiniano, Father John Grace, Katherine Gibbons, and Jim Wells.
Father John Grace: An extraordinary pastor talks about social justice with Equal Exchange’s Interfaith Manager, Susan Sklar
Father John Grace has served as a Catholic Priest for 43 years. He has served as the Pastor at the Immaculate Conception Church in Hampton, Virginia for the past four years. Previous to this he worked with students at James Madison University, Virginia Tech, Siena Heights, and the University of Michigan for 27 years. Under Father John's guidance, Immaculate Conception has become a "Care for Creation" or environmentally focused church. The congregation serves Equal Exchange coffee and sells our small farmer products every two weeks after services.
Susan: Why did you get involved in social justice projects in your congregation?
Father John Grace: The clearest and most succinct answer is because of my faith. I am a person of faith and I understand my own faith journey. Every human being has value and dignity. And that doesn't come to a person because of what they've done, but simply because they exist. Everything that God creates is good, and that's essentially all of us. As a Catholic, a person of faith, I'm also shaped by the idea that all life is interconnected. Human beings are social creatures. We do not live alone; we thrive as social beings. The body can't say, I don't need that one part; all of the parts are connected. And it's in that social connectivity that we really discover our true selves. Our best selves are realized when we authentically share ourselves with others. It is love and the basis of true justice.
Susan: How does one live a spiritual life?
Father John Grace: As a person of faith, I know that all of my actions have consequences for good or ill. I learned as a child that I shouldn't do bad things. A good person was defined as one who did no harm. In time I learned morality was much deeper than simply avoiding bad actions. By living out my faith, I am called to live out the value of the Gospel. By living out my faith I give witness to the good of Christ. And if I see the good and have the means and ability to act on it, I am obligated to do so. Failure to do so is the sin of omission. Social justice or Catholic social teaching is the invitation to pay attention to the complexity of life and the dignity of all life. I can only act on it within the reality of my own abilities and opportunities. The approach must be within the possible otherwise we can be overwhelmed by the need and suffering of the world. and seek ways to avoid it all.
When I was working with college students, a big part of my work was helping emerging young adults discern faith values, social needs, and ways to engage not just as individuals but as a faith community. What are the gifts, resources, and opportunities we have to bring hope, healing, or support in a broken world? Over the years I would take students on short service trips to Oaxaca, Mexico, or East L.A., or Flint, Michigan...I'd ask them to ask themselves what is going on here? How do I learn about this community and how does this community speak to me? Where is the good that I can see and also interact with in terms of my experience outside of my own neighborhood? Suddenly, Flint had a face. We are all connected as human beings; we're not just a mass of people. Some religious people tend to want to think of faith as escaping from a messy world, but I look at religion as driving me into the world. Pope Francis has a strong image that the church should look more like a battlefield hospital in the mud and blood as opposed to a pristine edifice on the mountain top that people can admire from afar. I'm very much oriented in that direction.
Susan: There are a lot of issues that need attending to in the world. How do you choose which ones to focus on?
Father John Grace: Great question! It’s not easy to answer given the huge range of issues. I always look at my own resources and opportunities and try to connect them with the life of our community. I assess where the people of the community might be, given their lives and situations. All grand ideas and lofty visions need concrete touchpoints to be understood. Our actions will not change the world but they will shine a light on it and set a good example of engagement. It is important to highlight the vision underpinning whatever is done, lest our actions become projects just to brag about. Whatever we do must reveal the greater vision of God and the dignity of all life. Because when you do that, you start seeing your little world as not so little and you realize that you are an instrument of justice and peace.
Susan: Do you think that there's something inherently important about reaching out to others who are different from you?
Father John Grace: Absolutely. When I link my suffering to the suffering of others I love, that's called compassion. I need to be humble as I walk in my life of faith. There are a lot of things that I can't see and I don't understand. But because I'm a person of faith I won't be afraid. I'll be drawn in by many different emotions or by interest and curiosity. When we first spend time with people who are different from us the tendency is to focus on the differences. But in time, and with respect, people will eventually discover that we have much more in common with each other than we had thought. Differences among people and cultures reveal the creativity of human life and the multiple ways in which we live our lives in creation. The differences we experience often help us appreciate the beautiful interconnectedness we need as human beings living in our common home, planet earth.
Susan: How did you make your choices about which projects to get involved with?
Father John Grace: After 27 years on university campuses where I was a teacher, instructor, and guide, moving into the parish I found myself in a very different role as pastor. In the parish, I could apply in a permanent community the values and teachings I had shared with students. Immediately I began to examine our reality with energy use. Within three weeks I started exploring the possible use of solar power. Ten months later we became a 100% solar energy congregation with 440 solar panels installed on the church's flat roof. And that was the same year I introduced fairly traded products to the congregation. I wanted us to be a “universal” or Catholic community in the best sense of the word. For me to speak about a universal faith you have to HAVE a universal perspective. Actions demonstrate values and beliefs. So it was easy for me to turn to fair trade as a global practice, and our parishioners were intrigued by it and have supported the effort.
Susan: Why did you include Equal Exchange?
Father John Grace: It was really the idea of the inclusion of a larger world–as well as the environmental piece. I needed to offer the parish a way of being connected to that larger world. For 23 years I used to go down to southern Mexico with students. So I knew about the concept of fair trade and had heard about Equal Exchange. Decades later I was surprised to see that Equal Exchange was still thriving. So I introduced the coffee to the congregation here because quite frankly it was easy. People could be “connected” in the larger world through Equal Exchange. The coffee was something that people could experience directly by holding in a cup in their hands. And the number of participants grew because the theme of universality was in everything that I was talking about. So people give generously to support our tree project with TIST in Kenya which is a carbon offset program. And the following year parishioners graciously supported our water project in the Navajo Nation. We partnered with Water With Blessings in offering water filtration systems to families in order to have access to clean drinking water. Meanwhile, during all of these environmental strategy and planning meetings, we're drinking Equal Exchange coffee and tea. Fair trade coffee and chocolate were the cement between the bricks of many different activities.
I wanted to avoid a one-dimensional transactional approach of just writing a check. I wanted our parish to be part of a communal effort of engagement that shared our values. Equal Exchange fits that requirement. So do the tree project in Kenya and the water project in Arizona. Each of these shares a deep concern for Care and Creation and the least among us. These are small organizations that are functioning as a community; the people closest to the action are making the real choices that bring about a better world. I wanted something that the people of Immaculate Conception Church could share in for a long time. To that end, I wanted to work with organizations that have a successful track record and good local management to ensure the efforts will continue long into the future.
Susan: Why is that important?
Father John Grace: When you have limited resources; a congregation of 550 families and a limited budget, you really want to be as effective as possible with those limited resources. You want to see how and why the organization fulfills its mission and grows. Equal Exchange has a very good sense of its direction. TIST has been doing its projects for over 20 years, the Water With Blessings has been working for over 15 years. There's a lot of care in what Equal Exchange, TIST, and Water With Blessings does and how they do it. It’s clear Equal Exchange is very driven to take the “higher ground” in terms of business practices and justice for everyone involved in the process. Equal Exchange seems to be very effective and transparent in how it uses the resources it has. All the groups we seek to help us share the Good News of Christ and promote the justice of God reflect those same values in their service to people across the globe.
Susan: Who has gotten involved in these projects in your congregation?
Father John Grace: The Care for Creation team works on all of these projects; it is a huge umbrella. People see that the destruction of the environment will have the biggest impact on the poor. And that's huge for us...Three different popes have said it very clearly: Care for Creation is a moral issue. This is not lightweight stuff. Here at the church, there are different subcommittees for all of these groups. And we sell Equal Exchange coffee and products every other weekend after services. It's a big hit. We've got regulars now and it's wonderful. And for every thousand trees we plant in Kenya, we plant some on our own property. So everything has a kind of synergy. We're doing parish-wide education again as we come back from Covid and now our numbers are going back up. These projects are a unifier for the congregation. All of these projects will outlive us. The solar panels will last for 25 years. I'll be gone. The trees will live for over 50 years...the water filters will last a lifetime... we'll all be gone. These projects will outlive us. The 97-year-old woman who paid $8.00 for some fairly traded coffee knows that she's helping a farmer directly and also contributing to the future. In two weeks she will be back to buy more coffee. That’s what is working well for us here at Immaculate Conception.
Susan: Final thoughts?
Father John Grace: People at Immaculate Conception are really proud about how well we do. They talk about it with friends and neighbors. There's a creativity to it. Recently when our congregation got our certificate from Equal Exchange saying that we were in the top 5% of church sales in the country everyone in the congregation applauded. That felt good. Fellowship Hour is finally returning post-Covid at the end of this month (May) and we're really excited. We use Equal Exchange coffee for Fellowship and for all of our meetings and events at the church. We sell baskets at Christmas time. I want to create a bigger Equal Exchange presence in the congregation. And someday I'd like members of the congregation to be able to meet some of the farmers who have grown the products.